She was half right.

So when fuel began disappearing from that truck, it bothered me far more than losing twenty dollars’ worth of gasoline should have.

It started on a Tuesday.

Tuesday was always fill-up day.

Old men become creatures of habit.

I filled the tank at the Shell station on Hollis.

Forty-one dollars and some change.

The next afternoon, I drove ten minutes to help my friend Walt repair a section of fence.

Ten minutes there.

Ten minutes home.

Then I barely drove anywhere for the rest of the week.

Thursday.

Friday.

Saturday.

I stayed home.

Read.

Mowed the yard.

Watched baseball.

Sunday morning, I climbed into the truck for church and glanced at the fuel gauge.

Just under half.

I stared.

That made no sense.

I tapped the gauge.

Nothing changed.

My first thought wasn’t theft.

It was memory.

My father became forgetful toward the end of his life.

Ever since turning seventy, I had quietly watched myself for signs.

Missing appointments.

Repeating questions.

Forgetting where I put things.

That morning, sitting behind the wheel, I wondered whether this was the beginning.

Maybe I had driven somewhere and forgotten.

So I let it go.

The following Tuesday, I filled the tank again.

This time, I wrote down every trip.

Pharmacy.

Grocery store.

Home.

That was it.

By Saturday, the tank was almost empty again.

I sat in the driveway with my little notebook and calculated the mileage three times.

Impossible.

I didn’t sleep much that week.

Not because I was afraid of a thief.

Because I was afraid the problem was me.

Finally, I drove the truck to Dave’s Auto.

Dave had repaired our family cars for nearly twenty years.

Big fellow.

Quiet.

Grease permanently embedded in his hands.

“What’s happening, Frank?”

“My gas keeps disappearing.”

He looked at me.

“Disappearing?”

“I fill the tank. Barely drive anywhere. Three or four days later, half of it’s gone. I think I’ve got a leak.”

Dave frowned.

“That much fuel leaking, you’d smell it from your porch.”

“I don’t smell anything.”

“Leave it with me.”

Walt drove me home.

All afternoon, I waited for Dave’s call.

Part of me hoped he’d say the tank was rusted through.

Replacing a fuel tank would cost money.

But money seemed preferable to losing my mind.

Dave called around four.

“Frank, there’s nothing wrong with that truck.”

I gripped the phone.

“No leak?”

“None. Tank’s solid. Lines are good. Connections are good. Honestly, that pickup is in better shape than vehicles twenty years newer.”

I thanked him.

Then stood in my kitchen after the call ended.

If the truck was fine, there were only two possibilities left.

Either my memory was failing.

Or someone was taking my gas.

That was when I remembered Katie.

Katie is my granddaughter.

Twenty-four.

My son’s daughter.

She lives about an hour away and calls me every Sunday whether I answer the first time or not.

She’s the person everyone hands their phones to during family dinners when something stops working.

A few months earlier, she had tried convincing me to install a driveway camera.

“They’re inexpensive now, Grandpa. You’ll get an alert if someone walks near the house.”

I had laughed.

“Who’s coming here? Nobody wants anything I have.”

Now I called her.

“Grandpa?”

She sounded surprised.

I rarely called on weekdays.

“I need one of those cameras.”

There was a pause.

“What happened?”

So I told her.

The missing fuel.

The notebook.

Dave’s inspection.

My fear that maybe I was forgetting things.

Katie listened quietly.

When I finished, she said,

“Grandpa, someone is stealing your gas.”

“You really think so?”

“I’m almost certain.”

She ordered the camera that evening.

Two days later, it arrived.

She talked me through installation over the phone.

At least forty minutes of:

“No, Grandpa, rotate the bracket.”

“This way?”

“The other way.”

Eventually, we aimed the camera directly toward the pickup.

“Now we wait,” she said.

Then her voice became serious.

“And you promise me you won’t go outside in the middle of the night if you catch somebody.”