Nine years ago, after Leo had died, people said to me, “I never knew he was your stepfather.” You see, I never called him. At first, he was no one special in my life. Then he became my friend., I felt he was also my father. Leo married my mother when I was eleven. Two years later we moved into a house in a new suburban development, where we put down roots. At first our lawn was just a mud with wild grass, but Leo saw bright. “We’ll plant trees there to give us as well as some flowers,” he said. And just these little touches made our house from all the others. More importantly, a real family was. Leo was becoming a full-time parent, and I was learning what it to have a father. Weekday mornings when the weather was bad, Leo often drove me to school. Having a father you off may have been something my classmates took for granted,I always thought it was wonderful. mornings, we went to the hardware shop, then stepped into the five-and-ten, buying a sports magazine or something else. Some people might think that doing shopping together is nothing, but I, who had ever before spent my childhoodother families do their everyday activities, experienced them now with delight., I realized that Leo gave me what I needed most—the of doing ordinary things together as a family.