Molly found the red ribbon when she was going through the back closet looking for suitcases for college. She had some of the ribbon wound around her thumb “This is pretty. Where did you get it?” she asked. She wrapped the rest of her hand and wrist so her fist was almost as big as a boxing glove. When I didn’t say anything, Molly said, “Top secret, huh, Pops? Better fess up ... or I’ll punch your lights out.”

Almost twenty years ago I wrote an article for the local newspaper about Felix Black, who owned a small farm up near Rosetta Canyon. Felix had been farming his piece of land for most all his life, but he was an old man, and he had come under quite a bit of pressure to sell. A big developer had a large, upscale community planned: a golf course, a resort hotel, even a small private air strip, but Black’s 160 acre farm was smack in the middle of everything. Everyone else had sold or agreed to sell. Black refused.

“Sure I’ve been getting all kinds of threats,” Felix told me when I went out to interview him. We were standing next to his tractor. It was spring, and he was in the middle of his big flat field, in the middle of planting. “Don’t mean nothing to me, though,” Felix said, and he wiped some sweat from his brow. It was hot for a spring day, and Felix wasn’t wearing a hat, just a red headband to keep the sweat out of his eyes. “It’s mostly just talk is all. Talk never hurt nobody.”

“I understand they’ve offered you a lot. Three, four times what this place is worth.” I’d done some homework—talked to the developer.

“What else would I do?” Felix asked. “This is what I like to do. This is my life.”

“You could buy another place,” I suggested. “People think you’re just being obstinate.”

Felix kicked at a clod of dirt. “What people think doesn’t matter much to me. Here, let me show you something.”

I followed Felix across the field. The earth was soft and a rich brown. I worried about stepping on seeds, so I took care to tread in Felix’s footprints. I would have thought my feet were larger, me being at least half a head taller than Felix, but when I looked down, I saw our footprints fit perfectly, and when I glanced back towards the tractor, I saw only a single trail.

Eventually we reached the end of the field. A creek gurgled strongly from the spring rains, the current rippling around and across the larger stones. Sunlight danced in the flowing water. A few trees provided shade. Felix stopped. He untied his headband and mopped his dark hair. He breathed deeply.

“Nice spot,” I said.

Felix grinned. “All my daughters got their start here.”

He took another deep breath.

I asked him how many daughters he had.

“Five,” he said. “But only one survived. The rest, they are resting here.” He pointed to a row of four markers. “Annabel, Claire, Zephyr, and Josie. Plus my wife, Marie. She died giving birth to the little one. Rose.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded.

We stood there a long time. A cool wind skimmed our skin.

I thought about asking Felix how his daughters died, but I couldn’t get the words out.

“It was a dark storm. Very bad,” Felix said. I remembered something about a flash flood years back. Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn’t. Felix said, “I was sad for a long time. Very sad. One day Marie took me to a dress shop in town. They had lots of dresses, but in the back near the fitting rooms they had bolts of fabrics and trays full of flimsy paper patterns and drawers stocked with threads of every color in the rainbow and then some. Also lace and buttons and ribbon. Marie ran off a length of red ribbon. ‘Just the color for you,’ she said. I didn’t know what she meant at first. ‘Now we just have to get the length right.’ I didn’t know what she meant by that either. She led me into one of the fitting rooms and swung the curtain. Then she showed me what she meant by getting the length right.” Felix winked. “‘Nothing but red ribbon from now on,’ she told me. ‘Day after day till the end of time.’ And that’s pretty much how it was. How it is.”

I didn’t tell Molly about the fitting room. I just said Felix’s wife bought the ribbon at a dress shop in town. That was true as far as it went, but Molly didn’t seem quite satisfied. “So what happened next?” she asked.

“Come back to the house,” Felix said. “You will meet my daughter, Rose. She will have supper ready soon.” Felix affixed his headband, and began walking back across the field. I followed him.

Halfway across the field, I asked Felix to wait. “I forgot, I wanted to take pictures. Would you mind?”

“Sure,” he said. He stood there smiling at me. The sun was low in the horizon, nearly but not quite behind Felix. He appeared almost in silhouette. His smile wouldn’t show up, but I knew it would be a strong photograph. His red headband glowed. I aimed through the Canon’s viewfinder, adjusted the focus, and pressed the shutter release button, but nothing happened. I checked the film advance and tried again. Still nothing.

“Is something wrong?” Felix asked.

“Maybe the battery’s dead,” I said. “I’m not getting a reading on the light meter. The newspaper doesn’t do a very good job of ... I’m sorry.”

“Maybe I have some batteries at the house,” Felix said.

“I think it’s a specialized kind.”

“No matter,” said Felix.

“It would have been a good picture,” I said.

Felix smiled at me. “We’re here, that’s what matters.”

The door to Felix’s house was charred. “Just one of their misguided messages,” Felix said. We stepped through.

Felix’s daughter Rose was very pretty, with long dark hair. Her eyes were gentle and shy one moment and fiercely inquisitive the next. She didn’t say much, but she seemed to enjoy feeding me and her father. “This is good,” Felix would say after almost every bite. “Mmmm,” I agreed. It was hard not to eat too fast. It was hard not to look at Rose. Some things are difficult. Some things are impossible.