Despite having lived with him for a little over sixteen years, I only have one memory of my father. It was late at night for a seven-year-old — something like 11:30, which is the time he came home from one of the three jobs he kept — and I insisted on staying up to greet him. As soon as I heard the key turn, I jumped off the couch and ran to the door, jumping up and down, most likely holding my breath so I didn’t just explode right there. He was only one step inside when I grabbed him, wrapping my little arms tightly around his torso.

“Daddy!”

The look my father gave me was indelibly filled with contempt.

“Get away from me, you piece of shit,” he said.

I went to see The Switch last week, and I wasn’t expecting to get so fucked up over a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston. In the movie, a young boy named Sebastian — born of artificial insemination to Aniston’s character — collects picture frames and decidedly keeps the stock photographs in them. He invents bizarre narratives for the people in these photos, and seems to believe that all of them are somehow related to his father, whom he has never met. The old man with the fishing rod is, for example, his grandfather; the jockish blond guy is his father’s brother. A picture of Sebastian’s actual father is noticeably absent, obviously, and this is presumably because he hopes to see him for real one day. In the meantime, these narratives fill the void.

It may sound strange coming from a person who technically grew up with a mother and father, but this scene resonated with me so strongly that I wanted to stand up and stop the movie so we could rewind it. Because I did that too. But instead of stock photography, I stared endlessly at magazine adverts. I asked parents of friends — more than once — if they would adopt me. I told friends that I was pretty sure I had been adopted, and that someday, my real parents would come and find me. To this end, I paid close attention to every very-special-episode of a television sitcom that ever dealt with adoption, and searched for hints as to how to make that day come faster.

When I turned sixteen — when I realized that day would never come — I decided to drop out of school and leave home. My mother locked herself in the bathroom, crying, but I knew it wasn’t because she was going to miss me as much as it was that she could never explain how this happened to the members of her church. After all, she did everything Jesus said to do, including and perhaps most fervently, strengthening her commitment to never ever spare the rod under any circumstance. Sometimes she took the rod out just for fun — or the belt, or the cookware, or the wooden clogs she wore in the summer. Whichever was closest. She fucking loved the power the Bible gave her.

If my father had any reaction to my departure at all, I might have remembered it, and then I’d have two memories of my father. But he didn’t seem to care either way.

I wasn’t born with the name Brannon. My birth name is out there — on the records I’ve made and in the magazines I used to write for — but it’s been so long now that a lot of people I know don’t realize I was ever called by anything else. Even my birth certificate is clear about who I am: NORMAN CHRISTOPHER BRANNON. I don’t respond to any other name.

As far as I know, my father doesn’t know that I had my name legally changed. It’s been so long since we spoke, I can’t even say whether or not he’s still alive. I think about this because his surname was the last vestige of connection between us, and I just as easily abandoned it as he did me. I can’t feel bad about that; in the only memory I have of my father, he called me a piece of shit. The old man with the fishing rod would have been happy to see me at the door that day. He would have said, “I love you, son,” before tucking me in, instead of sending me to bed crying.

It’s unfortunate, but there’s a point when these narratives stop working and nothing can fill the void except for that thing you know you’ve never had.