I didn’t have the money for a down payment, and I did not know how to tend horses or live on a ranch. What I wanted them to say was, “Do you need money?” What I wanted to write was, “Yes.”

They wrote back saying: “What if Dad helped you buy it? He has money. Or take our house.”

They were starting to give things away.

When you are dying, you are invested in making sure the people you love are set up properly. Suddenly mothers want to make sure their daughters have found the ones they love and are on the path to marriage and children, whether they know they will be there to act as grandmothers or not. Fathers want their daughters to be safe and secure. My father suddenly wanting to buy me a house felt in line with this concern. He wanted to make sure we had an understanding that he was not all right with my living alone in an apartment after my divorce, with no discernible focus on the future.

It was both selfish and not. If he hadn’t been rushing to kill himself quickly, then he wouldn’t have jumped at the first home I had shown him.

The ranch had been on the market for over a year, and I didn’t know the first thing about buying a house, but with my father’s affirmation and assurance of some money to help me with a down payment, I slid comfortably into the fantasy of knowing that I would not be unmoored forever.

When my father did not approve of a man I was with, which was often, he would wave his hand dismissively and say, “Leave him if you want, because I will always be there to take care of you.”

He helped me become a leaver. Mostly because he made it clear early on that no one would ever be good enough for me.

“No one will love you as much as I do,” he said once.

He was my father, my protector, and my biggest tormentor.

“I know,” I said, and I meant it.