It is not a comfortable thing to say out loud, and I say it anyway, on purpose, because the discomfort is the point.

I spent six months rewriting a night to spare myself the truth of what I had done, and I have promised myself I will never again be a man who edits his own history to protect his ego.

So I keep the truth close, and I say it when it is asked for, and I do not flinch from it.

I came within a handful of blocked phone calls and a deleted voicemail of never knowing my son.