She learned that exhaustion could make even simple decisions feel impossible.
Some nights, she sat in the darkness holding her daughter while the rest of the house slept.
The clock would show two in the morning, then three, then four.
Sometimes Sophie would finally settle just as sunlight began appearing through the curtains.
Emma would look at her tiny face and feel an overwhelming mixture of tenderness and grief.
She loved her daughter.
But she also missed being thirteen.
She missed feeling carefree.
She missed the version of herself who had once believed that every problem could be solved by talking to a friend or asking a parent for help.
Now she was a parent.
And that reality was almost impossible to comprehend.
Yet Emma was not completely alone.
Her father, Michael, refused to let her carry the burden without support.
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The Father Who Refused to Abandon His Daughter
Michael had never been a man who spoke easily about his emotions.
