And then he told me something he’d never told me in nine years of marriage.
And it explained the whole thing.
I had to set my coffee cup down.
When Travis was twelve years old, his mother remarried.
The man’s name was Dale.
He wasn’t a bad man, Travis said. He worked hard. Paid the bills. Never raised a hand to anybody.
That spring, Travis played Little League.
At the end of the season, there was a banquet at the American Legion. The boys’ fathers were supposed to stand up behind them when they got their trophies.
Travis asked Dale to come.
And Dale said, right there in front of Travis’s mother, at their own kitchen table:
“You’re not mine to raise. That’s your dad’s job. I’m not going to stand up there and pretend.”
“My dad wasn’t coming either,” Travis said. “So I walked up there alone. I got my trophy. I walked back to my seat. And I never asked Dale for anything ever again.”
