tiny shoes, colorful dresses, bows and children’s voices. Our mornings began with noise, and evenings ended with bedtime stories.
But in the midst of all this cheerful noise, I began to notice a strange silence.
A silence that seemed to exist only inside Michael.
Over the years, something about him has changed.
He still loved our daughters. Never yelled at them, insulted them, and never said, “You’d rather be boys.”
But he was no longer an old man.
He began to return home later and later.
I spent more time
with friends.
Sometimes he came only after midnight – tired, silent and detached.
And every time the girls ran to the door to hug him, his smile seemed strained. He kissed them on the forehead, stroked their hair, but his gaze seemed to always be somewhere far away.
That hurt me the most.
One day, our eldest daughter came up to me and asked very quietly:
“Mom… Does dad love us less because we’re girls?
This question broke my heart.
I hugged her and told her that it wasn’t true, but
deep down I didn’t stop asking myself the same question.
Perhaps this was true.
Maybe Michael is really tired of living in a house full of girls.
Perhaps every day he returned to the house where his most cherished dream never came true.
One evening, when the children were already asleep, I sat down next to him.
He looked at the TV, but I saw that he didn’t really notice anything.
“Maybe we should try again,” I said quietly.
He was silent for a long time.
So long that I
