My grandfather, Thomas Hail, was the kind of man people misread in a single glance.
He lived alone in a worn one-story house outside a small Ohio town where everybody knew which dogs barked at the mail truck and which porches creaked when someone stepped on them.
His lawn was never perfect.
His curtains were plain.
His coffee was always too strong.
He moved through the world without asking for attention, and because of that, most people around him decided there was nothing to notice.
My parents were the worst about it.
To them, Grandpa was inconvenient.
He did not tell funny stories at holidays.
He did not bring expensive gifts.
He did not flatter anyone.
He answered questions in short sentences, spent a lot of time on the porch, and seemed more comfortable watching a storm roll in than making small talk across a dinner table.
My mother called him emotionally impossible.
My father said he had always been distant.
