It was difficult for me to raise my daughter alone, only with the help of my sister. My marriage was not happy from the beginning, my wife left at the first opportunity, leaving me with a child. She didn’t want to see her daughter much, but she sent her presents for the holidays. Monica had always lacked a mother’s love, a woman’s talk, and I still didn’t know how to approach her and talk to her seriously, and I missed the moment.
– Daddy, I’m pregnant,” she told me one summer afternoon.
She still had her entrance exams and, I hoped, her first year of university ahead of her.
– Funny joke,” I said, “I almost gave my old man a heart attack…
– I’m not kidding, Dad,” Monica’s eyes were wet. – I took several tests, and they all show the same thing. I went to the doctor, and he confirmed it.
My first impulse was to get my daughter to get rid of the baby right away. I was willing to pay for the surgery, but Monica said she was too afraid and she might not have children afterwards, so she would have the baby. The young father was a year younger than his daughter, and his parents were also skeptical and didn’t want to settle down with a grandchild so soon.
I didn’t want to take the sin alone and offered to help the future matchmaker. We came up with a plan in advance to trick our children. Since my daughter was a minor at the time of delivery, I was able to personally sign the adoption papers. Together with my daughter’s boyfriend’s mother, we lied that the baby was born sick and did not survive, when in fact he was sent to the Baby Home.
Just as I thought, my daughter immediately broke up with her boyfriend, withdrew into herself, and focused on her studies. She got into the coveted university a year later, and now she’s studying, but she doesn’t remember her baby. Someday I might tell her the truth to clear her conscience, but not in the next few years. I want to make sure she finishes university and gets settled in life, meets a good man and starts a family with him, and then the truth won’t hurt her so much. I’m sure she’ll realize it was for the best, because becoming a mom at seventeen wouldn’t have been possible for her.
