“Your mother and I heard from Katarina,” he said, folding me into a warm, solid hug.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?”

“Better than all right, Dad,” I said, leaning back to give him a real smile.

“I caught the snake before it bit me.”

He looked at the cashier’s check and the passport resting on the desk, and let out a long, slow breath — the breath of a man recalibrating a great many things at once.

I knew what that breath contained, because I knew my father.