There is forgiveness, which is an internal act, a letting-go of the corrosive grip of resentment, something you do inside yourself, for your own sake, so that the people who hurt you do not get to keep hurting you from inside your own mind.

And then there is reconciliation, or rescue, the resumption of relationship, the reopening of trust, the granting of access, the material help, the second chance.

These are not the same thing, though the people who have wronged you will work tirelessly to make you believe they are, because if forgiveness requires rescue, then your own moral goodness becomes the lever by which they extract what they want.

My father did not actually want my forgiveness, in the internal sense; he did not care about the state of my heart.