“Mommy,” my six-year-old said, tugging on my shirt, his eyes wide and earnest, “Can you go to Donuts with Dad Day at school next week?”My heart stopped. It didn’t just skip a beat, it seized, a cold, hard fist clamping around it. I knelt, trying to gauge the innocence in his question, but all I could see was the raw, unvarnished truth.
“But sweetie,” I managed, my voice thin, “that’s… that’s for Dads.”He tilted his head, a gesture that always melts me, but this time, it just twisted the knife deeper. “Yeah, but you do all the dad things. So maybe you could go?”
The air left my lungs in a rush, a silent, desperate gasp. I hugged him tight, burying my face in his soft hair, the smell of his shampoo a fragile comfort against the hurricane brewing inside me. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t possibly understand the weight of that simple, childish observation.
A happy mother with her children | Source: Midjourney
He does know, a traitorous thought whispered. He sees.
For years, it had been me. Only me. The broken garage door that needed fixing? My YouTube tutorials and scraped knuckles. The wobbly bike chain, the flat tire, the clogged drain – all me. The late-night monster checks, the scraped knees that needed a firm, comforting voice, the lectures about playing fair and standing up for himself. Every single “dad thing” had fallen squarely on my shoulders.
I remembered the early days, the hopeful conversations. “When he’s older, we’ll teach him how to throw a baseball.” “I can’t wait to take him fishing.” Promises. Dreams. They felt so real then, so tangible.
But then the gradual fade began. First, it was the extra hours at work. Then, the missed school plays, the forgotten soccer games. Just busy, he’s providing for us, I’d tell myself, a flimsy shield against the growing chill in my gut. I started taking over, quietly at first. Picking up the slack. Covering for him. Because our boy deserved a full life, a present parent. Even if it meant I had to be two people.
I learned to use a drill. I learned the names of every superhero. I even learned to tie a tie for his kindergarten picture day, a ridiculous, heartbreaking skill I never thought I’d need to master myself. I spent countless evenings in the garage, tools scattered around me, fixing, building, repairing. Not because I enjoyed it, but because it had to be done. And if I didn’t do it, no one would.
The resentment had festered, a slow-burning fire beneath the surface of my determined smile. I’d watch other fathers at the park, laughing, throwing balls, their presence so effortlessly woven into the fabric of their children’s lives. And I’d feel a bitter envy, a sharp pang of injustice. Why couldn’t we have that? Why couldn’t HE be that? I’d come home exhausted, sometimes crying into my pillow, wondering if I was strong enough to keep carrying the weight of two parents. Wondering if I was failing him, failing us, by trying to fill a void that felt bottomless.
A man driving a car | Source: Midjourney
And now, this. “You do all the dad things.” It was a validation of every silent struggle, every tear shed in the shower, every moment of utter, soul-crushing exhaustion. It was an innocent accusation, a child’s clear-eyed judgment on a reality I’d painstakingly constructed for him.
I pulled away, looking into his eyes. They were still bright, still trusting, but there was a flicker there, a burgeoning awareness that scared me to my core. He wasn’t asking if a dad would go. He was asking if I could go, because in his 6-year-old world, I was the closest thing he had to one.
My throat tightened. I swallowed, trying to find my voice, trying to formulate a response that wouldn’t shatter his precious innocence. What do I say? How do I explain?
He broke the silence, his small voice echoing in the quiet kitchen. “So, can you? Can you be my dad for Donuts with Dad Day?”
The words hit me like a physical blow. A sudden, blinding flash of realization, an ice-cold wave of truth that washed over me, drowning out all the carefully constructed fantasies, all the comforting lies I’d told myself.
I looked at the framed photo on the counter – us, years ago, laughing, his arm around me, our faces full of hope and a future that never arrived. His smile was so vibrant, so full of life.
I felt my eyes well up, tears blurring the edges of the photograph. He wasn’t just “busy.” He wasn’t just “working late.” He wasn’t just “absent.”
He was gone.
A car accident, three years ago, almost to the day. One second, he was there, making plans for our son’s future. The next, he was a memory.
An exterior of an abandoned building | Source: Midjourney
In my grief, in my desperate need to shield our son from that raw, adult pain, I had created a story. A gentle, vague narrative of a father who was “away.” Away on a long trip. Away for work. Away, but he loves you so much. I’d woven a beautiful, fragile lie, one that I had come to believe myself, at least in the quieter, darker moments. I’d talked to his photo, asked him for advice, kept his side of the bed untouched for months. I convinced myself he was just elsewhere, just not here.
But our son’s question, so simple, so direct, had ripped through the delicate tapestry of my delusion. He wasn’t asking for his dad. He was asking for a dad. And he had recognized that I, his mother, was the only one left to play that role.
I cradled my son’s head against my chest, his small body a tangible comfort against the gaping wound that had just reopened inside me. The tears streamed down my face now, hot and unstoppable. Not just tears of grief for a love lost, but tears of absolute, EARTH-SHATTERING understanding.
He knew. Not intellectually, not with the harsh reality of an adult, but in his innocent, six-year-old way, he had processed the profound, crushing absence. He knew the dad he saw in photos, the dad I spoke of in hushed, hopeful tones, was not the dad who taught him to ride his bike, or fixed his toys, or would ever, ever take him to Donuts with Dad Day.
And the heartbreaking truth was, neither would I. Because the “dad things” I did weren’t out of resentment. They were out of a desperate, undying love for a man who couldn’t be there, and for a son who deserved to feel whole, even with half his world missing.
I closed my eyes, a fresh wave of despair washing over me. I HADN’T PROTECTED HIM. I HAD JUST DELAYED THE INEVITABLE. He had asked me to be his dad. And in that moment, I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that the biggest, hardest “dad thing” I would ever have to do was finally, finally tell him why I was the only one left. And that his dad wasn’t just “away” anymore. He was never coming back.
