“Field manuals,” he said.

“Three copies of the very same one.

Your father had a system.”

“His system was buying another copy so he never had to hunt for the first one.”

We went through them together.

He sorted them by year, and I checked the inside covers for pencil notes, and for ten minutes it was the nicest evening I’d had since the funeral.

He read a line out loud about anchoring in a crosswind, and we both laughed, and then he put the book down.