After a one day delay, I've decided to get back on the horse, so to speak.
Below is a short-short fiction piece I wrote awhile ago.
Thanks.

Pa
By Ben Fouquette

 My Dad and I were never all that good at conversation. I loved him. I most certainly loved that man. It was an assumed love, a silent love, but a true love nonetheless. I just couldn’t talk to him. My answers always seemed to come out short and generalized and my questions never ventured beyond those that could be answered by a simple yes or no. I was afraid to ask my Dad how, I was afraid to ask him why.
It was just the two of us that night-just another Wednesday night in an unmemorable childhood summer. He wore the tar-stained boots of a roofer, and the tired expression on his faced was traced with age lines. My Dad wasn’t an old man, he wasn’t fragile, but his body was worn down and even back then I could tell that his mind often held an unspoken disposition of hopelessness. And I knew I was his light in that black muck-filled tar bucket. It was good enough for him to know that I would have a chance to become something more than him. He spent all those days breaking down his body for me, his little eight-year-old hope.
I couldn’t talk to him, though. The disheartening thing was the harder he worked, the more opportunities he gave to me, the farther we would grow apart. So when he walked through the front door on that Wednesday night, and looked at me and smiled, I started to cry. It wasn’t a loud whaling cry, it was one of those cries that are silent and produce big tears that run down and right off your face.
That man in the doorway didn’t hesitate. He knew the tar that clung to his boots would leave a dark smear across the carpet-the carpet he couldn’t afford to replace. He knew his raggedy, sweat-drenched t-shirt smelled like hell, and he knew his stubble and wiry mustache would scratch my young cheek. But he also knew that his son was standing across the room, with tear-filled eyes of the same distinct blue of his.
My Dad held me in his arms that Wednesday night. He held me close and he didn’t think of letting go. And in that silence, my Dad and I said everything we needed to say.