I believed I knew everything about the little girl I raised as my own. I believed there were no secrets left between us. Then, on the night of her wedding, a stranger stepped out of the crowd and quietly told me I had no idea what my daughter had been hiding.
My name is Caleb. I’m fifty-five. More than three decades ago, my life ended—and restarted—on the same night.
There was a car accident. A phone call. A calm voice, practiced, almost rehearsed, explaining that my wife and six-year-old daughter were gone. Just like that. Mary and Emma. One moment they were real, warm, alive. The next, memories.
The world didn’t shatter loudly. It went quiet. Endless, suffocating quiet that followed me everywhere—into sleep, into work, into every pause between thoughts.
For years, I didn’t live. I existed. Frozen dinners in front of the TV. Friends tried. My sister called. None of it filled the space they left behind. The house stayed empty.
I kept Emma’s drawings on the fridge until they yellowed and curled. Proof she’d been real.
I never planned to be a father again. That part of me felt buried with them. I’d already loved once. I’d already failed.
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