The strange thing was that Dad wasn’t completely careless.

He remembered things that seemed insignificant.

He knew I hated onions in my sandwiches.

He knew I got headaches when I skipped breakfast.

He knew the old Buick we later bought would struggle to start whenever the temperature dropped below freezing.

If I was sick, medicine appeared beside my bed.

If it snowed, he cleared the path before I left for school.

And once, when I was fourteen, he drove nearly thirty miles to bring me the backpack I had forgotten at home.