He never married their mother, Karen, but they stayed close for years.

Scott was twenty-eight, working for a logistics company in Columbus; Amber was twenty-six, finishing a graduate degree in education and sharing a house with roommates.

We got along well enough.

We hadn’t grown up together, so we were never especially close, but we were friendly at the gatherings that brought us together, and as Dad’s health declined we spent more time in hospital waiting rooms, each of us loving him in our own way.