In November I asked him the real version of the question I had asked five years earlier.

I had asked, once, whether he ever regretted not coming home sooner, and he had said every day, and I had accepted it, because it was the answer I wanted and because it had a good sentence after it about guilt and action.

What I asked in November was: “Dad. When did you first think something was wrong?”

He walked about twenty yards without answering.

“April of 2017,” he said.

I stopped.