AN:
Hello, and welcome to A Father's Struggle. This is the very beginnings of what will be a multi-part story. I'm writing it as a companion piece (and somewhat of a sequel) to my story The Embers. While it's not required, I highly recommend you read The Embers first.
I hope to have another chapter or two published soon. As always, I welcome your feedback. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!
Love, LilD
Prologue
"Hey Peeta, what about this one? I only think I wore it once last winter."
My brother Marko holds up a rather battered, heavy waterproof coat for me to see. We're going through the house closets to find any clothes we can donate to the district clothing drive. It seems that even in our "recovering" nation, there still aren't adequate jobs for everyone.
"Sure," I reply. "Throw it to me."
I check the coat's pockets, even though the other two we've pulled have been empty. But now, I pull something out of the interior pocket. It's an old, worn book, thin sheets of parchment encased in dark leather. "What's this?" I ask, holding it up.
"Oh, I completely forgot about that!" Marko exclaims. "Thom gave it to me months ago, not long after Dad and I came back. He said he found it in the basement of the old bakery when they were clearing out the debris. It's Dad's."
"Dad had books?"
"Maybe a few, I guess."
There's no title on the cover. I open to the first page.
July 10, '50
Four. They took four this year.
The words are neatly handwritten in blue ink. I recognize the print as my father's.
"It's a diary," I whisper. "Dad kept a diary."
"Really? I never actually looked at it. It was freezing when Thom gave it to me, and I was eager just to get home and take off my wet clothes."
Marko comes up beside me and we both look down at the book in my hands.
"Do you think he'd mind? If we read it?" he says.
I shake my head. "He might be dying. I think he'd want us to." Somehow, I know this is right. Or at least that it isn't wrong. I start reading aloud.
"July tenth, fifty. Four. They took four this year. And one of them is Maysilee Donner…"