The first time Sophie asks about her father, I tell her he’s a shooting star; beautiful, fleeting, and impossible to hold.
She’s two then, too young to understand the weight of my lie.
But tonight, as I tuck her into bed, she asks again.
And this time, I have no answers.
Mommy, she whispers, her tiny hand reaching for mine, “does everyone have a daddy?”
I freeze.
The question I’ve been dreading for three years.
I could lie again.
I could tell her he’s dead, or far away, or that he never existed.
But Sophie is three now.
She’s starting to understand.
And I’m running out of shooting stars.
I look at her, really look at her.
She has his eyes.
Dark, deep, full of wonder.
She has my stubbornness, my chin, my freckles.
But those eyes, those eyes are Alexander’s.
Every time I look at her, I see him.
Every time I look at her, I remember.
“Some people don’t have daddies,” I say carefully, tucking a curl behind her ear.
“But they have mommies who love them very much.”
Sophie considers this.
She’s quiet for a long moment, her small brow furrowed in concentration.
Then she nods, apparently satisfied.
“Okay, Mommy.
I love you.”
“I love you too, baby.
More than anything in the whole world.”
I kiss her forehead and turn off the light.
But as I close her door, I hear her whisper into the darkness: “I wished on a star tonight, Mommy.
I wished for him to come back.”
I lean against the wall, my hand pressed to my mouth, and I don’t let myself cry.
I haven’t cried in three years.
I’m not about to start now.
But that night, I dream of him.
I dream of Alexander Albert, and the way he used to hold me, and the way he looked at me like I was the only person in the world.
I dream of the night he broke my heart.
And when I wake up, I’m crying after all.
I haven’t cried in three years.
But tonight, the tears won’t stop.
And I realize, with a sickening lurch in my chest, that I’m not as over him as I thought I was.