It catches in her throat.  Not just the burning scotch, but the memory.  Several, in fact.  They bludgeon each other for attention.  “Never say can’t!”—the perpetual belief her father lived and yet...his most difficult reality was coming to terms with what he couldn’t, by very slow degrees, continue to do.  Now here she was, so much younger by comparison, continuing not only to grieve but simultaneously to fight the conviction that she...just might...not...be able...to keep doing this.  The “this” was the fulfilling of her self-imposed demands to complete each detail of her work with excellence.  The kind of work that takes more than the hours allotted.  Insane expectations from all sides like spokes, like spears jettisoning into and out from her soul desire to be.

“Finish what you start,” her muse commanded.  “I can’t,” she didn’t say or whisper...but believed.  Damn the beliefs...like fish hooks in her heart or anchors holding her back.  Her father would have tried to encourage her to be better than that, to see farther than the horizon slapping up against the window; he would have understood, though.  He would have lamented with her...how difficult “never give up” really is.