When my daughter whispered, “I miss you, Dad,” into the landline, the world I had rebuilt shattered. Her father had been dead—or so I’d believed for eighteen years.
Victor, my husband, d.i.3.d when Mara was just two weeks old. A sudden, violent car crash. One moment, he kissed my forehead before heading to the store; the next, a police officer stood at the door, gentle and apologetic, delivering words that felt impossible.
I was twenty-three, widowed, and holding a newborn who seemed to know the shape of loss before she could even speak.
Victor’s mother, Irene, took control with cold efficiency. Funeral, cremation, paperwork—everything done fast, without questions. She insisted on a closed casket. I never saw him. I told myself dead was dead, repeating it until it numbed my heart.
Eighteen years passed. Slowly. Painfully. Then suddenly, Mara’s voice changed everything.
It was an ordinary Tuesday. I was drying dishes when I heard her soft, trembling voice.
“Okay… I miss you too, Dad.”
I froze. She slammed the phone down as if it burned her. Wrong number, she claimed. But I knew the truth.
That night, I checked the call log. A number I didn’t recognize appeared again and again. Hands shaking, I dialed.
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