Real tools, small hands, and the same gift returning.
The image that holds everything. A boy walking down it at seven. A man walking back down it in 2023. Everything in between.
Billy. The real tools. The sawn trees. The hammered nails. The man who treated a small boy like he was capable before he knew he was.
Three years old walking among horses that terrified adults. What the animals knew about you before you knew it yourself.
The first one. The bond. The hiding in the bushes. The betrayal. The gate with nobody waiting. Then Canada. Then the second Major. Then a father's decision made while you were away.
Your granny and the kitchen that erupted. The night you and Barry went down with the dogs and horses. The temperature drop. Walking in alone while Barry froze.
The pike. The photograph. The day a boy who felt like the poor kid was the biggest person there.
August 25th 1990. The gate. Your dad arriving. Paddy arriving. Billy and the shotgun. A seven year old boy watching a world he wouldn't understand for years.
Canada. A father's world. Never feeling like you belonged. The slow realisation of what was lost and what had been decided for you.
Billy's astronomy lessons. What he was really giving you when he pointed at the sky. The constellations you still know.
Your mom. All of her. The complicated, beautiful, human woman who loved you the only way she knew how.
Your ex girlfriend up the street noticing something was wrong. The call to your dad. Seven or eight people called before his own son. Racing over there.
The hardest thing ever done. Telling your children. The pain that broke something deeper than grief.
Two years to the day. The sunshine in the darkness. Sitting calmly at the table while he fumed. A mother laughing from somewhere above it all.
Billy leaving the land. What was uncovered. Three years of quiet disciplined battle. The boy with the wooden toolbox taking back what was always his. David vs Goliath for the modern age — not a sling, but a handful of AI tools.
Jocelyn. The children. The fairy fort. The river. The farmhouse halfway down. The day they finally come home.