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He hauled up the two plastic sacks of garbage in one hand and cradled the bin of empty bottles under his arm. “Be right back.”
    He used his hip to push through the rear door and out into the shadowy backyard. Carefully climbing down the two back steps, he crossed toward the garage and the line of garbage cans along its flank. He found himself moving with a soft tread, attempting to keep the clink of bottles silenced. A Rainbird water sprinkler betrayed him.
    He tripped and the bin of bottles rattled as he caught his balance. The back neighbor’s Scottish terrier barked a complaint.
    Crap…
    His father swore sharply from the garage. “Gray? If that’s you…gimme a goddamn hand in here!”
    Gray hesitated. After one near shouting match with his father this evening, he didn’t want a midnight encore. Over the past couple years, the two had been getting along fairly well, finding common ground after a lifetime of estrangement. But the past month, as some of his father’s cognitive tests began to slide downward again, an all-too-familiar and unwelcome brittle edge had returned to the taciturn man.
    “Gray!”
    “Hold on!” He dropped the garbage into one of the open cans and settled the bottle bin next to it. Girding himself, Gray crossed into the light flowing from the open garage.
    The scent of sawdust and shop oil struck him, reminding him of worse days. Get the goddamn strap, you piece of…I’ll make you think twice about using one of my tools…get your head out of your ass before I knock you clear to…
    His father knelt on the floor beside a spilled coffee can of sixpenny nails. He was brushing them up. Gray noted the streak of blood on the floor, from his father’s left hand.
    His father craned up as Gray stepped inside. Under the fluorescent lights, there was no denying their familial ties. His father’s blue eyes held the same steel as Gray’s. Their faces were both carved into the sharp angles and clefts, marking their Welsh heritage. There was no escaping it. He was becoming his father. And though Gray’s hair was still coal black, he had a few gray hairs to prove it.
    Spotting the bloodied hand, Gray crossed and motioned his father to the back sink. “Go wash that up.”
    “Don’t tell me what to do.”
    Gray opened his mouth to argue, thought better, and bent down to help his father. “What happened?”
    “Was looking for wood screws.” His father waved his cut hand toward the workbench.
    “But these are nails.”
    His father’s eyes lit upon him. “No shit, Sherlock.” There was a well of anger in his gaze, barely constrained, but Gray knew it wasn’t directed at him for once.
    Recognizing this, he remained silent and simply gathered the nails back into the coffee can. His father stared down at his hands, one bloody, one not.
    “Dad?”
    The large man shook his head, then finally said softly, “Goddamn it…”
    Gray offered no argument.
    When Gray was young, his father had worked the Texas oil fields until an industrial accident had disabled him, taking a leg off at the knee, turning an oilman into a housewife. Gray had found himself bearing the brunt of his frustration, always found wanting, never able to be the man his father wanted him to be.
    Gray watched his father stare at his hands and recognized a hard truth. Maybe all along his old man’s anger had been directed inward. Like now. Not so much frustration with a son as a father’s anger at failing to be the man he wanted to be. And now once again, disability was slowly taking even that away.
    Gray sought some words.
    As he searched, the roar of a motorcycle sliced through any further contemplation. Down the street, tires squealed, vandalizing asphalt with rubber.
    Gray straightened and placed the coffee can atop the bench. His father cursed the rude driver, probably a drunken reveler. Still, Gray swept an arm and doused the garage lights.
    “What are you—?”
    “Stay down,” Gray ordered.
    Something was wrong…
    The