My daughter thinks her father left us, but I know he was deported

Dear Delyara, My daughter was five when her father was deported. I told her he had to go away for work because I thought she was too young to understand detention, immigration, and why he could not simply come home. He eventually stopped calling regularly because hearing her cry destroyed him. She is sixteen now and believes he abandoned us. She says she does not care about him. I have allowed that belief to grow because every year telling the truth becomes harder. He still sends birthday messages through me. I sometimes delete parts where he says he misses her because I do not know how to explain the missing years. Last week, she said, “If he wanted to be my dad, he would have found a way.” I nearly told her. Instead, I said nothing. The truth will not magically give her a present father. It may only replace one wound with another and add the knowledge that her mother helped maintain the wrong story. I thought I was protecting a five-year-old from politics. I did not realize I was also creating a sixteen-year-old who has spent eleven years believing she was not worth staying for.