Pages filled with his handwriting. I opened it to a random page. “Tom called me Dad today for the first time.
I had to leave the room so he wouldn’t see me cry. I never thought I’d be a father. But now I can’t imagine being anything else.”
I read that line over and over.
Mom found me sitting on the floor, crying. She sat down beside me without saying anything. “He loved me.”
“More than anything.”
“I was his whole world.”
“And he was yours.”
Alice called two days later.
“Can we meet? Talk? Try to build something?”
I thought about it.
“I’m not ready. And I don’t know if I ever will be.”
There was a long pause. “I understand.”
“I hope you do.
Because I need you to understand that I’m not your second chance. I’m not your do-over. I’m just trying to grieve my father.”
“Yes, he was.
In every way that mattered, he was.” I hung up. Last Sunday, my mother and I drove to the cemetery. We brought flowers and sat on the bench near Dad’s grave.
We sat there for a long time, just talking to him. Telling him about our week. About the casserole we’d made.
About how much we missed him. Before we left, I placed my hand on the headstone. “You were my dad.
In every way that mattered. And I’ll never forget that.”
I think about Alice sometimes. About the choices she made.
The life she lost. The son she watched from a distance for 20 years. I don’t hate her.
But I don’t feel pulled toward her either. Because family isn’t just blood. It’s the people who show up.
My dad, Robert, showed up every single day of my life. That’s what made him my father. And nothing Alice says will ever change that.
Was the main character right or wrong? Let’s discuss it in the Facebook comments.
