My Daughter Was Thrilled To Hold Her Newborn Sister—Until She Whispered One Word To Me
She smiled so wide, her cheeks might’ve cracked. Lina’s tiny fingers cradled her newborn sister, Elsie, like she’d practiced in dreams. From my hospital bed, I watched through the haze of exhaustion. For four years, Lina had been our only child. Now, with Elsie here, I thought we were complete. But then Lina leaned close to the baby and whispered, “Now I have someone to keep the secrets with.” When I asked what she meant, she only smiled and asked for a cookie.
At first, I brushed it off as imagination. But weeks later, I heard her tell her dolls, “We don’t tell Daddy. That’s the rule.” Then one day in the yard, she whispered to Elsie, “The monster only comes when Daddy’s not home.” When I asked what the monster looked like, she said, “Tall. Shadowy. No face. He bangs on windows. Hides in the kitchen.”
Concerned, I installed a baby monitor. One night, I saw Lina standing silently in the hallway, watching our bedroom door. She denied it the next…
