Reconcile.

Growing up I was one of many kids from "broken" homes. So many parents had divorced that when someone said theirs were still together, it was sometimes a shock. I heard many kids talk about how they wished their parents would reunite. I even watched as some tried to bring them back together through not-so-cleverly-schemed set ups.

I never once wished my parents would reunite.

You see, I never knew them to be together. They split when I was very young and all of my memories are of my mom. No dad. Just a mom doing her very best to raise her daughters. My father was a ghost, an apparition of parenthood. He didn't exist to me. His existence was nothing more than a childhood fairy tale. Folklore.

The stories were few and far between. I knew they married far too young, my mother was pregnant with me. They were children themselves and had no business being together. Their fire burned furiously until it burnt out and my mother was left standing in the ashes with two small children to raise on her own. She picked us up, moved on.

My sister, a handful of photographs, and myself were the only proof he ever had a relationship with my mom. There was never any contact with us after it was over. None as we grew up. No birthday cards or Christmas dinners. He was nothing more than an empty seat at my dance recitals. A missing piece of my genetic puzzle. I had no desire for him to come back because I never knew him to be there. The only relationship I had with him was the one I had with a tattered photograph and less than happy stories. I have never wanted my father to reconcile with my mother.

But maybe someday, the reconciliation will be with me.

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