What do we inherit from those who raised us? And how do we break the cycle?Giuseppe's story begins with an absence. At two years old, he loses his mother to cancer. His father, destroyed by grief, becomes a ghost in his own home-physically present but emotionally unreachable. A devoted aunt tries to fill the void, but there's always that word: almost. Almost a mother. Almost enough. Almost whole.At six, Giuseppe's father remarries and moves the family from southern Italy to the industrial north, severing the few fragile connections Giuseppe had. He grows up as an outsider in his own home, watching his stepmother Lucia nurture her biological children while he and his stepbrother Marco exist at the margins of family life.At fifteen, Giuseppe runs. He returns south with a cardboard suitcase and barely any money, seeking the family he barely remembers. His aunt and grandmother welcome him, give him stability, even wealth. But Giuseppe has learned to survive without attachment, and he can't stop running-through student movements, architecture school, military service, and a string of relationships where he never quite lets anyone in.Then comes Sara, and with her, children. Giacobbe is born, then Anna. Giuseppe swears to be different, to be present, to break the cycle. For a few years, it seems possible. Skiing at Christmas, summers at the beach, bedtime stories. The family he never had.But when Sara betrays him, Giuseppe discovers that the wounds of childhood run deeper than willpower. He flees to Africa-Morocco, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Gambia-working himself to exhaustion on construction sites thousands of miles from his children. The boy who was abandoned becomes the father who abandons.Years later, confined by illness to his armchair, Giuseppe receives a call from his adult son. The accusations are devastating because they're true: Giuseppe became exactly what he hated. Now, facing the end of his life, he attempts one final act of connection-writing his memoirs, not to seek forgiveness, but to offer his children the one thing he can still give: understanding.Almost a Father is an intimate, unflinching portrait of generational trauma, the patterns we can't escape, and the painful honesty required to face ourselves. It's a story about absence, inheritance, and the question that haunts us all: Can we ever truly break free from what we've been given?