“How come you never came to my birthdays?”

I had prepared about eleven answers for that and I used none of them.

What I said was: “Because grown-ups made a mess.

Some of it was somebody else and some of it was me, and the part that was me is a thing I’m going to tell you about properly when you’re bigger, because you’re going to want to know exactly and right now I’d only be able to tell you a soft version.

“But none of it was you, and none of it was your mom.

I want to be extremely clear about that part today and we can do the rest later.”

He thought about that.

Then he said: “Do I have to call you Dad?”

And I said, “No.”

“What do I call you?”