BY THE TIME I got home the sun had cleared the range, burned the frost off the two-by-four railings. I spent the better part of last month building ramps, one out the back door of the house and one off the covered porch in the front. It's important to me that Pop can get in or out any door, not just for safety now that he's stuck in the damn wheelchair most of the time, but for dignity's sake. I'm no carpenter, but when you have YouTube and a garage full of tools you can teach yourself to build just about anything.

I squatted low to mount the binoculars back onto the rickety tripod I keep on the porch. The whole setup is asking for breakage and disaster, but birding is the only thing that has kept me sane in this house. I heard Pop roll over the threshold, felt the porch floor shudder just a little under the weight of his chair.

“Vera,” he said. He put his hand between my shoulder blades. The warmth radiated down through my heart, my belly, my heels. I imagined it vining like roots down through the porch slats, breaking up the hardpan ground below.

I stayed frozen in place, kept Pop's hand on my back. I'd been short with Pop since I talked to Henson. I knew it. Now, I wanted to ask him whether I should take my pictures down to the BLM office, press for charges about the fences, the possible burn. I wanted to know where Pop's loyalty was, which side of his heart was bigger. I wanted to see how he'd react if I said, out loud, Henson's cutting fence. He's going to graze the BLM and our lek. I could turn him in if I wanted to. He has the most precious little girl.

I turned toward him, kneeling next to his chair. “There are only fifteen of our birds left,” I said. I don't cry much, but I was crying then. “You wrote it down yourself, in your ledger. Why didn't you tell me?”

“Umm,” Pop's brow furrowed. His hand moved toward his brow, but I caught it in both of mine, bringing it to the wet of my cheek. He shook his head sadly. “Dammit.”

Pop can still swear like nobody's business. He can also sing every word to “Along Came Jones” by the Coasters and a number of other novelty tunes from his high school years. He sounds like the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show, but he gets all the words. Julie tells me this is normal too, that profanity and music endure beyond prepositions and names, which feels like it must be an important fact about humans even though I can't exactly say how. It is very endearing and I marvel, with every crystal-clear Pop cuss, how much we don't know about the world of our own brains.

“Vera,” Pop said, his tone serious. “Oreos.”