Once he brought three expensive matching bicycles without asking whether the girls knew how to ride.

The gifts were too large for our small shed, and Hazel wanted the secondhand scooter she had been practicing on all summer.

I asked him to take the bicycles back for now.

He looked hurt.

“I thought they’d be happy.”

“They’re happy when you remember which stories they like,” I said.

“They don’t need you to catch up on four years with things.”

A week later he showed up with a stack of library books, three sticky notes marking the pages each child had requested, and absolutely no ribbon.