Who is Father from What Have You Lost? and what is their importance?

The author's father would disappear into the privacy of stories in his study for hours, and if his son's hands were clean, he might pass a book to his son. Father teaches at the university and appears when his son turns the corner on the seventh floor of the university library. The author forgives his father for their unwritten lives and the years they have not read as they silently pass one another.