That night, I lay once again against Father's chest. Warm. Gentle. But behind every heartbeat I heard from him, there was something else something I couldn't quite understand. His gaze wasn't as whole as it used to be. Sometimes, when I lifted my face, I caught him staring far beyond the ceiling, as if searching for someone who was no longer here.
I followed his gaze. On the table stood a small family photo frame: Father, a woman with a soft smile, and a little girl who looked just like me… but wasn't me. That face smiled brightly in silence, frozen behind the cold glass.
I knew the woman there was my mother.
And the little girl… she was Lina, the real one.
While I… was only her imitation. A doll Father had created to fill the empty space she left behind.
One day, Father stared at that photo for a very long time. His hands trembled as he lifted the frame, then set it down in front of us. "Father…" I called softly, but my voice was already drowned in his memories.
I could feel the pain behind his smile the warmth of days long gone, the home once filled with laughter, and the moment when it all disappeared.
Father once had a family. A gentle wife, a sweet little daughter. But time and work slowly stole them away from him, without him realizing it. And when they were gone, only silence remained.
In that silence, he began creating something out of cloth and fragments of memory a doll that could smile like the daughter he once had.
Now I understand. Every gentle stroke on my head, every smile he gave me, was just a shadow of a love that once was real.
It doesn't mean he doesn't love me…
But I am merely his way of surviving.
Time seemed to stop that night. Amid the stillness and the dim light of the desk lamp, Father sat staring at the same photo frame. His fingers trembled slightly, as if afraid to break something so fragile. I stayed silent, sitting across the table, watching him with a confusion I couldn't explain.
"Father…" I whispered again, but my voice couldn't reach him. He was already lost within his past.
Tears fell without a sound, dripping onto the glass that framed those frozen happy faces.
Time might have taken everything away, but not his feelings. For Father's love… still lingered there, settled among the cracks of memory and the silence of the night.
I watched him clutch the photo tighter, pressing it to his chest as if trying to embrace someone long gone. There was a deep longing behind his weary expression a longing that even I, the doll he had crafted with his own hands, could never replace.
If only I could hold him the way she once did,
perhaps I would tell him that I understand—
that I know who he misses, and that I'm not angry about it.
I just wish… he wouldn't feel so alone.
But that night, only silence replied. Father bowed his head for a long time, his breathing heavy, and when he finally looked up, his eyes were fixed on the photo again.
He gazed at it for a long while before a faint smile slowly softened his face. "I made you," he once said, "because I didn't want to be sad anymore."
And that's how I was born from loneliness, from loss, and from a love that never truly faded.
Since then, Father was always with me.
He laughed, told stories, even danced a little in his workshop. Sometimes he would lift me high into the air, making me feel as if I could touch the ceiling. I laughed, and he laughed too as if our laughter could mend the wounds of his past.
To Father, I wasn't just a doll. I was his miracle.Every time he looked at me, his eyes shone with a gentle light. And I knew that beneath all that was lost, I had become the small reason his smile returned.
"Father," I asked one day, "am I a good child?"
He looked at me for a long time, then smiled softly.
"Of course. You're a very good girl."
I'll never forget how he said it.
His voice trembled slightly, but it was full of affection as if he wanted me to believe that my existence truly mattered to him.
And from that moment on… Father always smiled.