When the defense ended, Professor Thompson came forward to shake hands with me and my family. When he reached Jack, he paused, looked at him closely, and then his expression softened.
I grew up in an incomplete family. My parents divorced when I was barely walking. My mother, Emily, took me back to our small hometown in rural Pennsylvania, a place of endless cornfields, wind, and gossip. I barely remember my biological father’s face, but I remember the emptiness—both material and emotional—of my early years.
When I was four, my mother remarried. Jack came into our lives with nothing but his lean frame, tanned skin, and hands calloused from cement and steel. At first, I didn’t like him. He was strange, left early, returned late, and smelled of sweat and dust. But he was also the first to fix my broken bicycle, sew my torn shoes without complaint, and quietly clean up my messes. When I was bullied at school, he didn’t scold me; he rode his old bike to pick me up, saying only:
— “You don’t have to call me dad. But I’ve got your back, always.”
I was silent, but from that day on, I started calling him Dad.