The young woman stood over the crib, the dim light from the hallway carving shadows across her face. Below her, the child slept, a small, innocent shape beneath a pink blanket. A surge of something hot and venomous rose in Sophia’s throat. She couldn’t stand her. She wanted to shake her awake, to see fear in those eyes that were so much like hers.
Of course, it was just a thought, a fleeting, ugly impulse fueled by the wine that sloshed pleasantly in her stomach. But the feeling was real. This child, Christina, was not a little girl to her. She was a ghost. A living, breathing reminder that her husband, Adrian, had loved another woman first. This child was the product of that love, a relic of a life Sophia was desperately trying to erase.
She turned from the nursery and walked toward the kitchen, her movements slightly unsteady. Her phone buzzed—a message from Adrian. He was on his way. She began to set the table, the clatter of silverware unnaturally loud in the quiet apartment. She prepared his food and brewed fresh coffee, her eyes periodically glancing out the window at the swirling snow.
When his car finally appeared, a familiar pang of anxiety tightened her chest. Tonight, she had promised herself. Tonight, they would have the conversation. She had tried before, but fear always stopped her—the cold, paralyzing fear that he would leave if she pushed too hard. But she couldn’t live like this anymore, a reluctant caretaker to a child who felt like a stranger under her own roof. The ultimatum was ready on her tongue: It’s me, or the girl.
Adrian entered, shaking a flurry of snow from his heavy coat. It was a brutal winter, the kind that froze the city solid. He shed his boots and headed straight for the hot spray of the shower. When he emerged, dressed in comfortable clothes, he found Sophia waiting at the kitchen table, a hot meal steaming before him.
He looked tired, his face etched with the familiar lines of irritation from a long day at work. He sat, avoiding her gaze, and pulled the coffee pot closer. He took a sip and frowned.
“You forgot the sugar,” he mumbled.
Sophia stared at him, her patience fraying. “Adrian, we need to talk. We’re a young family. We should be on our own.”
She wanted him to make the decision himself, to see the logic in her plea. She wanted him to say, You’re right. I’ll figure something out for Christina. We need our own life, our own children. She would even sacrifice her own desire for a baby if it meant getting rid of this one, this constant, silent accusation of a past she couldn’t compete with.
“She is a complete stranger to me,” Sophia pressed, her voice gaining a sharp edge. “Why do we need someone else’s child in our home? You don’t even deal with her. You never play with her, you barely speak to her. Why am I the one left with this… this responsibility?”
“Let’s start with the fact that you’re a woman,” Adrian replied, his voice dangerously calm. He could feel the anger coiling in his gut. This again. This same, circular argument. “Why do I have to come home to this? You stay here all day. I provide everything. All you have to do is clean, cook, and look after the child. That’s it. Instead of a ‘thank you,’ I get complaints.”
“Complaints?” Sophia’s voice rose, though she fought to keep it from cracking into a full-blown shriek. “I just want us to be a family! Not… not caretakers for a girl that nobody wants. I could understand if you loved her, if you spent time with her. But you don’t! You took her in like a stray puppy, and I’m the one who has to deal with the mess.”
They argued for a long time, their voices rising and falling in the small apartment.
In her room, the little girl they thought was sleeping was wide awake. Christina stood by her door, a tiny crack open, listening to the heated words that flew back and forth like angry birds. Her heart hammered in her chest. She crept to the phone on the hall table, her small fingers dialing a number she knew by heart. Her aunt had made her memorize it. Just in case, sweetie. So you can always call me.
Her knees trembled. She was terrified they would hear her, but their argument was a wall of sound. When her aunt, Carolina, picked up, the words tumbled out of Christina in a single, desperate breath. Carolina listened, her voice a soothing balm over the phone, though a cold dread was forming in her own mind. She told Christina not to worry, that she would handle everything. “Now delete the call from the phone, just like I showed you,” she instructed gently.
Christina did as she was told, erasing the evidence of her secret plea. She slipped back into her room, the argument still raging in the kitchen. She clutched the worn teddy bear her real mommy had given her and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to wish herself somewhere else, somewhere she wasn’t a ghost.
The conversation in the kitchen brought no resolution, only deeper trenches of resentment.
“You promised me!” Sophia’s voice was strained, her composure finally shattering. “You promised we would leave the past behind. Instead, you brought his ghost into our home! Don’t you see she doesn’t belong here? What happens when she grows up? Do you know what happens to unwanted girls? They end up pregnant at fifteen, another burden for us to carry!”
“I am her father,” Adrian said, his tone flat and final. “It’s my responsibility. But I don’t have time because I work. You’re the woman. And if you think we’re having other kids, you’re wrong. You want a child? You have one.”
He took his plate and walked into the living room, turning on the television. The conversation was over. Sophia sat at the table, buried her face in her hands, and let out a single, ragged sob. The wall between them was higher than ever.
Several days passed in a tense, fragile truce. Then, one morning after Adrian had left for work, it happened. Sophia, nursing a glass of wine to dull the edges of her despair, watched as Christina emerged from her room, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The little girl reached for a glass of water, but her sleepy stumble sent her crashing into the counter. Sophia’s favorite mug—a delicate, hand-painted piece—tumbled to the floor and shattered.
Something inside Sophia snapped. The wine, the resentment, the unending frustration—it all coalesced into a blind, white-hot rage. She grabbed the terrified child by the arm, her fingers digging in. “You clumsy little brat!” she screamed, ignoring Christina’s terrified sobs.
She dragged the crying girl, who was wearing only a thin cotton tank top, to the balcony door. The air that blasted in was shockingly cold, the metal of the handle like a block of ice. Without a second thought, she shoved Christina outside and slammed the glass door shut, locking it. The girl’s screams and frantic pounding were muffled by the glass. Sophia turned her back, poured another glass of wine, and sank onto the couch.
Adrian didn’t come home right after work. Drained and exhausted, he met an old friend at a bar. For a few hours, he felt a semblance of freedom, drinking and laughing with strangers, momentarily forgetting the suffocating atmosphere of his own home. He drove back through the snow-covered streets, a profound melancholy settling over him. He missed his first wife with a physical ache. He missed the life they had, before the accident, before everything became so complicated. He saw his daughter, Christina, as the embodiment of that loss. It was cruel and irrational, he knew, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that his love for her had died with her mother.
When he finally entered the apartment, the scene that greeted him was one of utter chaos. The living room was a wreck. His drunken wife was passed out on the couch, her friend lying next to her in a similar state. The air was thick with the smell of stale alcohol.
And the balcony door was wide open, a curtain of freezing air billowing into the room.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through his exhaustion. He rushed to the balcony. There, curled in a small, still heap in a drift of snow, was his daughter.
The next hours were a blur of cold showers and black coffee, a desperate attempt to sober Sophia up enough to get an explanation. It wasn’t until dawn that she could speak coherently, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. “Your sister…” she mumbled. “Carolina… she took Christina.”
Adrian drove to his sister’s house in a daze. Carolina met him at the door, her face a mask of cold fury. She didn’t invite him in from the biting wind.
“She called me,” Carolina said, her voice shaking with restrained rage. “She called me days ago, crying, telling me her stepmother was tormenting her. When I arrived yesterday, Adrian… I found your daughter asleep in a snowdrift on the balcony. Wearing only a tank top. Your wife put her there because she broke a cup. Then she and her friend got drunk.”
She stared at her brother, searching for any sign of a father’s horror, a father’s rage. She found nothing but weary resignation.
“The doctor said she’ll be okay,” Carolina continued, her voice filled with disgust. “Severe hypothermia, but she’ll recover. I’m honestly shocked by your calm reaction. A real father would be tearing that woman’s head off.”
“I understand this would have happened sooner or later,” Adrian said, his voice hollow. “We were going to send her to a boarding school anyway. We… we don’t need her, Carolina.”
The honesty of it was more shocking than any lie. Carolina felt a wave of pity, not for her brother, but for the little girl in the hospital. If her own father didn’t want her, then so be it. She would. Christina’s mother had once saved Carolina from a terrible situation. This was a debt she would repay with all her heart.
Weeks later, the paperwork was finalized. Adrian gladly signed over guardianship, agreeing to pay a generous amount in child support. It was a price he was more than willing to pay for his freedom. Once Christina was gone, his relationship with Sophia became idyllic. The ghost was gone. Their home was finally their own.
Carolina picked Christina up from the hospital. The little girl clung to her, burying her face in her aunt’s shoulder. “Are we going back there?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
“No, sweetie,” Carolina said, her heart aching. “We’re not. They… they decided it’s better if you live with me. We’ll be a family now. You and me.”
A small, watery smile spread across Christina’s face. In the months that followed, that smile grew stronger. She started calling Carolina “Mom.” She learned to read, to dress herself, to laugh without looking over her shoulder. She was no longer a ghost haunting someone else’s life. She was a little girl, finally home, loved not as a replacement or a reminder, but simply for who she was. The past didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that she was safe, she was happy, and she was wanted.