frightening possibilities around it.
The next morning, I started remembering little things that had never seemed important before. A few weeks earlier, Dad
had told me,
“You’re busy. I’ll get Emily ready for bed.”
Another time, the bathroom door had been closed. When I knocked, I heard both of them laughing. Back then, I had smiled.
Now the same memory felt completely different. All day, I kept telling
myself I was overreacting. But something in me
refused to let it go.
The next evening, Dad came over again. After dinner, Emily ran up to him.
“Grandpa, are we going to play our game today?”
I looked at my father. He smiled.
“If your mom doesn’t mind.”
“Of course,” I said.
But I had already made up my mind. Ten minutes later, I heard the water running.
Then Emily laughing. I slowly walked toward the bathroom. The door was closed, but not locked. I stepped close enough to
hear them. Dad said,
“Okay, close your eyes now. No cheating.”
“They’re closed.”
“And now, guess.”
A few seconds of silence.
Then Emily burst out laughing.
“I know!”
That was when I couldn’t wait any longer. Without knocking, I opened the door.
“Dad!” What happened next read in the comments 👇‼️👇‼️
He turned around in surprise.
And what I saw was so
far from every terrible thing my mind had imagined that I just stood there for a few seconds.
Emily was sitting safely in the tub, surrounded by bubbles and bath toys.
Her eyes were closed.
My father was holding a small cup in one hand, using it to rinse her hair, while in the other hand he held one of Emily’s rubber ducks.
“Mom,” Emily laughed, “you ruined the game!”
I looked at them, confused.
“What game?”
Dad slowly smiled.
“Guess the sound.”
It turned out that a few months earlier, Emily had started being afraid of having her hair washed because shampoo had once gotten into her eyes.
Every bath had become stressful.
My father didn’t want that fear to get worse.
So he invented a game.
Emily would close her eyes, and Dad would make sounds using different bath toys—the rubber duck, a little cup, a water bottle.
