The Day I Told My Son That My Father Left

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Tristan, my seven-year-old, was helping me unload a truckload of soil. He was whining about it when I told him, “My dad wasn’t around when I was a kid. I’d have loved to help him unload dirt.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d mentioned my real father to Tristan, but it was the first time he’d ever paid attention.

We’d just had a new baby girl, and Mel…