The easy version is that I was too stunned to speak.

I wasn’t stunned.

I knew exactly what I could say. And I knew that if I said it hard enough, Travis would walk her out.

He’s a man who does what he’s asked.

If I’d looked at him across that table and said, “You’re walking her out, and that’s the end of it,” he’d have nodded. And he’d have done it.

And then my daughter would have walked onto that gym floor on the arm of a man who was only there because his wife made him.

She’d have known it.

Every picture on the refrigerator would have known it.

I didn’t want that for her.

I wanted him to choose her.

Nine years in, I wanted just one time where nobody had to ask him. Where he just stood up and took the spot. Because it was his.

So I scraped the pan. And I waited.

I’m not sure that was right. It might’ve been a kind of pride.

But that’s the truth of why I kept my mouth shut.

My name is Jodi Brandt. I’m forty-one years old. I’m a dental hygienist in a little town in southern Minnesota, about forty minutes from Mankato.

And I need to tell you about Kaylee’s father. Because Travis wasn’t wrong that there was one.

His name is Ryan. We got married young. Twenty-two. In the Lutheran church I grew up in.

Ryan took a job in the North Dakota oil fields when Kaylee was four.

The money was good. And the distance turned out to be even better. For him.

He came home less. Then not at all.

For a while, he called on her birthdays. Then he called on some of them.

The last call came when she turned eleven. He promised he’d drive down for her confirmation.

He didn’t come.

That was six years ago.

She still has a phone number for him. She hasn’t dialed it since seventh grade. She keeps it in her contacts under his first name. Ryan. Not Dad.<<<…CONTINUE READING…>>>