There was a time were she'd live comfortably, she'd play with her toys on the room at the end of the corridor. She was happy then, back then her father was still with her.
They'd play almost everyday, but he'd leave always in a hurry. "Papa has to work, darling" he'd always say, he'd give her a tight long hug, a kiss on the cheek and go out the door.
Those were good days, were her golden days. It was so much fun with her father there. they'd play house, she'd be the mother and he the husband, they'd do the chores with her toy appliances and plates and food. They'd play hide and seek, she'd always win, he'd always tickled her afterwards and then a tight long hug, a kiss on the cheek and he'd go, work he'd say.
When her mother was home, she'd inquire about her father. "Mama, when's papa coming home to play?", after those words her mother would break into tears and give her a hug. After sometime she'd stop asking, her mother always cried when she mentioned her father.
As she grew up, her father would come more and more, with her mother working more and more. She guessed her father had changed shifts to be with her. They'd sit on the sofa, watch whatever was on the TV, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. She'd fall asleep.
It was her 16th birthday, her mother had trown a big party for her. All her friends from schools were there, some teachers even. But she couldn't see him. Her father was not there, which made her sad. When she blew out the candles, she was crying.
She'd had to get a job now, she was a grown up. Mother was giving her driving lessons, she was always nervous around the market parking lot, where she'd almost hit a wall one time.
With her working part time, her father was more and more absent, until onde day he was gone, it was a year last time she saw him.
At first that fact made her sad, then indifferent, then she was angry at him.
She couldn't take it anymore, she asked her mother "Why hasn't father come see me?". Her mother didn't cry then, she looked concerned.
"Sweetheart, you know your father can't be here", she answered
"Why not? Why is he working so much? Doesn't he have time for her daughter? Is his job more important than me?" she was screaming now, tears on her eyes.
Her mother's face made an expression she'd not seen before, her eyes widened and she asked her daughter to sit.
"Sweetheart, you're not a kid anymore." She took a big breath in. "You're father's dead, sweetie, he was in a car accident."
Her world stopped, came down and then broke. She cried on her mother shoulder and the week after in her bed.
She didn't go to school that week, or to work. Her mother called both, asking for a bit of time so she could process her father's death. She barely ate or drank, barely left her bed.
She finally managed to go to school again, she had missed some midterms, but her teachers helped her. She had lost her job, but she'd find another in no time, her mother had said.
Some time passed, she was cleaning a table in a coffee shop, getting orders from the clients there.
"Breaking News!" The TV on the wall proclaimed.
She looked and she froze, her mouth opened, her eyes widened, the pen in her hand fell to the ground along with her heart that sank deeply into the darkness.
There on news coverage was the photo of a man, on his 60s, the reporter said, handcuffs on, he had been arrested.
It was her "father".
She didn't know. She didn't know that the man that came everyday during her childhood to play wasn't her father. She didn't know that he was a neighbor from down the hall. He had known that her mother was a widow, that the child had never met her father, that her mother wasn't home during the day on weekdays, that the mother couldn't spare a nanny, that the mother kept a spare key under the mat and that left her child alone.
On that day, her 18th birhday, her mother came home to her daughter hanged in her bedroom, dead.
The cause were her memories. She'd suddenly remembered what her "father" did everyday he was home, playing or watching TV. The reason he was in prison.
He was a serial pedophile.