Chapter 3: Where is Daddy?
It was just a normal evening—
until my child looked up at me with wide, quiet eyes and asked the question I had been dreading since the day you disappeared.
"Where is Daddy?"
I froze.
The spoon in my hand stopped mid-air.
The rice was still steaming. The TV was playing cartoons.
But everything in me went still.
How do you explain abandonment to a child?
How do you make excuses for someone who didn't even say goodbye?
I forced a smile. A soft one.
"He… he had to go do something very important," I whispered. "He might be gone for a long time."
My child blinked.
Then asked, "Does he still love me?"
My heart broke clean in two.
I wanted to say yes.
I wanted to lie.
I wanted to believe it myself.
But the words wouldn't come.
So I bent down, held him close, and kissed the top of his head.
"You are loved," I said, holding back tears. "So, so loved. By me. By Grandma. By everyone who's here."
He didn't reply.
He just leaned into me, quiet and small, as if he already understood more than any child should.
That night, he didn't ask again.
But he started drawing pictures of our family—with one person always missing.
At bedtime, he stared at the door a little longer.
And sometimes, I'd hear him cry in his sleep.
I would wipe his tears gently, even when mine were falling too.
Because no matter how much it hurt me,
he didn't deserve to grow up thinking he wasn't worth staying for.