Chapter 1 - The Propeller

The Hollow Bell — A serialized memoir, published chapter by chapter

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I must have been three, maybe four, sitting on his knee in the living room.

The warm, woodsy smell of balsa drifted up from the model airplane he’d built. My small fingers turned the red propeller around and around, twisting the rubber band tighter with each loop. I could feel the tension building against my finger—coiled energy, waiting.

When I couldn’t twist it any further, I held it there.
Stillness, gathering.

Then I let go.

The propeller spun to life, whirring through the air.
Joy shot up from my belly and out my chest. I squealed.

I don’t remember what he said.  Not what came after.
Just the warmth of his eyes. That feeling.

He held the plane steady so I could wind it all up again.

That’s what returns.  Not a scene.  A sensation.

Sunlight in the chest.  A smile I couldn’t stop.  Eyes wet with something I didn’t yet know how to name.

Not nostalgia.  Not even memory.
Contact.

My father—Paco. Francisco.
He was thirty-eight when he died.  I was four.

He worked as a genetic biologist at Brookhaven National Lab, spending his days irradiating fruit flies to study DNA mutations.  But the radiation mutated him, too. A rare bone marrow cancer.  Silent. Relentless. He carried the diagnosis in secret for over a year, letting my mother carry the weight alone.

Tall and athletic, with a swimmer’s frame and a boxer’s build.
Dark eyes.  Strong jaw.  Presence.

My mother told me, years later, “Your father said you and your sister were the first and only people he truly loved.”

I could feel that.
Being near him felt like summer sunlight.

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