I adopted my best friend’s son after he abandoned him — years later, the boy invited him to a championship game and gave a speech that made me break down.

I fought him about it for a week. I lost.

He said one thing that ended it, which was: “You worked six days a week until I was eight. You get to see the games.”

He is eighteen and he has learned exactly how to do that to me.

I still work at Tulley’s. I own a third of it now; Dev Tulley sold me in over four years and it’s the best money I ever spent.

Neve and I got married in June. She has been in this since 2021 and Amari gave a toast that was mostly about her, which was the correct call.

Some things I’ve thought about since.

I did not tell him about that letter for nine years and I’d do it again. I want to say that plainly, because a lot of people have told me I was wrong to hide it.

A nine-year-old boy can survive knowing his father left. A nine-year-old boy should not have to also know his father priced him.

He found it at seventeen, when he was old enough to hold it, and I would rather he found it in a box than heard it from me at nine.

He disagrees with me about this. We’ve argued about it twice.