I walked off the jet bridge ready to defend my choices, prepared to prove that I hadn’t needed anyone who left. Instead, I found a man whose posture looked like an apology, whose face echoed mine in older lines and careful restraint. When he said my name, it landed between us like evidence—of years imagined, of birthdays missed, of letters never written. My mother’s version of the past loosened, thread by thread, as he described a love that had terrified them both, a cockpit and a crib they couldn’t reconcile, a departure that was part cowardice, part protection.
The day became a collision of lives: conference rooms and confessions, spreadsheets and stories. I signed the contract I’d come for, but it felt suddenly smaller. On the drive back, watching his hands tighten on the wheel at every silence, I tried the word softly, almost to myself. This time, I didn’t choke on it: Dad.
