Superman 240p →

My father stood still for a long moment.

The video ended.

The little boy in the blue pajamas—me—puffed out his chest. “I’m Superman. I’m gonna save the whole world.” superman 240p

The little boy in the towel had stopped running. I was standing in the middle of the yard, looking up at him. Waiting. Expecting. The way children do—as if their fathers are the undisputed champions of the universe. My father stood still for a long moment

The towel flapped behind us like a banner. “I’m Superman

Not the gaunt, hollow-cheeked man I had held in a hospice bed last month. This was a different creature. Thirty years old. Thick arms. A black t-shirt stained with motor oil. His jaw was set like a vise. He was holding a cardboard box—one of those heavy ones full of engine parts—and walking toward the trash can. He didn’t see the camera.

He looked tired. Not the gentle exhaustion of a good day’s work. Something deeper. The kind of tired that comes from a second shift at the garage, from a mortgage that eats more than you earn, from a wife who cries in the bathroom when she thinks you can’t hear. The kind of tired that makes a man wonder, just for a second, if his son’s red towel is the closest thing to heroism this family will ever produce.