The call came during my lunch break, a shrill jolt against the hum of the office. It was her teacher. My heart immediately clenched. Something’s wrong.“Everything’s fine, really,” she began, too brightly, “but she said something quite… specific today. About the upcoming ‘Donuts with Dad’ day.”I held my breath, bracing myself. My daughter, bless her innocent, observant heart.
Then the words hit me, each one a hammer blow. “She asked, ‘Can Mommy come to Donuts with Dad instead? She does all the Dad stuff anyway.’”The world stopped. My lungs seized. I could feel the blood drain from my face. Oh god. She knows. Or, she’s realized. All my careful efforts, all the years of pretending, shattered by the honest, unfiltered observation of a six-year-old.
The teacher laughed nervously. “I tried to explain it’s a special day for dads, but she was quite adamant. Said you fix her bike, teach her how to throw a baseball, and help with her science projects. It was quite sweet, actually.”Sweet? It was a gut punch. A public declaration of my greatest, most shameful secret. I mumbled something about talking to my daughter, hung up, and just stared at my phone screen, utterly numb.
A quiet, snowy street | Source: Midjourney
“She does all the Dad stuff anyway.”
The words echoed, a painful mantra. Because it’s true. It’s devastatingly, undeniably true.
Who taught her to change a flat tire on her scooter when no one else would? Me. Who spent hours in the backyard, patiently showing her how to catch a ball without fear? Me. Who researched and built that ridiculously complex volcano for the science fair, staying up until 2 AM? Me. Who wakes up every Saturday morning to make pancakes, then takes her to the park, then to soccer practice, then to the library? Me. Who has the tough talks about bullies, about responsibilities, about the harsh realities of the world? Me.
I’m the one who deals with the leaky faucet, the rattling car engine, the blown circuit breaker. I’m the one who works the extra shifts, who juggles the bills, who makes sure everything runs. I am the provider, the protector, the fixer, the disciplinarian, the adventurer. I am the one she turns to for strength, for solutions, for reassurance.
A woman in a car | Source: Midjourney
I am everything a dad should be.
And he… he just is. He’s there. Physically, yes. His presence is a constant, quiet hum in the background of our lives. But that’s all it is. A hum. A shadow. A ghost in the machine.
When did it start? Slowly, insidiously. First, I picked up the slack because he was “tired” or “preoccupied.” Then, because I was better at it. Then, because if I didn’t, it just wouldn’t get done. And finally, because I just couldn’t bear to see her disappointed again, waiting for a promise that would never materialize.
I built an elaborate dance around his absence, a silent symphony of excuses and diversions. “Daddy’s busy with work.” “Daddy needs some quiet time.” “Daddy’s not feeling well.” Each lie a tiny brick in the wall I constructed around her, trying to shield her from a truth I couldn’t bear to face myself.
A shabby man near a car | Source: Midjourney
The resentment grew, a poisonous vine strangling the love that once blossomed so freely. I’d look at him, sitting in his chair, staring blankly, and a cold fury would seep into my bones. Don’t you see what I’m doing? Don’t you see what you’re missing? Don’t you care?
Then the guilt would swamp me. How dare I think that? He can’t help it. This isn’t his fault.
But then the weariness would return, an exhaustion so profound it settled deep in my bones. The loneliness, a cavernous echo in the middle of our seemingly complete family. The burden of being both mother and father, protector and nurturer, breadwinner and emotional anchor. It was crushing.
A woman gesturing towards the side | Source: Midjourney
I’d see other families, other dads laughing with their kids at the park, teaching them to ride bikes, showing up for school events. And I’d feel a sharp pang, a desperate longing for something I knew I could never have. A partnership. A shared load. Someone to lean on.
My daughter, she’s so bright. So observant. She sees things. She feels things. She absorbs everything. I’ve always encouraged her curiosity, her independent thinking. I never wanted to treat her like a child who couldn’t understand. But how do you explain this? How do you explain that the man who lives in your house, who shares our name, who is called “Dad,” isn’t really… there?
Tonight, I walked through the front door, forcing a smile onto my face, the teacher’s words still ringing in my ears. My daughter ran to me, a whirlwind of hugs and excited chatter about her day. I held her tight, breathing in the scent of her hair, the last vestiges of childhood innocence clinging to her.
A man holding a cup, sitting on a sofa | Source: Midjourney
“Mommy,” she said, pulling back, her big eyes earnest. “Why can’t you come to Donuts with Dad? It would be so much fun. You’re always there for me.”
My heart broke a little more. Oh, my sweet girl.
Later, after she was asleep, I went into the living room. The room was dim, illuminated only by the soft glow of the fish tank.
He was there, in his favorite armchair, just as I’d left him this morning. His head was slightly tilted, his eyes open, staring blankly ahead. He hadn’t moved an inch since I’d settled him there before work. He wouldn’t.
I sat on the coffee table opposite him, the silence deafening, broken only by the gentle gurgle of the filter. I looked at the man who was once my husband, the vibrant, laughing, strong man who held my hand through every challenge, who promised to fix everything, who promised to be there.
And now, this shell. This empty vessel.
A man with a deep stare | Source: Midjourney
My voice was barely a whisper, ragged with years of unsaid grief. “She asked the teacher today,” I confessed to the silent room. “She asked why you don’t do the dad stuff. Why I do.”
A single tear traced a path down my cheek, cold and stark against my skin. There was no flicker in his eyes, no subtle shift in his expression, no recognition in the depths of those dilated pupils. Just the vacant stare I’ve grown so accustomed to.
He’s been like this for three years. Since the accident.
My daughter has never known the man he was before the massive stroke. She’s only ever known him as the quiet, unmoving figure who stares at walls, who breathes, who exists, but who is no longer her dad.
A woman in an armchair | Source: Midjourney
And I’ve been pretending to her, to myself, to the world, that he’s just “indisposed.” That he’s just “tired.”
Because how do you tell a six-year-old that her dad is still here, but he’s gone? That the father she sees every day is just a body I care for, a fragile, living memorial to the man I loved, to the life we lost?
How do you tell her that her father is still breathing in that chair, but he’s been in a persistent vegetative state since she was three?
And the real, horrifying truth? That I’ve been living a lie so profound, so devastating, because I don’t know how to stop. And because, deep down, a part of me believes that as long as he’s still here, even like this, then I haven’t truly lost him. And neither has she.
A dark figure standing in a doorway | Source: Midjourney
But my daughter knows. She sees. She understands, in her own innocent, heartbreaking way, that her dad is absent. And that I’m trying to be both.
And I am so, so tired.
