Not like before, not yet… but she was smiling.
Isabella gained weight, and began to laugh with that sound that resembles small bells.
One day, Emily sat next to me in the backyard and said:
—Dad… I thought you’d be embarrassed to see me like this.
I looked at her, and with my hand, I arranged her hair like when she was a child.
—It would be shameful not to have picked you up.
It would be shameful to have left you alone.
You didn’t let me down, Emily.
The world failed you.
She rested her head on my shoulder.
And at that moment, I knew something with absolute certainty:
It doesn’t matter how old a father is,
nor how many problems he carries,
nor how weary his heart may be…
When he sees his daughter fall,
He doesn’t ask why.
Just extends his arms
and picks her up again.
Weeks went by, and things began to settle into a new rhythm. Emily smiled more, but the scars of her ordeal would take time to fade. Isabella grew stronger, her tiny giggles filling the house with joy. But something inside me had changed.