It was simpler that way—easier than admitting he was alive somewhere out there, riding with a motorcycle club in some forgotten corner of Kansas. Easier than confessing my tuition didn’t come from a trust fund, but from a made-up “family scholarship” I’d crafted to make my story sound clean.
“What did your father do?” my roommate once asked, glancing at the blank wall where no picture of him hung.
And, in my mind, he had. The man who smelled of sawdust and sunlight, who’d read to me at night, was gone the day my mother left. The father I adored was replaced by a stranger—his face shadowed with fatigue, his hands scarred by years on the road, his love hidden beneath layers of oil and exhaust. He sent me away to live with my aunt, and the money came—quiet, consistent, impersonal. Money orders. Nothing more.
When he showed up at my graduation, he didn’t just embarrass me—he exposed me. Exposed the lie I’d built to hide the truth of who I was.
Richard squeezed my hand gently. “Don’t worry, darling,” he whispered. “The Hamiltons understand. Some people just can’t be fixed.”
I nodded, but a cold knot tightened in my chest.
Later that night, after the champagne toasts and forced smiles, I stepped outside my dorm. On the doorstep sat a small, battered wooden box—plain, unwrapped, waiting.Continue reading…
