It was late, past the time any decent person should be awake, and I had stopped by my dad’s house to drop off some groceries and make sure he’d actually eaten something that wasn’t a microwaved burrito. He wasn’t exactly helpless, but ever since Mom passed, I’d learned that taking care of himself wasn’t high on his priority list.

We were sitting in the living room—well, I was sitting, and Dad was halfway through a rant about how modern baseball players didn’t have the same grit as they used to—when we heard the commotion outside.

A metallic crash. Hissing. The distinct sound of something scrambling for dear life.

I sighed, already knowing what I’d find before I even stood up.

“Probably raccoons,” I muttered.

Dad looked up from his recliner, clearly interested but too comfortable to move. “You gonna check it out, or just let ‘em take the house, too?”

Rolling my eyes, I stepped out onto the porch. Sure enough, one of the garbage cans was on its side, but instead of raccoons, my flashlight caught a matted lump of fur curled up next to it.

A possum.

He didn’t move much when the light hit him, which wasn’t a great sign. He was breathing, though, and up close, I could see the dark patches of blood staining his scruffy fur.

Great. Just great.

I was already turning to go back inside—because, really, what was I supposed to do? Nature was nature, and I wasn’t about to get involved in possum drama—but before I could take a step, I turned right into my dad.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

I barely resisted the urge to groan. “Just a possum. Looks like he lost a fight.”

Dad’s eyes squinted as he looked past me. Then he did something that sealed my fate.

He frowned.

Not a disappointed frown. Not a judgmental frown. No, it was worse. It was the concerned frown. The one that meant he had already decided he was going to get involved.

“Is he alright?”

That was it. That was the moment I knew I’d lost.

See, my dad has a history. When I was growing up, our house was a halfway home for every stray dog, lost cat, and occasionally, even an abandoned duckling that he “just couldn’t leave behind.” Mom used to joke that he had the heart of a Saint Bernard but the self-control of a toddler in a candy store.

I thought those days were behind him. His own health had slowed him down—bad knees, bad back, and a heart that needed more rest than he gave it. I figured the stray rescuing days had ended with the last dog he’d taken in.

Apparently, I figured wrong.

“We need to take him to the vet,” Dad declared, rubbing his chin like he was already plotting out the next steps.

I stared at him. “Dad, it’s a possum.”

He didn’t even acknowledge my tone. “He’s hurt.”

I sighed. “I know. That’s what happens when animals fight.”

“He won’t make it through the night like that.”

There it was. The guilt trip. The same one he’d used when I was a kid and didn’t want to help him build a doghouse in the middle of July.

“Dad,” I tried again, but I might as well have been reasoning with a brick wall.

Five minutes later, I was wrapping the scraggly little guy in an old towel and carefully loading him into the car while my dad murmured words of encouragement to a half-conscious, flea-ridden possum.

The vet wasn’t exactly thrilled to see us at that hour, but after a round of antibiotics, a few shots, and a firm warning about keeping possums away from feral cats, they confirmed he had a decent chance at recovery.

Which led to the real problem.

“We can’t afford to board him here,” I pointed out as we left.

Dad shrugged. “I’ll take care of him.”

I scoffed. “You can’t even bend down to tie your own shoes.”

He shot me a look. “It’s not a dog. I don’t have to walk him.”

And that’s how I found myself setting up a possum habitat in my dad’s spare bathroom.

I kept telling myself this was temporary. Just until the little guy—whom Dad had already named “Buddy”—was strong enough to go back into the wild.

But I should’ve known better.

Because something happened over the next few weeks.

Buddy, despite being a wild animal, seemed to like my dad. And my dad, despite being a grumpy old man, liked Buddy.

At first, it was just small things. Dad would sit on the floor of the bathroom, talking to him in that low, gentle voice I’d heard him use on a hundred scared strays. Buddy would stare at him with those beady little eyes, then waddle over and curl up near him.

Then it escalated.

One day, I walked in to find my dad watching TV with Buddy perched in his lap like some weird, prehistoric-looking cat.

“He likes it when I scratch behind his ears,” Dad informed me, as if this was a totally normal thing for a grown man to know.

I gave up. There was no fighting it.

Then came the day we had to release him.

I expected Dad to protest. I braced myself for it, ready to remind him that possums were not house pets and that he couldn’t exactly keep one in his bathroom forever.

But to my surprise, he just nodded. “Yeah,” he said, voice gruff. “He’s ready.”

We took Buddy to a wooded area nearby and set down the crate. The little guy sniffed the air, then hesitated.

Dad crouched down, giving him one last ear scratch. “Go on, now.”

Buddy waddled out. He took a few steps, then turned around and looked at Dad one last time before disappearing into the brush.

Dad didn’t say much on the way home.

That night, I caught him sitting in the bathroom, staring at the empty spot where Buddy’s nest had been.

“Thinking of adopting a raccoon next?” I joked.

Dad chuckled, but it was quiet. “Just thinking.”

I didn’t push. But a few days later, I came by and found something new on his porch.

A small bowl of food. A dish of water.

“For the strays,” he said when I raised an eyebrow.

I didn’t argue.

Because I realized something then.

My dad doesn’t just rescue animals.

They rescue him.

And maybe, in some small way, they rescue me, too.