To whom it may concern, my name is irrelevant, as I dare not confront the shame that this confession may bring upon me. Yet, the animalistic instinct that is part of human nature constantly brings forth the sickening feeling of dread. As such, I am compelled to write this down so as to discard the many burdens that I have been carrying these last four months.
I don’t know how it happened. Or perhaps I do, but I simply do not wish to admit to it. It all started after my husband left without saying a word leaving me and our seven-year-old daughter fending for ourselves. I thought that an emergency came up and he had to leave early that morning but after a week without responding to any of my messages, I feared the worst.
It was out of the blue, as we had been together for almost 15 years. He loved me and he also loved our daughter. We were his treasure and his main joy in life. What a joke.
After two weeks, I told my daughter what had happened and she simply wasn’t the same after it. She stopped talking to me. Whenever she came back from school, she would go to her room without saying a word. In the 3rd week after I told her, she stopped eating alongside me. And little by little, she stopped attending school, eventually becoming a shut-in. A year passed, then two, and eventually eight.
And in the 8th year, I grew tired of it. She was being selfish. She wasn’t the only one saddened by his departure. She wasn’t also the only one who missed him. She was being selfish and just like him. It didn’t help that she grew up looking like him. As such, I confronted her about it.
I went into her room one night without knocking. She was startled at first, but immediately calmed down and told me to leave the food beside her door. I wasn’t having it. So I told her what I had thought. I wasn’t going to spare her from the truth, as she was indeed selfish. She didn’t react to it initially however, upon telling her that she had to move on, she blamed me for all of it.
She said that it was my fault that her father had left her. It was because I was always disconnected from everyone. That I never bothered to express myself and I never cared nor loved them. The audacity.
I left that room later on and went to bed regretting my decision. Upon awakening, my daughter was missing. I waited and waited. It was a fit, it had to be. That’s how teenagers are. They are led by their emotions. She will be back soon. She had to, but she never did.
After 24 hours, I went and filled a missing person’s report. People took pity upon me and the news spread like wildfire. Soon, there were dozens of people volunteering for her search, so I joined in as well.
She wasn’t in our little town. That was a known fact. Thus, we were divided into four separate groups to search for her throughout the forest that surrounded our little town. I searched everywhere. I scouted from the hills, went through the most heavily forested areas, and even searched every inch from the depths of the river.
There was no use in searching. She had a whole day to move forward. Furthermore, our group searched every part of the forest, which took even more time. And the majority of the group wasn’t willing to go too far ahead into the forest. It was utterly hopeless. A useless endeavor.
After three weeks, I gave up. I stopped going and spent my time cleaning up the house. What a chore. There was a time when my living space was home, with a loving husband and a caring daughter. I miss those days. I have to stop remembering. It’s too painful. The past is the past and I had to move on. I knew they weren’t going to find her.
Until one day, when there was a sudden knock at the door. I opened it and was met with the sheriff and my daughter. I couldn’t believe it. She was standing before me. Before I could even react, she walked toward me and gave me a big hug. She even whispered in my ears that she was sorry. The sheriff said that he’ll leave her to tell me what happened and that he was going to “leave us to it”.
It was a pleasant month after her return. She started talking to me again. She sat beside me at the dinner table and even started going back to school. She was my last fragment of hope. A remembrance of a better time.
However, that would have been the case had it all been the truth. I believed in a lie this entire month, a lie too good to be true, but also a statement that I knew was a lie. Whoever is in my daughter’s room isn’t my daughter. She looks like her. She acts like her. And she even sounds like her, but I know she isn’t her.
Why do I know that? Because, because I killed my daughter. I killed her that night when we argued. I took her body to the forest and buried her in a place no one would ever find, but from the moment I laid my hands on her, I regretted it. She was right. It was all my fault. I deserve what’s coming to me. I am sorry, my beloved. Please forgive me.