My father had never taught me that.

He had taught me the opposite, in word and in the trust he left me.

I had learned it anyway, from the wider air, the way girls do, and I had let it overwrite everything he tried to give me.

Looking at his skyline through a hospital window, one week out from having my skull opened, I felt myself begin, at forty-five, to unlearn it.

The buildings were real.

The trust was real.