My husband felt his son’s hands holding on to him, and he decided, with enough deliberation to physically remove them, that he would rather be somewhere else.

There is no version of that I can soften, no context that redeems it, no explanation that survives the image of a grown man patiently unfastening his own child’s fingers from his arm so that he can walk away.

I stopped loving Julian somewhere in that peeling.

Not all at once, but finally, and for good, and I have never once, in all the time since, felt the loss of it.

Chapter 6 — I Don’t Think We Need Dad Anymore

What happened next happened fast, and I will tell it plainly.