“Dad?” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “I thought you drove away.”

“I couldn’t just leave,” he said, his voice barely louder than the hum of the distant highway traffic.

He stopped two feet in front of me.

The streetlamp caught the silver in his hair and the deep lines around his eyes.

“I’ve spent too many years driving away,” he said.

He held the box out toward me.

It was heavy, the bottom sagging slightly under the weight of whatever was inside.

“Take this,” he said.

I reached out and took the box, my muscles straining against the sudden weight.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Open it,” he said.

I placed the box on the concrete steps of our office building.

I peeled back the dusty packing tape that held the top flaps together.

The smell of old paper and basement dampness drifted up into the cold night air.

Inside were dozens of notebooks.

They were bound in colorful plastic spirals, the edges of the pages yellowed and curled.

On the cover of the top notebook, my own childhood handwriting stared back at me.