He watched the way Lars spoke to me when he thought no one was paying attention.

He watched the small breakages, the “accidents” that always seemed to happen to the things I loved during arguments I was losing.

And where I saw a difficult marriage, my father, the engineer who believed disasters were unpaid precautions, saw a hazard developing, and he did the only thing his temperament and his love would let him do: he took a precaution.

He did not lecture me.

He did not demand I leave.

He simply, quietly, made sure that if the day ever came when I needed the truth of that kitchen preserved, it would be preserved — and he did it in a way even he probably hoped would never matter.