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“Daddy, I Like This Better Than the Motel” — The Story America Doesn’t Want to Admit

I tell my boys this is just a camping trip — no rules, no bedtime, just us guys. They believe me, even as we eat peanut butter from paper cups and sleep in a tent hidden behind a rest stop. The truth is, no shelter will take us, and every day I pray for space that never comes. Last night, my middle son whispered in his sleep, “Daddy, I like this better than the motel.” And that’s when my heart broke, because it meant…

They’re still asleep. Huddled beneath a paper-thin blue blanket in a sagging tent pitched behind a rest stop. Their little chests rise and fall in rhythm, as if this patch of dirt is the safest place on earth. For a brief, stolen moment, I let myself pretend this is a vacation. That I’m just a dad who thought camping with his boys would be fun.

But the truth? We’re not camping. We’re surviving.

Six weeks ago, their mother vanished. A note. A half-empty bottle of Advil. That’s all she left behind. The boys still ask where she is. I tell them she’s busy. I tell them she loves them. I tell them anything but the truth: she’s gone, and I don’t know if she’s ever coming back.