“That the trail had gone cold.

That he was better off.

That a man in my position could not go turning over that kind of stone.

They were all lies.

The truth is simpler and worse.

I stopped because I was afraid of what I would find, or of what he would say to me if I found him, and it was easier to bury the whole thing under work and money than to face a door that might be slammed in my face.

And so a boy grew up in institutions and foster homes, alone, because his father was too much of a coward to come looking.” I did not contradict him.