As he turned to walk away from the porch of the Kodo household all those years ago, Orlan's mother had ordered him to stay with the family, enabling the support of his pregnant sister with a fatherless child. When the argument began to escalate his father stepped off the porch, light swinging, and grabbed Orlan's wrist. Orlan was so afraid, he had never seen his father like this and went to hit him out of panic. Struck in terror that he had transgressed the family line, and then, wrenching his arm free he ran into the night, agonisingly relieved that he had missed. As Orlan entered the shadowy forest, he looked back. His father had vanished. Nowhere to be seen.