Chapter 2: The Weight of the Past

“A tough face, a soft heart—you’re destined to walk the line between two worlds.”

When I was twelve, I saved an old man everyone called crazy after he’d fallen into a ditch. That’s what he told me. Then he handed me a whip made of eleven pieces of peach wood, said it was for beating away bad spirits.

He smelled like pipe smoke and peppermint. The old man’s eyes were cloudy but sharp as a hawk’s, and when he pressed that strange whip into my hand, it felt heavier than it should’ve. I shoved it in an old Nike box under my bed, half-expecting it to crumble overnight.

I didn’t believe him. At eighteen, I left my small Ohio town to drive big rigs. By my thirties, I had my own trucking company and a family. My life seemed nearly perfect.

We had a two-story house with a porch swing, a battered golden retriever named Daisy, and Sunday afternoons spent grilling in the backyard. My daughter would chase fireflies at dusk, my son would help me tinker with engines in the garage. I thought I’d made it out—finally beat the odds.

But in the blink of an eye, my parents passed away, my wife died of cancer, and my brother betrayed me. I was left with mountains of debt, and only my son and daughter stayed by my side.

The world I’d built crumbled fast, like ice breaking underfoot. Some days, just getting out of bed felt like hauling freight up a frozen grade. The house was quiet, too quiet. Grief made me see ghosts in every corner. I clung to my kids like a lifeline.

With nowhere else to turn, I found that old peach-wood whip again at the bottom of a closet.

I almost laughed when I saw it, covered in dust and old memories. But desperate times make a man reconsider things he never believed in. I tucked it into my duffel bag, not knowing why, but it felt right somehow—like carrying a piece of my past with me, just in case.