The rocks glowed like gold in the evening sunlight, but beneath the glow, they were just a pile of rubble for the highway the state was carving behind my neighborhood. The mountain had been sitting in the middle of the construction zone for a month and every evening after school, I hopped the backyard fence to play in the vacated construction area. This evening, I miscalculated my jump, and my jeans snagged the metal fence Dad had mended with rusty chicken wire and green zip ties. Even though he passed away two years ago, I could still see him, pliers in hand, warning me, "Don’t get too close to things that can cut you." As I freed myself, my hand slipped, and the jagged wire sliced into my palm.

Atop of the hundreds of rocks sat a sun-bleached armchair, with a floral print on the faded fabric. The old chair had wooden claw feet, which, despite missing one leg, dug defiantly into the earth, as if to claim dominion. I climbed, clutching my bleeding hand, and pressing my bruised shins against boulders. I sank into my throne and caught my breath. It wasn’t really my throne, because after the construction people built this mountain, I never saw who dragged the chair to the top.

Once a forest, my backyard now gave a clear view of the distant street, where I could make out an abandoned dresser, its drawers spilling clothes. As I sat there, the wind stirred the splintered pines, and I felt the crackling breath of a ghost of someone who had lived here long ago, beneath the mountain I sat on. I shifted uneasily, thinking of Smaug, feigning sleep and waiting in the earth. Waiting, but what for? My eyes scanned the gnarled stumps of uprooted trees. If I were born a dragon or a tree, I’d be angry too.

Mom swung open the porch door, calling me in for dinner. When I didn’t respond, she whistled, a high trill, like the toads Dad used to catch in the forest. Without him or the toads around anymore, a heavy quietness accompanied me on the walk back. When Mom noticed my bloody palm, she hurried to fetch a rag. She placed my hand under the kitchen faucet, and I didn’t howl, I didn’t even wince. I asked why the construction workers couldn’t build the highway somewhere else. She said, "Somewhere else means just as much to another kid as here means to you." Her hands trembled as she pressed the rag into my skin, and she smiled. "People who care deeply, get hurt deeply."

I ate my spaghetti in silence, chewing her words over in my head and chasing my doubts with a glass of apple juice.