My husband refused to walk my 17-year-old daughter, his stepdaughter for nine years, at her high school senior night. “That’s something a real father should do,” he told her. But when her name was announced Thursday evening, her 79-year-old grandfather appeared with his walking cane and proudly accompanied her onto the court.

“Number seventeen. A middle hitter and four-year letter winner. Kaylee Brandt. Escorted tonight by

her grandfather, Mr. Duane Ostrem.”

A murmur went through the bleachers.

Half the people in that gym had bought milk off my father at one time or another. Or ridden the

school bus with him in the seventies. Or sat on a church council with him.

Kaylee moved the rose to her left hand. She slid her right arm through his left.

He planted the cane.

And they started across the floor.

They walked slow. Because he walks slow now.

Cane, step, step.

Cane, step, step.

That rubber tip squeaked on the varnished floor every single time it came down. You could hear it all the way up in the top row.

Mr. Halvorson kept reading. There’s a list for every senior, and he reads all of it.