I wouldn’t feel that kind of rage I had at seventeen again until after he died, when I broke every plate in his apartment. Smashing them, one by one, onto the floor. Leaving the shards out overnight, daring myself to forget, step on them the next morning and injure myself.

What I had said to Anneliese had been correct, too. As close as we were, physically and figuratively, there was a part of my dad I couldn’t penetrate, boxes in his brain that remained closed. He knew the names of all the members of my favorite boy bands growing up and the exact birth dates of all my friends. He would sit with me and watch Mean Girls on repeat Saturday nights when the rest of my seventh grade class was at a slumber party. When he went to pick up items at CVS, he knew, without my telling him, what nail polish to get down to color and brand, the kind of elastic hair ties I liked, to always get non-oil makeup removers. He knew every freckle, every mole, the way I categorized my pens. At what specific line of Matilda I began to cry.

Up until adolescence he knew all my secrets, too. Who I would murder if I could. The twisting prickle of panic I had whenever I was assigned goalie in gym. That in first grade I was the one who had written a mean, anonymous note to a teacher who had forgotten to take me down to lunch with the rest of the class.

And what did I know about him? I knew about his childhood, growing up in Maine with schoolteacher parents. The scholarships he got to boarding school, then college. The connections he made thereafter that had allowed him to lead such a comfortable life. I knew his favorite books and movies and music. His love of bird-watching, especially swooping, shrewd birds of prey. The way he ate potato chips with pickles on top. The tiny, almost indiscernible flush in his cheeks when he was upset or angry. How, when he drank a little too much, he thought he could speak French.

But only in death did I realize how little he spoke about his emotions, the trauma of losing his wife, the untenable weight of being a single parent. Except for that flush, he would grin and bear it. March onward and ensure me everything was fine.