The Distant Roar by R. J. Bleich

On summer nights when I was a kid, my dad and I would sit up in my tree house and try to gaze at the stars. They were hard to see in the haze of the streetlights. But I still felt like I was in a remote cabin deep in the woods. Occasionally, we could hear the distant phantom whisper of a train. “It’s a monster!” I would say, covering my ears and half-believing it. My dad would take my hands from my ears so gently and say, “Don’t you worry about that old dragon. That’s what dads are for, to protect you from monsters until you’re all grown up and don’t believe in monsters anymore.”
It was always just the two of us, Dad and me. Mom left before I said my first word. And so Dad had to do it all. He was my hero. I even made him a cardboard sword after seeing Sleeping Beauty for the first time. He put it on the mantle, next to his distinguished service plaque that he got from the police department....