I Paid My Father $250 in Rent Every Month for Five Years. After His Funeral, His Best Friend Gave Me a Key and a Box.

I read the line several times.

“He talked about you,” Colin said.

“He said you were talented.

He was proud, though you’d never know it from the way he talked when he was tired.”

I thanked him and folded the paper carefully.

I had learned to accept that other people knew a warmer side of my father without treating it as a correction to my experience.