For fifteen years, I had been both mother and father to my daughter, Lily.
I had learned how to braid her hair when she was little, how to calm her nightmares, how to sit beside her hospital bed when she was sick, and how to pretend everything was going to be okay even on the nights when I wasn’t sure it would be.
I had also learned how to answer the question I dreaded most.
“Mom, where is my dad?”
When Lily was young, the answer had always been simple.
“Your father left before you were born.”
That was true.
At least, it was the truth I had chosen to give her.
There were other details I never told her.
Details involving old arguments, broken promises, unanswered phone calls, and a relationship that had ended long before Lily was old enough to understand what any of it meant.
I told
