When I was 18 and pregnant, my father threw me out. He left my belongings on the lawn and told me I was no longer his responsibility. That was the last time I saw him. For ten years, I raised my daughter alone, rebuilding my life piece by piece, determined never to need him again.
So when he suddenly appeared at my workplace, tears in his eyes, asking to meet my little girl, I was stunned. At first, I laughed. This man—who abandoned me at my lowest—now wanted access to the child he never cared about? I thought maybe he was remorseful, maybe dying, and wanted to make peace before it was too late. For a moment, I almost softened.
But then the truth came out. He didn’t come for me or even for her. He came because his son—my half-brother I never met—needed a bone marrow transplant. My daughter, he said, might be the match that could save him.
I stood frozen, torn between anger and guilt. The father who broke me was asking for help through the child I had built my life around. Do I punish him by refusing—or risk dragging my daughter into a painful burden she never asked for? I still don’t know the answer. All I know is he came back, not with love, but with need—and that cuts deeper than his absence ever did.
