The smell of my father's pipe tobacco still hits me sometimes — cherry cavendish, he called it, though it just smelled like burnt sugar and old newspapers — drifting from his study while he muttered at circuit boards late into the night. I'd sneak down the stairs just to sit on the bottom step and listen to him talk to the soldering iron like it owed him money. He'd pretend not to notice me there, but he'd always leave a mug of cold tea on the landing for the morning.