Disingenuous

He had worked the fields all day long, and long lines of sweat dripped down his back, tracing over his muscles, staining pathways across his thin cotton shirt. He was given no water to drink, no food to eat, no rest for his weary soul. Nothing until the sunset over the endless rows of cotton and the stars shone overhead.

Then sometimes he could rest. Unless his mind kept him up. Occasionally he was plagued with thoughts, sleepless hopes and fears entertwined to make one big ugly beast he couldn't slay and couldn't tame. Once he'd cried because he was so tired but the beast had come to visit him. One of the women had seen him, though, so from then on he always made sure to hold back his tears.

He doesn't tell his children about those days. He doesn't want them to know the way he suffered, the way they'd all suffered in the past. He loves their pure clean smiles and the brightness of their eyes. When they ask him, "Daddy, have you ever hurt inside?" he shakes his head and says, "No." When he's with them, holding them, smelling them, sometimes he thinks it might be true.