When my father drew the curtains and set his hearing aids on the tray and said close your eyes, sweetheart, everyone in that room read it the same way, and they were all wrong.

Trent read it as theater and was unbothered.

Gerald read it, once he saw the tattoo, as the prelude to something out of his worst memories, and it put him on the floor.

Even I, who knew my father best, felt a flicker of the old question — what is he about to do.

And the answer turned out to be the gentlest thing in the room.

He drew the curtains for my privacy, so that whatever came next would not be a show for the hallway.