Coffee shops, short walks, conversations that never quite found their rhythm. And slowly, painfully, I learned the truth—she hadn’t been cruel, just absent in a way that couldn’t be fixed with time. A month later, I finally broke in front of my dad.
Sitting next to him on the couch, I told him I was sorry, that I finally understood. I expected disappointment or anger or at least a reminder of what I had said. Instead, he just pulled me closer and said, “You needed to see for yourself.” And in that quiet moment, I understood something I had missed for years—he didn’t just raise me.
He protected me from bitterness, even when it meant carrying the weight of it alone.
