Dear Monte


Now that I’m 15 and a sophmore in high school, I have a lot of questions for you.


Why didn’t you ever try to be part of my life?

Why did you let my mother and I slip away?


I tell myself: A father is not the one who makes you. A father is the one who raises you.


That means my stepdad was my real father. He looked after my mother, my little sister and me.

When I was a child, I’d take everything out of his chest of drawers.

Then I’d make a

Pile in the middle of the floor and curl up in it like a nest.

My stepdad wasn’t my own blood, but he took care of me.

So is my real father the one who behaves like one,

Or is he the mystery man who fathered me?


My Mom always told me I’d want to know more about you as I got

Older. She was right. Around 13, I started asking more and more

Questions about you. What are you really like? Did my mom’s being

Pregnant scare you?


The doctors told her she could never get pregnant, but then she did, with me.

My mom said you wouldn’t even give her a lift to the pay phone when she

Was nine months pregnant.

She said you never paid a dime of child support, but you wouldn’t sign

The adoption papers to give me up either.


What are you really like? I heard when I was two months old, my mom

Left to move back in with her parents in her home state.

You didn’t do anything for her when she was pregnant.

Why would you do anything for her when I was born?

I guess you didn’t.


You were a pretty messed up guy. That’s what I heard.

You were in a gang and you were stabbed 27 times in

A fight. Most of the stuff I know about you disappoints me.

My mother made some poor choices in life too. Those

Choices blew our family apart. The past few years I’ve been through a lot,

But I’m doing a lot better now and enjoy my foster home

Very much, even though I no longer live with my mom, my stepdad or my little sister.


I don’t want you to think I wrote to you because I suddenly want

You to start acting likemy father. I have one—my stepdad, and he’s the

Best Dad I could ever ask for.


For the past fifteen years of my life, you haven’t been there for me.

I don’t expect you to jump on the task once you get this letter.


If you write back, you do. If you don’t, you don’t. I just

Hope that one day, I have enough courage to send this letter

(and tell you everything that’s in my heart.)