Negative Space (SFWP Literary Awards)

by Lilly Dancyger

I was an adult, and adults exist without their parents, so nobody seemed to understand the weight of his absence.

I explained in a rambling, high-pitched flood how much it hurt to do this without my father. How I didn’t want to do it without him, how I felt like I was leaving him behind, betraying him, by standing up in front of everyone I knew and saying I was happy. That to get married felt like saying I had what I needed in life, that I was ready to go forward and into a new future,

I may have been able to learn more about who he was as a man, but even the ugliest truths wouldn’t change who he was to me as my father.