Where Broken Seeds Grow

«I’m trying, Granny,» he said aloud, his voice breaking. «But I don’t know how to make it happen.»

The sauce needed to simmer. Twenty minutes. Enough time to search.

A few cabinets down, he opened the junk drawer to grab a flashlight. Amid rubber bands and orphaned batteries lay a faded blue folder – Mom’s old nursing license, corners curling, dated before Sam was born. He touched it lightly, then let it be.

She never talked about it – not directly. But he’d heard her once, years ago, muttering to herself during an argument with a utilities clerk: «I could’ve been someone. I could’ve made something of myself if I hadn’t met him.» The way she’d said «him» told everything he needed to know.

Daniel moved quietly through the house, stepping over the creaking floorboard outside his mother’s room. In the hallway closet, behind stacks of yellowing newspapers and discarded clothing, sat the old cardboard box where family photographs had been hastily shoved after his grandmother’s death. His mother had been too distraught – or perhaps too indifferent – to organize them.

He pulled the box into the dim hallway light and began to sift through its contents. Photographs taken by his grandmother: landscapes under dramatic skies, children laughing in sunlit gardens. Ordinary moments transformed by her eye.

«You saw beauty everywhere,» Daniel murmured, handling each image like scripture.

At the bottom of the box, wrapped in a faded silk scarf, lay her Leica M3. He lifted it slowly. The weight surprised him – not just physical, but emotional. Heavier than it should’ve been – heavier than any object had a right to be.

The vintage camera was a masterpiece of mid-century craftsmanship. The brass and chrome body had dulled with age. A distinctive scratch ran across the top plate – earned when she protected the lens during a fall on a mountain trail.

The film advance lever resisted – its gears grinding like a clenched jaw – then, with a reluctant shudder, it gave way. A single stiff rotation, just enough to prove the mechanism still lived beneath the dust. The rangefinder window had cracked diagonally, splitting the world in two when he raised it to his eye.

But the lens – the 50mm Summicron – was clear. She used to say, «Keep the eye clean – even when everything else falls apart.»

The cracked leather strap still held the ghost of her touch. Turning the camera over, Daniel discovered a small engraving he’d never noticed before: «To capture life’s beauty – Love, Richard.»

«Grandpa’s gift,» he whispered, piecing together the story.

Daniel sat down on the floor, the camera resting in his lap. That simple act unlocked something else. Not just memory. Something deeper:

He was six. Standing in her garden.

His hands too small to hold the camera steady, so hers covered his like a second skin. She smelled of thyme and chamomile. The sun was bright, and she was explaining something about framing light through the leaves of an apple tree. He hadn’t understood the words, only the wonder in her voice.

She’d been unstoppable – a woman who worked the fields during wartime, then defied all expectations by leaving her simple farm village where many could neither read nor write. She’d traveled all the way to Seattle for college, joining her communications studies with work at the plant.

«You never stopped moving forward,» Daniel whispered, brushing his thumb along the camera. «Even when the world told you to stay put.»

He remembered her stories about working with troubled teenagers, her pride when she spoke of their achievements. The honorary titles she’d earned – best master educator, labor veteran, home front worker – meant less to her than the changes she’d witnessed in young lives.

«You believed in me,» Daniel whispered, a tear landing on the camera’s worn leather. «Even when no one else did.»

The smell of something burning jolted Daniel back to the present. The sauce! He rewrapped the camera in its silk scarf – carefully – and placed it in his backpack instead of the box. He raced downstairs just in time to save dinner, though a scorched layer of tomato clung to the bottom of the pan.

As he stirred and tasted, adjusting seasonings to mask the slight burnt flavor, his mind raced with possibilities. The camera, though broken, was a Leica – valuable even in its current condition. A quick search on his phone confirmed it: vintage Leica M3s in working condition sold for thousands. Even damaged ones fetched respectable sums from collectors and restorers.

His throat tightened. Could he really sell the one tangible connection to his grandmother?

«Son, you have to learn, you have to study!»

Her final command echoed in his memory.

«It’s just a thing,» he told himself, setting plates on the table with mechanical precision. «Maybe she’d understand. Maybe she’d forgive me. But could I forgive myself?»

But even as he rationalized, Daniel felt overwhelmed. The camera was more than metal and glass – it held her perspective, her resilience, her defiance of a world that had tried to keep her small.

Daniel slipped back upstairs as the potatoes finished boiling. Back in his room, he carefully removed the acceptance letter from his desk drawer. The heavy cream-colored paper with the university insignia felt substantial in his hands – a tangible bridge to another world.

He set it on the bed and reached for the Leica. As he lifted the broken camera from its silk scarf, something shifted loose inside. A small cardboard box tucked in the corner – forgotten, dusty. Inside it, a single roll of expired 35mm film, still sealed. His breath caught.

Carefully, reverently, he threaded the film into the spool. Advance. Tension. Click. The satisfying wind of something lost clicking back into motion.

He raised the camera and framed the letter. Through the cracked rangefinder, the letter appeared split – ghosted, doubled. Two futures: one fading behind the other. His fingers hesitated but moved with the familiar rhythm his grandmother had taught him: adjust aperture, focus, breathe, hold steady, press.

The shutter clicked.

The sounds of his mother’s television grew louder as she shuffled toward the kitchen, drawn by the smell of dinner. Upstairs, his brother’s door creaked open. Family dinner would begin soon – their ritual of performance and denial. But for now, alone in his room, Daniel had captured something no one could take from him.

A beginning.

Daniel straightened the silverware, his decision crystallizing with each passing second. Three days until the tuition deadline. Three days to break free or remain trapped. The Leica in his backpack felt like both betrayal and salvation – something broken that might, somehow, make him whole. As he filled water glasses with mechanical precision, Daniel’s heart raced with possibility. For the first time in years, he could see a path forward – narrow and uncertain, but real.

The kitchen, always his prison, suddenly felt temporary. Each chipped plate, each worn countertop, each familiar corner – soon, they’d all be memory instead of reality.

In three days, the weight would shift. In three days, he’d either be free – or still exactly where they left him. He wiped his hands on a towel and turned toward the table.

«Dinner’s ready.»

Shadow on The Floor

The mind breaks like water

Against the rocks of reality,

Each fragment carrying

The whole ocean’s salt.

The strobing fluorescent light threw jagged shadows over Daniel’s trembling hands as he pressed against the chipped porcelain tub. His breath ricocheted off the tile walls. The 911 dispatcher’s voice crackled, tinny and distant:

«Sir? Are you still there?»

Daniel’s grip tightened on the phone. For a moment, he smelled wet asphalt and heard twelve-year-old Sam’s voice, raw and brave: «Touch him again and I’ll break your nose!» A memory flashed – Sam standing between Daniel and three older boys, fists raised, mud streaking his cheeks. The bullies had scattered. Now, Sam’s fists hammered the door – Daniel’s ribs ached where loyalty had once shielded him.

Daniel’s voice cracked. «My brother… he attacked me. Please – »

«You think hiding in your ivory tower makes you CLEAN?!» Sam bellowed.

The light flickered as something heavy crashed against the wall outside.

«Sir, is your brother a danger to himself or others right now?» the dispatcher asked calmly.

«I’m gonna drive the darkness out of you, Danny-boy!» Sam’s voice slid into singsong.

«You’re not leaving until you’re saved!»

«Yes,» Daniel said into the phone, louder now. «Yes. Please hurry.»⁠

* * *

– Twenty minutes earlier—

The kitchen held an unnatural quiet, broken by the clink of Daniel stacking plates – too slow, too deliberate. The university letter glared from the counter, its red-circled deadline bleeding into the table. Sam’s bulk sagged over the chair, fingers shredding a cold fry into greasy confetti. Dimmed light caught the sweat beading at his temples, the tremor in his hands as he reduced the fry to pulp.

The Leica burned in Daniel’s pocket. One shot – just to remember Sam whole.

He angled the camera, framing the slope of Sam’s shoulders, the fry’s carcass crumbling like sacramental bread in his brother’s grip. The shutter snapped – a sound like a wishbone breaking.

Sam froze. For a heartbeat, his face softened – the ghost of the boy who shared cheese puffs and Lego robots. Then his fingers spasmed, smearing fry guts into the woodgrain.

«You’re stealing my soul, Danny?» Sam teetered at the chair’s edge, eyes fixed on him – unnerving. The Bible lay open before him.

Daniel’s throat tightened. «Just… preserving things.»

Sam stabbed a greasy finger toward the Leica.

«You know what Judas did with his thirty pieces of silver, Danny?»

Daniel didn’t look up. «Don’t start, Sam.»

«He hanged himself,» Sam continued as if Daniel hadn’t spoken.

Daniel slammed the plate harder than he intended. It didn’t break, but the noise made him wince.

Sam’s leg began to twitch beneath the table, heel thumping a syncopated rhythm against the linoleum. His fingers drummed on the woodgrain, each tap sharper, more insistent, as if he were trying to summon something from beneath his skin.

«Close the window. They’re listening…» Sam’s voice dropped to something dangerous.

From the bathroom down the hall came the sound of running water. Dolores had retreated there after her outburst at dinner. As Sam also liked to do, she always disappeared when things got tense – as if the bathroom were neutral ground in their family’s war zone.

«It’s not about getting rich…»

«Matthew 6:24,» Sam thundered, rising from his chair. The Bible tumbled to the floor, pages splaying open. «No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.»

«I don’t believe in that stuff, Sam. I don’t believe in your God or your Devil or any of it.»

Something snapped inside him – a wire stretched too long.

Sam’s face contorted, his features shifting from shock to rage. His eyes – normally warm brown, like their father’s – darkened. The pupils expanded unnaturally.

«You’re empty,» Sam whispered, his voice suddenly alien. «A materialistic corpse without a soul. You have NO SOUL! I see darkness in you.»

«Sam, I need you to breathe. Remember what the doctor said – »

«WHAT DID YOU SAY?» Sam bellowed, sending a chair crashing to the floor as he stepped forward. «YOU THINK I CAN’T HEAR YOUR WHISPERS?»

Daniel raised his hands in what he hoped was a calming gesture. «Nobody’s whispering, Sam. You’re scaring me, brother. Let’s call the doctor, okay?»

«You want to abandon us,» Sam said – «like Dad abandoned me.»

«Dad died,» Daniel snapped.

Sam’s chair screeched backward.

«LIAR!»

Sam’s eyes widened, and Daniel instantly regretted his words. Never tell Sam about their father. It was an unspoken rule, one he’d just broken.

«I’m not like him,» Sam said, his voice tight with rage. «I would never leave. NEVER LEAVE.»

Daniel’s heart hammered in his chest. He had to reach the brother still buried inside.

«You’re right, Sam. You wouldn’t leave. I’m sorry.»

But it was too late. Sam’s breathing had become erratic, his chest heaving. He picked up the Bible from the floor, clutching it to his chest like armor.

Daniel glanced toward the hall. The water still ran.

«Sam, please. Let’s talk about this tomorrow. You’re tired, I’m tired – »

«STOP PATRONIZING ME!» Sam roared, slamming his fist on the table. A water glass toppled, spilling across the surface and dripping onto the floor. «I’m not a child!»

«Then stop acting like one!» Daniel snapped back before he could stop himself.

Outside, the highway groaned – soft at first, like a sleeping beast. But as Sam’s voice rose, so did the drone, building beneath the kitchen’s fragile quiet until it felt like the whole house was being held underwater.

«You think you’re better than us, Danny? You think you can just walk away?»

Daniel swallowed hard, knowing he needed to choose his next words carefully, but it was too late.

«I HEARD WHAT YOU SAID!» Sam roared, suddenly animated again. Sam stepped forward – shoulders hunched, head lowered. Daniel’s alarm spiked.

«Sam, don’t – »

But Sam was already moving, crossing the kitchen with surprising speed for someone his size. Daniel sidestepped, but Sam caught him with his shoulder, driving him back against the refrigerator. Magnets and photos clattered to the floor as Daniel’s breath left him in a painful whoosh.

«I’m not letting you leave us,» Sam growled, his face inches from Daniel’s. His breath smelled of dinner and something medicinal – new pills prescribed?

Daniel pushed back, trying to create space. «Sam, stop! This isn’t you!»

Sam stepped back, but only to gather momentum. With a roar, he lowered his head and charged, catching Daniel in the chest with the crown of his head. Pain exploded through Daniel’s ribs as he was driven backward into the counter.

«Mom!» Daniel called out, desperate now. «Mom, help!»

Sam came at him again, but this time Daniel managed to dodge, sending his brother crashing into the cabinets. Using the moment of confusion, Daniel bolted for the hallway.

«YOU CAN’T RUN FROM GOD’S JUDGMENT!» Sam bellowed behind him.

Daniel sprinted down the hallway toward the bathroom.

«Mom! Let me in! Sam’s in trouble!»

The water shut off abruptly. «Daniel? What’s happening?» Dolores’s voice was muffled through the door.

Before Daniel could answer, he felt rather than heard Sam’s approach – the heavy thud of his brother’s footsteps shaking the floor. Daniel turned, pressing his back against the door just as Sam rounded the corner, his face contorted with rage.

«Mom!» Daniel shouted, pounding on the door. «Please!»

The door opened suddenly, and Daniel fell backward into the bathroom. Dolores stood there in her bathrobe, hair wrapped in a towel, eyes wide with alarm.

«What did you do to him?»

Before Daniel could answer, Sam appeared in the doorway, his massive frame blocking the light from the hall.

«He’s leaving us, Mom,» Sam said, his voice suddenly childlike. «Abandoning us. Like Dad.»

Dolores gasped and remained silent for a moment. «Daniel, is this true?»

Daniel backed further into the bathroom, putting the sink between himself and the others. «I got accepted. I told you at dinner, remember?»

«With Grandma’s camera,» Sam accused. «He’s selling her blessing for paper and numbers.»

«It’s mine!» Daniel said, feeling cornered by both of them now. «She left it to me.»

«To remember her by,» Dolores corrected, her voice hardening. «Not to sell for your escape plan.»

The familiar pressure squeezed Daniel’s chest, suffocating him. For years, he’d carried them both, his shoulders stooped beneath the weight of utility notices and insurance forms, his fingers perpetually ink-stained from recalculating budgets that never quite stretched far enough. He’d become a curator of Sam’s mistakes – categorizing them, preserving them in memory, learning which ones signaled danger and which were merely the ordinary debris of his brother’s fractured mind. Meanwhile, his own aspirations had become relics, fossilized dreams pressed between the pages of college brochures that arrived with increasing irregularity, as if even the universities sensed he no longer belonged to the future they promised.

Something shifted in Sam’s expression – dark fire kindling behind his eyes, and Daniel felt dread coil in his gut.

«They’re telling me,» Sam whispered, hands pressed to his ears. «They are telling me what you really are.» Sam lunged past Dolores, grabbing at Daniel. Daniel dodged, but in the cramped space, there was nowhere to go. Sam’s fist caught his shoulder, sending him staggering against the shower door.

«Samuel Joseph Mercer!» Dolores screamed, stepping between them.

Sam shoved her aside with frightening ease. «Stay back, Mom! He’s not Daniel anymore!»

Daniel slipped past them both into the hallway. But Sam was fast despite his size. He caught Daniel by the shirt, spinning him around and driving him into the wall. Pictures rattled; drywall yielded beneath his back.

«You’re not leaving,» Sam growled, his face inches from Daniel’s. «Not ever.»

Daniel reflexively drove his knee into Sam’s stomach. Sam grunted. Daniel bolted. He sprinted back toward the bathroom – the only room with a lock strong enough to hold Sam back.

«Daniel!» Dolores wailed behind him. «Don’t hurt your brother!»

Daniel slammed the door and fumbled with the lock. Sam’s weight hit it, rattling the frame.

A moment later, a thin stream of water snaked under the door – clear at first, then tinged with something darker. Blood? No. Holy water. Sam had been splashing it around the house all evening. He slid down to the floor, reaching for his phone in his pocket with trembling hands.

«Help is on the way, sir,» the 911 dispatcher was saying. «Are you in a safe location?»

«I’m locked in the bathroom,» Daniel replied, wincing as Sam slammed his shoulder against the door. «But I don’t know how long the door will hold.»

Daniel pressed his back against the bathtub, knees drawn to his chest. The hum swelled.

«Sir – does your brother have any weapons?» the dispatcher asked.

Daniel closed his eyes, trying to remember if he’d seen anything in Sam’s hands. «I don’t think so. But he’s… he’s very strong.»

More holy water splashed under the door, and Daniel recoiled from the creeping stain.

«Cleansing the path,» Sam murmured outside, his voice closer to the floor now. Daniel imagined him on his knees, performing one of his improvised rituals. «Cleansing the path for your return.»

Through the door, Daniel heard the shuffle of slippers – Dolores lingering in the hallway, her breaths shallow. For three hammering heartbeats, she did nothing. Daniel wanted to scream – Do something! Stop this! Say anything! But all he heard was the trembling intake of her breath, as if she’d seen this play before and already knew how it ended. Then, weakly: «Stop… please…»

«Sir, I’m hearing a disturbance. Is anyone else in danger?» the dispatcher asked.

«My mother,» Daniel said, panic lacing his voice. Sam had never intentionally hurt Dolores before, but he’d never been this far gone either. «She’s out there with him.»

«Officer units are three minutes out,» the dispatcher assured him. «Paramedics have also been dispatched.»

Three minutes. Daniel stared at the door, watching it shake as Sam renewed his assault.

«YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW?» Sam bellowed through the splintering door, his voice cracking with emotion. «YOU THINK I DIDN’T SEE GRANDMA’S CAMERA?»

Daniel’s eyes darted to his backpack, slumped in the corner where he’d dropped it in his rush to lock the door. The worn leather case of his grandmother’s Leica camera was just visible at the top.

He closed his eyes, trying to focus on his breathing.

«I’m not abandoning you, Sam,» Daniel called back, trying to sound calmer than he felt. «I’m just going to school.»

«LIAR!» There was a splintering sound as Sam’s fist punched through the hollow core of the door. Blood-streaked knuckles appeared through the hole, grasping blindly. «YOU’RE RUNNING AWAY! JUST LIKE DAD!»

Through the widening gap, Daniel caught a glimpse of Sam’s face – flushed crimson, eyes wild, a thin line of saliva trailing from the corner of his mouth. For a second, their eyes locked. In that moment, Daniel saw something flash across his brother’s expression – not just rage, but profound hurt. Betrayal. «Why won’t you listen to me NOW?» Sam cried. «YOU’RE going to DESTROY everything! WHY IGNORE ME?!»

The raw pain in Sam’s voice made Daniel’s throat tighten.

For a moment, Sam went quiet.

«Why are you leaving me?» Sam asked through the hole, his voice suddenly small and childlike. «Who’s going to help me?»

Daniel closed his eyes, feeling the weight of guilt and responsibility press down on him. «Mom will be here. And your doctor. And you have the support group at church.»

«It’s not the same,» Sam said, sniffling. «You’re my brother.»

Sirens wailed in the distance, slicing through the tense silence before Daniel could answer. Sam’s eyes widened visibly through the hole in the door.

«You called them?» Sam’s voice trembled with betrayal. «You called the police on me?»

«Sam, I had to…»

«JUDAS!» Sam roared, renewing his assault on the door with terrifying force. The frame began to splinter around the hinges. «THIRTY… PIECES… OF… SILVER… AND A KISS ON THE CHEEK!»

Outside, Dolores’s voice rose in alarm. «Samuel, stop! The police are coming!»

Daniel clutched the phone tighter. «They’re almost here,» the dispatcher said. «Stay on the line with me.»

The sound of the front door opening and heavy footsteps filled the house. Authoritative voices called out, «Police! Everyone stay where you are!»

Sam’s attack on the door stopped abruptly.

«Sir – are the officers there?» the dispatcher asked.

«Yes,» Daniel replied, his voice shaking with relief. «They’re here.»

There was a commotion in the hallway – Sam’s voice rising in protest, Dolores pleading with the officers, firm commands to stay back.

Daniel rose on unsteady legs and unlocked the door. Outside, two officers flanked a subdued Sam, kneeling with hands bound behind his back. Tears streamed down his flushed face.

«Traitor.» Sam’s whisper cut deeper than shouts. «My own brother.»

Paramedics took over. One checked Sam, while another examined Daniel’s ribs and shoulder.

A paramedic knelt beside Daniel. «We need to take your brother to the hospital for evaluation. It looks like he’s in the middle of a severe psychotic episode.»

«Yes,» Daniel said, unable to look at Sam.

«Has he ever been this violent?»

Daniel shook his head. «Never.»

His mother hovered in the doorway, her face a mask of anguish and exhaustion.

«Will they take him away?» she asked, her voice small.

Daniel nodded, unable to meet her eyes. «He needs help, Mom. Professional help.»

She turned away, clutching her robe like a shield.

The paramedic handed him a clipboard with forms. «We need consent from next of kin. Your mother seems too distraught.»

Daniel stared at the papers. From the living room, he could hear Dolores sobbing to one of the officers, telling him what a good boy Sam usually was, how he just needed his medication adjusted.

Sam looked up at Daniel from where he sat on the floor, paramedics checking his vitals. The wild rage had receded, leaving behind the familiar, confused child eyes of his brother.

«Don’t send me away, Danny,» he pleaded softly. «I’ll be good. I promise.»

Daniel’s hand trembled as he signed the papers. «It’s just for a few days, Sam. Until you’re feeling better.»

Dolores reappeared in the hallway, clutching a crucifix, whispering prayers under her breath, trying to put the cross on tied-up Sam.

«Let me put the cross on him – don’t take him away without the cross!»

As the paramedics led Sam down the stairs, he paused, looking back at Daniel with unexpected clarity.