I was 12 years old, and where I belonged. I was at home in Clydebank, Scotland, where I’d been born and raised. I knew the landscape, the alleys, the tunnels, and the expansive geography. I knew where the library was, the gents’ public toilet, and the pet shop. I knew my neighbors, and they knew me.

I knew Sgt. Munro who directed traffic outside the shipyard entrance. I knew the butcher and which red double-decker buses took you on the half-hour ride to different parts of Glasgow. I knew the two major soccer teams and how to get to Ibrox Stadium to watch the Glasgow Rangers play a home game, where I waved my red, white, and blue scarf.

I knew the turns to take to get to Renfrew Ferry, and how the vessel pulled itself on massive chains across the River Clyde. I knew, after disembarking, which Paisley bus would take me to the ice rink for my weekly skating lesson with Miss Jagger.

I loved the cool moist air, the softness of the rain, the classy ring-ring of British phones, and the precise, sharp uniforms of the police, complete with checkerboard hats. I knew this and so much more, and I loved all of it.

Then one day, the phone rang. The long-distance operator said she had a person-to-person call for my mother. The call was brief. It was my father with an announcement: After an 11-year absence, he was returning to Scotland for a two-week visit.

My father had served in the 91st and 52nd anti-tank regiments of the Royal Artillery from January 1943 until August 1945 and was part of the jointly coordinated efforts between the United Kingdom and the United States during major operations in Europe during World War II.

A few years into civilian life, he struggled to get a “good job” while others—including those who had not fought—established themselves in desirable work. I had just turned a year old when my father crossed the Atlantic alone, leaving Scotland and his family for Canada.

Now that he was coming back, we’d have to clean up the house.

I met my father a few months later. He sat in the front room, and my mother introduced him to me. I stood behind an armchair, shaking. I didn’t want to meet him.

Mother had never had nice things to say about my father, often referring to him as a good-for-nothing bastard or complaining that when he sent money it was never quite enough. He was a “cheapskate,” she said, living in luxury while she spent grueling days at the Singer sewing machine factory. When my sister fought for her life for weeks in the hospital with osteomyelitis—a grave bone infection—my mother told us he was basking in the sunshine across the ocean. Meanwhile, I was at home alone, until my grandparents stepped in and took me to their home for a few weeks of delicious food and glorious affection.

It was no wonder I was prepared to reject him, that when he looked at me and said in amazement that I must be my older sister, I felt contempt.

What mother said is true, I thought. He really is a good-for-nothing.

It would take decades to learn that my mother had engaged in parental alienation, a form of manipulation that turned me against him in his absence.

My life was further upended when, as a result of that visit, it was decided that we would move to North America the following year to begin a new life with my father. We would have to say goodbye to family, friends, schoolmates, and all of our belongings. I protested, threw tantrums, and prayed to God not to let them do that to me. I didn’t want to leave all that I knew and loved to live with him.

When I said as much to my mother, I thought she might pass out. “For God’s sake, don’t tell him I said those things about him! He’s actually a good man.”

What?

She warned us not to ever repeat the things she’d said about him during his absence. And she forbade us from speaking directly to him—if we ever wanted to say something to my father, we had to tell her first, and she would relay it to him. She told my father that we were afraid to speak to him and that she was only helping.

I watched and listened from a distance to his shouted complaints; his heated, violent arguments with my mother; and his silence.

For years, I avoided him, did not ask him questions, and did not seek his advice.

Then one day, he complained to my mother that I had been watching Combat, my favorite TV show about a US platoon fighting its way across Europe during World War II.

I decided to challenge him.

“I wasn’t born when the war was on!” I shouted. “If I’m so stupid about what the war was really like, then why don’t you tell me what it was like?”

“Don’t tell her,” my mother said.

“You stay out of this,” my father said to her. “I’ve gone along with what you wanted for too long. She asked, so I’m going to tell her.”

He told me about walking through an open field with a contingent of soldiers, including his best friend. They were in conversation when his friend stepped on a mine midsentence.

“All that came down from the sky were bits. Bits of earth and bits of body,” he said.

He was looking upwards, seeing the horror in his mind’s eye. “The biggest bit of him I saw was a tuft of hair.”

His voice cracked ever so quietly. It would have been easy to miss.

“What you see on television is drivel.”

My dad and I began to talk at length about all sorts of things after that. He taught me the importance of honesty and of reading a newspaper daily, which is still a practice for me. He showed me how to tape transport trucks for him to spray paint, and I began working with him on weekends as his helper. He gave me permission to drive his car around the industrial parking lot—“sensibly now”—while he worked. I looked forward to his made-from-scratch vegetable soup and hamburgers, which made me salivate. I salivate now, thinking of them.

One night, I left a rowdy party far from home and with no ride—and it was my father I reached out to for help.

“Hail a cab,” he said, so I did.

When I got home, he paid the cabbie and tipped him. Generously. He, who always said we couldn’t afford things, tipped generously!

Slowly, I realized that I got my freckles from my dad, my blue eyes, and the space between my front teeth. We looked alike, but we also thought alike. We shared opinions and standards and work ethic.

As I grew closer to my father, a divide opened between me and my mother and sister. We were often at odds. But my father always stood up for me, no matter how difficult it might be.

Then one day he fell ill. My mother claimed it was all in his head and mocked him. Yet I somehow knew it was serious. I phoned his doctor, who assured me that his illness was real. He told me he would remember the difficulties my father faced as he continued to treat him.

As my dying father sat in his hospital bed, he remained my biggest champion.

And then, almost as suddenly as he had come into my life, my beloved dad was gone.

This War Horse reflection was written by Dorothy Pedersen, edited by Kristin Davis, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Abbie Bennett wrote the headlines.