I might be glad to be back in the old hood and all, but I don’t know why he would he bring me back to our old house. Did he see me sign up for the TV show where you knock on some stranger’s door, tell them you used to live there, and ask if you can take a look around? No, I don’t think so.

“Come on,” he says, and gets out of the car.

I stay put.

A few moments later, he’s standing in the middle of these people’s freshly cut yard, waving for me to follow.

Nah, dude. You can have that. I keep my seat belt on. The house still looks the same: dark blue-gray paint with white trim. White mailbox near the front door hanging crooked, like it always has. I tried to straighten it out once, but my dad stopped me. He didn’t say why, but Angie told me later that my mom had put it up.

Now my father’s standing at the front door, looking back at me.

I look back at him but still don’t take off my seat belt.

He turns away from me and slides a key into the lock.

Huh?

Now he’s inside. And he left the door open.

The house has all the old furniture that my father said he donated to the Salvation Army. Plus, there are side tables and pillows and chairs and paintings and photographs and masks and jars and bowls and platters and pretty pencils and matches and things . . . lots of things I’ve never seen before. The living room has a whole new wall of records and books. A Love Supreme is sitting in an old record player, same as the one in my room.

I walk over to the breakfast room, which looks like someone’s been working in it. There’s an unfinished painting of a blue bird hanging on an easel and a mug full of paintbrushes sitting on the table next to a palette.

“There was a whole storage unit full of stuff I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of,” my father says, standing in the kitchen. I can only see the middle section of his body. The rest of him is hidden behind upper and lower rows of pale teal-painted cabinets.

I walk around the breakfast room and into the kitchen. “Is this all of Mom’s old stuff?”

“Yeah,” he says, his hope for my approval tangled in his voice.

As much as I love the idea of being surrounded by Mom’s old things, him saving and arranging it all as if she’s still living here isn’t right. I walk toward him. “Dad,” I say, feeling the newness of the word on my tongue. “Dad,” I repeat, mostly because I like the way it feels.