​     "You have me confused with someone else," Gramps told the Galatea. "I am a soldier and a teacher and a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather and a very old man."

​     "Is that what your soul is telling you?"

     "What my soul tells me is impossible."

     "Everything is impossible."

     "I watched The Fours beat and torture you until only a broken and terrified child remained, and then he crushed ​that."

     "Yet here I am, for an hour or two, at least, alive and with you again. You believe that, don't you?"

     "You just got through saying it for me. I believe all of this, and I believe none of it."

     "Do you believe that I am your daughter?"

     A pause, then, "Yes. Yes, I do. You want to know what my soul tells me? That's what my soul tells me."

     "Good. Stay on that, Father. Keep listening to your soul." Galatea went to the door and opened it.

     "Come in, Mother," she said.

CONTINUE