Father often said to me, ‘saw the Devil in you, boy’. The light long gone from his eyes, son offered out of mercy with the cross of Jesus Christ grinding into his bare chest, bleeding with a single pray repeatedly on knees. Pleading sobbing, trembled before his wife’s joy underneath shadows.

He passed. Left paintings of, to me, everything else to a daughter kept as a family secret.

The paint was chipped, colours off and dried. Fickle of pieces of my fathers’ artwork, there was nothing good left to salvage. Only memories wished would burn, sizzling with what was left of the old man’s insanity.

Most, if not, all of his old paintings were destroyed. In a fit of rage or guilt, I wouldn’t care.

Stilled, my palm sank on a piece. Memorized of a boy painted with a halo shined through the dark, frozen and pale bare in place. Titled in mishaped letters of his writing in the corner; 11.04.12. Halo Son.

Eyes bore into the young boys’, sunked and buried by paint strokes, familiar he wore yours. Bit by bit, I knew truth.

I knew the ‘Halo Son’ he painted, brilliantly crafted and poured all his soul into. Day in and day out, hidden from skies and in the devil’s ear.

Hid the greatest of sin in plain sight.

I.