At home, she was fine. Or at least, that was what it looked like.
There were only three of them. Her parents and her little sister. She used to pray for a brother when she was younger. She prayed the way children do, with certainty, with hope, with the belief that wanting something badly enough could make it appear. But it never happened. Eventually, she stopped asking. It felt like God had already decided otherwise.
Life moved on.
The memory of the bathroom never truly left her, but it faded into something quieter. Something that lived under her skin instead of on the surface. And the woman with the long white hair stayed with her too.
At first, the woman only came in dreams. Standing silently. Always turned away. Then one day, she appeared in the daylight. Or at least, she thought she did.
She would be walking, or sitting, or staring out of a window, and for a split second, she would see her. A figure just ahead. Just close enough to notice. Then nothing. When she blinked, the woman was gone.
She told no one.
Everything else seemed normal enough. She grew. She learned. She adapted.
It was only when she got older that she started to notice her father.
When she was small, her mother worked. The house moved around her mother's strength, her tired smiles, her constant motion. But when her mother stopped working to care for the children, the truth settled into the walls.
Her father's hands were tight.
Not tight with strangers. Not tight with churches. Not tight with charities. He could give freely when people were watching. He could donate amounts she could not imagine, spoken proudly from pulpits and praised by others.
But at home, generosity disappeared.
Providing for his family felt like something he resisted, something that had to be forced from him. Even then, it was never enough. He avoided responsibility as if it were optional. Her mother carried everything. The bills. The planning. The emotional weight.
And her mother cried.
Quietly at first. Then openly. Nights stretched long with the sound of muffled sobs that slipped through walls and settled into the girl's chest. She hated those nights. Hated lying awake, listening, wishing she were old enough or strong enough to make it stop.
She did not want her mother to suffer.
That feeling alone was heavy enough to choke her.
Then one day, her father said the words.
Not to his wife. To her.
He said he wished he could exchange her for something else.
She did not understand it fully at the time, but she felt it. Words have a way of landing exactly where they are meant to hurt. That sentence never left her. It carved itself into her memory and stayed there, repeating itself long after his voice faded.
She could never untalk it. Never erase it.
She began to wonder why her father could not be like other fathers. He never bought gifts. Never celebrated birthdays. Never made moments feel special. Life with him was flat, endless, unchanged. Days passed without warmth or intention.
She listened as friends talked about their fathers. Phones bought. Surprises planned. Small gestures that meant everything. She did not compare out loud. She did not complain.
She just wished.
Wished he were different.
Wished he tried.
Wished he saw her.
But wishing, she had learned, did not change much.
Some people were simply who they were.
And some children learned very early how to live with that truth.