I grew up believing my father died when I was eight years old. There was no funeral, no grave, no folded suit in the closet that smelled like him. Just a quiet afternoon when my mother sat me down, looked at me with a kind of practiced calm, and said, “He’s gone now, Stephanie. Let him go.” That was the whole explanation. No details. No stories. Just an ending. So I accepted it. Children do that when adults speak with certainty. When teachers asked, I said he was dead. When classmates compared tragedies like trading cards, I nodded and repeated...
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