I buried the Phantom Commander nineteen years ago because I did not want my daughter raised by him.

And the greatest test of that decision came on the worst night of her life, when bringing him back would have felt like love — and I kept him buried anyway, because keeping him buried was the truer love.

She will never fully know what it cost, or what I turned down in that room.

That’s all right.

A father’s hardest work is often the work his children never see.

And I have made my peace with the fact that Chloe will never fully know the shape of what happened in that rented room, because I have come to believe that this is just as it should be.