“The helicopters can’t fly in this storm,” the stranger said at our farm door. Moments later, he revealed something unexpected that completely changed my father’s fate and set events in motion none of us could have imagined.

The sound when he hit the ground was dull and final, the kind of sound that doesn’t belong to anything good.

I dropped the bucket without realizing it, grain scattering across the dirt as I ran. By the time I reached him, my breath was already gone, my chest tight with a kind of panic that made everything feel distant and too close all at once.

He was lying on his side, his body twisted at an angle that made my stomach turn. His eyes were open, fixed on the sky, but there was something wrong in them—something unfocused, as if he was looking at something I couldn’t see.

“Dad?” I said, kneeling beside him, my hands hovering for a second because I didn’t know where it was safe to touch him. “Can you hear me?”

His lips moved slightly.