He’d wade out with me to where I could still just barely touch the bottom, tell me to trust him, and then start backing away — slowly at first, then faster, until there was open water between us and I had no choice but to move my own arms and legs or go under. I was seven. Every summer at that lake had a version of this lesson in it, and every summer I hated him for exactly as long as it took me to realize I was swimming.

I don’t actually remember being scared, even though everyone assumes that’s the part I’d remember most. What I remember is being furious. Furious that it worked, furious that he was right, furious that he’d stood there afterward looking completely unbothered while I sputtered my way to the dock, like he’d known the whole time I’d be fine and just hadn’t bothered telling me.

He was like that about everything, not just swimming. Bike riding, minus the training wheels, minus any warning. Left at a friend’s house to figure out an argument on my own instead of him stepping in. Handed a map at fourteen and told to get us back to the car while he walked a few paces behind, watching, saying nothing unless I was about to genuinely get us lost.

I used to think it was carelessness dressed up as a parenting philosophy. Now that I’m older, I think it might have been the opposite — a kind of trust so complete it looked like distance from the outside. He never once let me see him worry, even in moments I now realize, as a parent myself, must have terrified him. I don’t know if I could do the same for my own kid. I catch myself reaching out to steady them before they’ve even started to fall, and some part of me wonders if that instinct is love, or if his walking away was the truer version of it, and I just haven’t earned the nerve yet.