“Yes.”

“You said nothing.”

“I said nothing.”

I stood up. I walked eleven steps down the seawall and stood there with my back to him, and a man on a boat two slips over lifted a hand to me and I lifted one back, which is the strangest thing my body has ever done without consulting me.

“Why?”

And my father, who taught me cryptography before he taught me to ride a bike, gave me the answer, and I want it on the record exactly as he said it, because he did not soften one word of it and I have decided that was the last respectful thing he ever did for me.