“And so he understood something,” Mr.

Vance went on.

“He understood that if he simply walked up to you and announced that he was your long-lost father, every wall you had spent your life building would slam up at once.

You would see the man who abandoned you, the deadbeat, the ghost, and you would defend yourself against him, and rightly so, because that was the only version of him you had ever been given.

He did not want to meet you across that wall.