My father grew up with nothing and clawed his way to everything, and it left him with a permanent, low-grade certainty that the world would try to take it back.

When I was a girl he taught me things other fathers didn’t.

How to notice the exits in a room.

How to tell when a smile doesn’t reach the eyes.

And before I left on this honeymoon, he had pressed a small prepaid phone into my hand — a burner, an unregistered card, nothing tied to my name — and told me, half-embarrassed by his own worry, to keep it hidden and hope I never needed it.

I had rolled my eyes at him.