Once, he’d rolled a cigarette and slowly and deliberately smoked it without saying a word to me while I perched on the edge of the dining room chair, hands clasped on my knees, waiting. He’d inhaled each sweet breath as if it were the last one he’d ever take before finally pronouncing that I’d indeed be allowed to go away to college in the fall. He’d roll a cigarette and smoke it before reaching any major decision, then he’d stick to it, even if he was proven wrong later, like the time he’d found our supposedly stolen tools in the back shed a week after letting Chet, the farmhand go.