Before that summer, I had seen my father cry only twice in my entire life. The first time was when his father di3d.
I was seven.
Dad stood beside the woodpile in our backyard with his back toward the house, his shoulders moving in a way I had never seen before.
Mom rested her hand on my head.
“Leave him alone, Lucas. Some things a man has to do by himself.”
The second time was when I graduated from Oregon State.
Dad sat high in the stadium bleachers wearing the only decent jacket he owned—a brown corduroy one with patches on the elbows.
When they called my name, I looked up and caught him wiping his face with a handkerchief.
Afterward, he didn’t hug me.
Sinclair men weren’t very good at hugging back then.
He simply gripped my hand tightly.
“Good job, son.”
Then he walked quickly toward the parking lot before I could see his eyes again.
The third time he cried happened decades later.
On a gray June morning in Cannon Beach, Oregon.
And it happened when I placed a set of house keys into my mother’s hand.
My parents are Samuel and Irene Sinclair.
Dad spent forty-three years working at a paper mill in Longview, Washington.
He started at nineteen sweeping floors.
He retired as a shift supervisor.
In forty-three years, he missed eleven days.
Nine were when my mother had surgery.
The other two were the days my sister and I were born.
