Six months after my daughter died, I forced myself to visit the winter festival she loved most. I told myself I was strong enough to handle it. I told myself I could walk through it, breathe through the memories, and leave without falling apart.
I was wrong.
I had barely stepped into the festival when I heard a little girl begging for a pink balloon.
“Please, Daddy! Buy me the pink one! The big pink balloon!”
My heart stopped.
I turned slowly, already shaking, and there she was.
My daughter.
And when the man holding her hand turned around, everything I had left inside me shattered.
My daughter died six months ago.
Six long months filled with sleepless nights, with staring at her tiny bedroom, with sitting on the edge of her bed and clutching her favorite blanket while the silence crushed my chest so hard it felt almost physical. Six months of waking up reaching for her, only to remember she was gone.
I barely left the house during that time. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t meet friends. I didn’t imagine a future without her small voice echoing through my life.
But today was different.
My daughter died six months ago.
And today, somehow, I was standing at the winter festival we used to visit together every year.
I know what you’re thinking. Why would I do that to myself?
I asked myself the same thing while driving there, my hands tight on the steering wheel.
But Maddie had loved this place. She loved the bright lights, the cotton candy that stuck to her fingers, the live music floating through the cold air, and most of all, the pink balloons.
I thought maybe seeing it again would ease the ache just a little.
Or maybe I was just desperate enough to try anything.
I walked slowly through the crowd, my coat pulled tight around me. My eyes searched every small hand, every child’s face, every laugh that sounded too much like hers.
Then my heart nearly stopped.
Ahead of me, near the balloon stand, I saw a small figure holding hands with a tall man wearing a ridiculous chicken costume. The child walked with that familiar bounce, swaying slightly with excitement.
It was so familiar, I thought I might faint right there in the middle of the festival.
My mind screamed at me, This isn’t real. You’re imagining things. Grief does this.
But then I heard her voice again.
“Please, Daddy! The pink one!”
Sweet. Small. Unmistakably Maddie.
My knees almost gave out. I moved forward without thinking, afraid that if I blinked, she would disappear.
As I got closer, I saw something that nearly made me scream.
A small birthmark on her wrist.
The exact same one Maddie had.
“Madeleine… Maddie?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
The girl looked up.
She giggled at something the man said, and in that moment, I knew. I just knew.
My daughter was alive.
Joy and terror slammed into me at the same time, so strong I couldn’t breathe.
Then the man in the chicken costume turned around.
My stomach dropped.
“Evan?”
He froze.
Slowly, he lifted the chicken head off.
The recognition was instant.
He smiled, that familiar practiced smile I remembered so well. But his eyes were cold, colder than the winter air around us.
The little girl squeezed his hand and looked up at him. “Daddy? Who’s that?”
The word hit me like a punch.
Daddy.
She called him Daddy.
I forced the words out. “That’s my daughter. That’s Maddie.”
Evan’s jaw tightened. “No, it isn’t. And you shouldn’t be here.”
I laughed once, sharp and broken. “You don’t get to tell me that. You left. You walked out right after I gave birth.”
People passed us, laughing and chatting, unaware that my world was collapsing all over again.
Evan bent down and said softly, “Sweetheart, go pick your balloon. The pink one. I’ll be right here, okay?”
She hesitated and glanced at me with confusion in her eyes. No recognition. Just curiosity. Maybe fear.
“Addison,” Evan said more firmly. “Go.”
She nodded and skipped away toward the balloon vendor.
I watched the child I had mourned for six months walk away like nothing had ever been wrong.
When she was out of earshot, I stepped closer. “She died. Six months ago. How do you have her? What did you do?”
“Lower your voice,” he hissed.
“No,” I said loudly. “You didn’t come to the funeral. You vanished. And now you’re here with my daughter, who was supposed to be dead. Explain.”
He sighed. “You really don’t get it, do you? One of the twins died. But that girl? She’s mine.”
My head spun. “What are you talking about?”
“When you told me you were having twins, I said I couldn’t handle two. I still wanted to be a father. Just not twice.”
I remembered that conversation. Every word.
“Twins are too much,” he had said.
When the girls were born, he left. When the doctor told me one baby hadn’t survived, Evan never answered my calls.
Now I knew why.
“The hospital was chaos,” he said flatly. “You were exhausted. It wasn’t hard to take the child I wanted and let you believe she died.”
The world went silent.
“You let me grieve my own child?” I whispered.
“It was easier,” he shrugged. “She’s happy. She’s alive.”
Addie returned then, clutching a pink balloon. “Daddy, can we go?”
Before Evan could pull her away, I knelt in front of her. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
She smiled. “Addie.”
“Get away from her,” Evan snapped, yanking her back.
That was it.
I stood and pulled out my phone. “I have hospital records. Two birth certificates. And now I have you.”
His face drained. “You wouldn’t.”
I dialed 911.
He ran.
I chased him, shouting into the phone. “A man in a chicken costume has my child!”
The pink balloon bobbed above the crowd like a signal.
Addie was crying now.
By the time we reached the parking lot, police cars were already there.
Evan stopped.
They took him away in handcuffs.
And then it was just me and Addie.
She stood there, small and shaking, clutching her balloon.
I knelt and opened my arms.
After a moment, she stepped into them.
I held her tight, feeling her heartbeat against mine.
There would be questions. Tests. Long nights.
But right now, she was here.
Alive.