The house was still at night—too still for a house where there was a child. Still pressed against the walls like an unwelcome guest, filling each corner with questions that couldn't be answered.
"Ma," the tiny voice broke into it, hesitant but insistent, "everybody else has a father, why can't I?"
She looked up out of the candle's flame, her shadow extending far out on the floor. Her daughter's unblinking, wide eyes searched her for secrets she wasn't yet willing to tell.
"There are stories," she breathed, pulling a strand of hair behind the girl's ear, "that come too early when they're spoken. Some truths are like empty letters—so they will have to wait for the moment to be just so."
The child frowned, lips folding in as if she already knew her mother wasn't telling her something. Children always knew, maybe.
She turned from her daughter before her daughter's eyes could read the fear. Outside, the wind writhed the trees in frustrated sighs. At some point during the night, a memory surfaced—a name she had concealed, a promise she had failed, a secret behind silence.
Being a single parent was not about holding a family together.
It was about bearing a history that could never be told.
And one day, when the child could ask again, the truth would no longer wait.
________________________
Mishti 🦋
YOU ARE READING
Unwritten Vows
RomanceShe built her world around her child, promising never to fall again. But then he came a stranger with kindness in his eyes, and love strong enough to embrace not just her, but the little heart she lived for.
