Instead, he stood up, and he walked over, and he picked up Sophia’s stroller, and he carried it to the front door of the apartment, and he opened the door, and he set the stroller out on the cold concrete landing near the stairs.

And then he came back inside, and he sat back down, and he did not look at me.

That was it.

That was the whole of my father’s response to watching his wife pour his granddaughter’s dinner down the sink: he carried the child’s stroller out to the cold, so that we would have it when we left.

He was, in his way, helping.

He was helping us go.