Chapter 21 - Garrett Is Not “Dad”
Garrett struggled with this.
Not because Sorrel rejected him.
Because he had never allowed himself to want the role.
Once truth came out, feelings arrived late.
He asked to attend a soccer game.
Sorrel said yes.
Garrett came.
Cheered too loudly.
Afterward Sorrel ran to me.
Not him.
Garrett’s face changed.
I saw.
He looked ashamed of the reaction.
Later he told me:
“I thought I wanted nothing to change.”
“And?”
“Then he knew and I realized I wanted him to look for me.”
“That’s not fair to him.”
“I know.”
This time he did.
“Then manage it.”
He did.
Therapy.
Boundaries.
No gifts without checking.
No:
son.
He called him Sorrel.
Sorrel called him Uncle Garrett.
At seven, Sorrel experimented once.
“Bio-dad.”
Garrett laughed.
“Sounds like yogurt.”
Sorrel kept it for two weeks.
Then stopped.
Identity is not a courtroom label.
It evolves.
I never required:
Dad is only mine.
That would have been insecurity.
But I also did not pretend Garrett had earned a parental role through DNA.
He had not.
He could build a relationship.
Different.
May you like
That balance became possible once none of us treated biology as a throne.
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