Her father's hands always smelled like smoke and citrus.
Even years later, Ceren would remember that smell and feel the weight of it in her chest. Ali wasn't like the other men in the village. He didn't shout. He didn't drink. He didn't laugh often either—but when he did, it was the kind of laugh that made even the lambs turn to look.
He taught her how to gut a fish at seven. How to sling a rifle by nine. But most of all, he taught her how to listen.
"There are stories in the fire," he said once, poking at the embers of their open stove. "But not every fire tells the truth."
She didn't understand then.
But she remembered the way his eyes would shift when his brothers came around. The way he stopped singing when her uncles arrived. The way he never slept through the night anymore.
One summer evening, they argued—her father and Büyük Amca. It started with goats. It ended with shouting and a shotgun being dragged from under the floor mat.
Her mother Ayşe screamed.
Ceren held Şahin tightly, covering his ears, but her own were wide open.
She never forgot that moment—when her father looked at the gun, looked at his brother, then looked at her.
He didn't pull the trigger.
But something inside him did.
The next morning, he was gone.
And so was the laughter.