He knelt before this grave, in that silence that only cemeteries can evoke. The white flowers in his hands trembled slightly.
Not from the wind… but from everything he didn’t have time to say, didn’t have time to do.
The woman who rested there was Clara. They had been married for several years, but life, quarrels, unhealed wounds… had driven them apart. They had parted. Without hatred, but with many unsaid things. They had not spoken for a long time. For too long.
He thought she had started a new life, that she was happy somewhere. He didn’t know that she carried a secret inside her. A secret that she carried with her to the very end.
It was only when he received a call inviting him to her funeral that he learned the truth…
He learned the truth. Clara had a daughter. Their daughter. 😯
A small creature born from their love, at a time when everything still seemed possible. She never dared tell him. Out of fear? Out of hurt? He would never know for sure. But she left a letter and asked her sister to give it to him. It read:
“I didn’t have the courage to tell you that you became a father. Her name is Lila. She has your eyes. Take care of her if you can. She deserves to know the love of a father.”
He reread these lines dozens of times, with a heavy heart and trembling hands.
How could he not notice? How could she bear this silence for so long?
At her grave, he cried not only for Clara. He mourned the man he had been – too blind, too proud. He mourned the father he had failed to become.
But that day, in the midst of grief, something new was born: a promise. A promise to make up for lost time, to find Lila, to tell her that she was not alone. That she had a father. That he was here now.
And despite everything… love did not go away with Clara. It lives on. In Lila.
