"A Fatherly Hand"

Jacobs was chopping wood on the edge of the forest like in the old days, the days that were almost forty years gone. 

He was at his own place, on his own land. He had done more than his old man had, the pain. His father - the man of bruised backs and black eyes and fractured arms and mood swings and shoves down the stair-case and lies lies LIES and constant put-downs - his FATHER . . . The mean bastard was probably rolling around in his grave at all Jacobs had accomplished. 

Jacobs heard a soft voice latent with anger from just within the trees, and immediately knew who his visitor was. He had been expecting this ever since his father's death - the death that couldn't be pinned on Jacobs in any way. 

The voice got louder, multiplied. The crunching of leaves. The whisper of foot-steps on the forest floor. 

Jacobs raised his chopping axe and laughed. Somewhere nearby, a bird took flight.