This article was published in collaboration with Vice.
My daughter was eight the last time she wrote, and in the envelope was a note from her mother, my ex. "I'm married again and two dads are too confusing for her right now. You can write me at this P.O. Box, but please don't write her anymore."
I was four years into a 30-year bid, and was being told that I didn’t have a choice — that I must not write my daughter even one more time. I would just be… gone to her. No goodbye. No explanation about Mommy and Daddy's complications. Just silence and a hope that when she could, she might try to find me. The next time I heard from her, she was two weeks away from turning 18. She wrote me a letter explaining just how traumatic it was for her when I stopped writing — when I vanished — without any warning. "Dear Dan," the letter began. "I don't know if you'll remember me or not, my name's Brooke and I'm your daughter..."
[For more of this story, written by Daniel Royston, https://www.themarshallproject...om-prison#.ras54NkBU]
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