“I remember,” I said. My father had to rationalize what he took, to feel as if the mayor or the town, somebody owed him more than the salary he got, the health care, the pension. He never denied that he was a thief, but he always made it sound as if he had a right, as if he earned it. I didn’t have that problem. There’s nothing personal about it for me.

“Tell Froehmer to come by the house,” my father said, “like he used to.”

“I will.”

“You see him more now than I do. He used to come by all the time.”

“He’ll be by,” I said.

Froehmer would come by the house when I was young, come around to the back and he and my father would sit in the kitchen and have a drink and talk. Froehmer would always bring something, a bottle of something, a bag of something, a cake or pie, cheese, always something. And he’d always have something for me too, candy, gum, a deck of cards with a hole drilled all the way through, always something. I knew who he was, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t know what they talked about. I didn’t know why he was there. Froehmer wasn’t the only guy that came around to see my father; there was a whole string of them that would come and go, more after my mother died, and Froehmer wasn’t the only guy who brought something, but he was the only one to bring something every time, for me. He was part of my father’s world; what did I care about it when I was just a kid, eight, nine, ten years old? I knew who he was and was happy to see him, I guess, but I didn’t think about it at all.

“You remember when he took us hunting?” my father said.