“Did you pack the life jackets?” Lucas asked, glancing toward the cab.

Three identical groans came back at him.

“Yes, Dad, we packed them.”

“What about the whistles and the safety gear?”

My middle son, Mason, threw his head back in theatrical despair.

“Dad, please, you have to stop worrying so much.”

“Humor me, son,” Lucas said, and he did not budge, because he never budged on anything that had the word safety attached to it.

The boys called him paranoid, affectionately, the way children are casually cruel about the very things that are keeping them alive.