I re-read it during their late-night fevers, when I was the only one awake in the world.

I read it on their birthdays, the ones with no father in the room.

I read it while I was filling out their school medical forms with a blank space where a father goes.

And I read it every single time one of our sons asked me why the other kids’ dads came to the school play, and I had to decide, again, what to tell them about a man who had signed his name to a letter saying he did not want them.”

I turned to my mother, and I held up the forged letter, and my hand was shaking.

“You forged my signature.”