Chapter 15: Distant Father
884 Words
Elena didn’t ask about her father often.
Not because she had forgotten.
But because she had learned that some questions changed the air in the room.
Still, questions don’t disappear just because they are avoided.
They wait.
It happened on an ordinary afternoon.
Elena was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when she heard a voice from a nearby apartment through the open window.
A man laughing.
A child calling, “Dad, look!”
A pause.
Then laughter again.
Elena stopped writing.
Her pencil hovered over the page.
She listened.
Quietly.
When Maria came home later that evening, Elena was already waiting at the table.
She looked up immediately.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
Elena hesitated.
Then asked simply, “Where is my daddy?”
Maria froze.
Not dramatically.
Not visibly.
But Elena noticed.
She always noticed now.
Maria set her bag down slowly.
“Why are you asking now?” she said gently.
Elena shrugged. “I heard someone.”
Maria sighed softly and sat down across from her.
“Elena…”
“I know he is far,” Elena added quickly. “But where?”
Silence followed.
Not empty silence.
Heavy silence.
Maria looked down at her hands for a moment.
Then spoke carefully.
“Your father and I… we didn’t stay together.”
Elena listened closely.
“Why not?”
Maria hesitated.
Because the truth had layers.
Because the truth wasn’t simple.
“Sometimes,” she said slowly, “people are not ready for the same kind of life.”
Elena tilted her head.
“Was I not part of it?”
Maria’s eyes widened slightly.
“No,” she said quickly. “You were always part of it.”
Elena processed that.
Then asked quietly, “Did he not want me?”
Maria’s heart tightened immediately.
“That’s not it,” she said firmly. “It’s complicated.”
Elena nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
But her eyes didn’t fully accept it yet.
That night, Maria sat beside Elena’s bed longer than usual.
Elena lay on her side, facing the wall.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Do I look like him?”
Maria paused.
She hadn’t expected that question.
She gently brushed Elena’s hair.
“You look like yourself,” she said softly.
Elena thought about that.
Then asked, “What does he look like?”
Maria hesitated again.
Tall memories.
Faded details.
Things she had tried not to revisit too often.
“He had dark hair,” she said carefully. “Like yours. And kind eyes.”
Elena nodded.
“Does he know me?”
Maria’s breath caught slightly.
“Yes,” she said. “He knows you exist.”
Elena turned slightly.
“But he is still far.”
“Yes.”
Elena processed that quietly.
Then asked the final question of the night.
“Will he come?”
Maria didn’t answer immediately.
Because she didn’t want to lie.
And she didn’t want to break something fragile inside her daughter either.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
Elena nodded.
“Okay.”
After Maria left the room, Elena stayed awake longer than usual.
Thinking.
Not in confusion this time.
But in construction.
She was building an idea in her mind—carefully, piece by piece.
A father who existed.
But did not come.
A presence that was real.
But distant.
At school the next day, Lily noticed her quietness again.
“You thinking about something?” she asked.
Elena nodded.
“My dad,” she said.
Lily frowned. “Is he gone?”
Elena shook her head.
“No. Just far.”
Lily shrugged. “My dad travels a lot. But he always comes back.”
Elena looked at her.
“Mine maybe doesn’t.”
Lily paused.
“Oh.”
Then after a moment, “That’s sad.”
Elena didn’t respond immediately.
Then said softly, “I don’t know yet.”
Because she truly didn’t.
That evening, Maria returned home exhausted again.
Elena watched her carefully.
“Mommy,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Do you miss him?”
Maria stopped.
The question landed differently.
Because it wasn’t about anger.
It wasn’t about blame.
It was about history.
“Yes,” Maria said quietly. “But not in the way you think.”
Elena tilted her head.
“What way?”
Maria sighed softly.
“In a way that belongs to the past,” she said. “Not the present.”
Elena nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
But something had changed.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just quietly.
Elena now knew there was a person connected to her story who was not here.
And once that knowledge enters a child’s mind…
It begins to ask more questions over time.
That night, Elena sat at her desk and opened her notebook.
She wrote slowly.
“My father is far.”
She paused.
Then added:
“I don’t know what that means yet.”
She stared at it for a long time.
Then closed the notebook.
In the next room, Maria sat alone again.
Thinking not just about the past…
But about how much of it she would eventually have to explain.
Because Elena was growing into questions that could no longer be avoided.
And distance—once understood—was never simple again.
- Writer
