My father did not choose me in a lawyer’s office, with documents and formality.

He chose me on an ordinary bad night near the end, when the pain medication had him drifting and I thought he was asleep, and he suddenly gripped my hand and said, very clearly, “You won’t let him get away with it.” It was not a question.

I told him I wouldn’t.

And he looked at me for a long moment with an expression I had waited my whole life to see on my father’s face — not affection, exactly, which he had always given me easily and cheaply, but respect, the specific respect one competent adult gives another they are trusting with something that matters.

“No,” he said.

“You won’t.