Fatherless Child

by Anabela Machado

With all the documents spread out on the table, Sam slowly reconstructed his family tree, running back in time, sharp eyes cataloguing all the faces in the black and white photos. He had always liked to collect things touched by age, so it made sense for the whole of his family history to end up in boxes in his apartment. He had been trying to make sense of it all since his father died two years before, a strong and tall presence that had finally been snuffed out. The idea of learning the origin of such a titan soothed something inside Sam’s heart, knitting back together the open wounds left by his father’s claws. He never thought it would be so difficult to find the truth in the heart of his family. There was a grandmother he never met, a fading woman who had made herself lifechanging to her child. And there was a man, with a last name that made no sense, an identity no one seemed to be willing to speak of. Angelo, the man who created Sam’s father, the first man, the nebulous character of a story no one seemed willing to talk about.

Sam remembered his childhood, all the aunts that looked like birds, wide eyes and wrinkled skin, smelling of makeup powder. They were so motherly to his father, so dedicated to him, desperately trying to fill the void left behind by the mother that never truly was. They never talked about things, choking down difficult words, faces tensing under the pressure of all the questions, tears dripping from their eyes, the grief they felt for their sister coming out of their very pores. Who was that woman? With the blue eyes, face gone from the photos, eaten up by time, a wound that would never heal?

Who was the man she had a baby with? Angelo… Angelo… What did he look like? Was he tall and strong and terrifying? Was he a titan or a giant? How did it come about, the making of the baby? Was it love or lust? Maybe both? Did he care for that sad woman with the beautiful eyes, one of many sisters, soft under his hands, desperate for something beyond what her family could give? Did she even want it? Or was it just his desire that wrestled her to the ground, made her yield to his yearning? Did she cry? Did her child spread a poison inside of her, from her womb to her very heart, killing her slowly?

Maybe he was an Angel. Sam could picture it perfectly, his mind filled with the faint sound of the aunts’ prayers, their dusty leather-bound books, beloved and revered, the shadow of God over all of them. An angel fell to the earth, covered in the mud of human feeling, losing feathers and slowly becoming a man, not forever, but perhaps for just a little while, long enough to understand the way people love, the shape of their desire.

Sam went through every single box of memories he had. He wandered through the cemetery that housed his family members, hoping to find a clue, or maybe to entice one of them into visiting his dreams. He travelled after family friends, each one older than the next, digging around their memories for something that made sense.

Eventually the truth was unearthed, far from satisfactory, but at least not accompanied by tears. Time and death had erased some of the anguish, and someone was finally willing to say it out loud. Angelo was married, all he gave Sam’s grandmother was a baby he could never acknowledge. Then he was gone, and she was dead, and in the end it didn’t make much of a difference. No one really knew the details, if it was love or something horrible. The truth left a bittersweet taste. It felt incomplete. It was probably how Sam’s father felt, his birth a question mark, his parents people he would never truly know, an emptiness that could never be filled, and all the possibilities tormenting him. A key part of his story hidden forever, inside his mother’s grave, covered in lies.

Anabela Machado is a 23-year-old Brazilian writer. Her book, The Sacred Deer and other stories, was independently published on Amazon in the beginning of 2025. Her short stories can be found on Substack.

This piece was selected as a winner of our ‘Lies’ writing competition, and will be published in diceroll magazine issue II.