On a Saturday it had rained all night, and in the morning the house smelled of the wet grass outside. When I came out of my room in the early dawn, Mom was at the kitchen table, dressed in black pants and a jean jacket, keys in her hands, purse on her lap. She was going to find one of them.

“Where’s Bedogi?” I said.

Mom stood. “In bed. I fed him this morning, but you’ll have to feed him again. His bottles are in the fridge. Remember to heat them under warm sink water, but not for too long.”

“Why can’t we come?” I said. “Can’t we come?”

“No,” she said. “Stay with the baby. I won’t be gone long.” And then she turned to the shoes lining the wall and picked up her rubber boots, and I knew she was going to get Frick at camp.

“What if he poops?” I said.

“You’ve seen me change his diaper,” Mom said. “Don’t answer the phone while I’m gone and don’t answer the door.” Through the living room window, I watched as she backed her white Toyota out of the driveway and then pulled away to find Frick.

I don’t think of Frick too often. He’s been dead for years, and I never went to his funeral. Few people did. Why would they? But sometimes I can’t help but feel I should have gone. Like it would have made something I cannot name not so lonely. In my own loneliness, I thought a lot about that, about if I should have gone. After his death, I went down south for a time, North Carolina way, and painted military vehicles for cash. It was there, on my knees spraying the trucks, that I thought about him. There is that terrible memory, surely, but so too are there sweet ones, the tiny memories with the tiny details that are milder in climax, no doubt, but equally powerful, like how Frick would pick me up from detention and take my backpack from me so I could climb into his high truck, and how I would always forget my backpack there, yet by some point in time the backpack would always be in my room. Or how my bike’s chain was always kept greased, or how if my toy men broke he would fix them, glue their legs or arms or heads back on. Or how, even when he was drunk, he would carry me to bed if I fell asleep on the couch.