Four Years Before She Was Born

Chapter 1: Memories

Whenever someone asked Marisa what she remembered most about her father, she never knew which memory to choose.

Sometimes she thought of his laugh—the loud, unguarded kind that made other people laugh even when they had missed the joke. Sometimes she remembered his hands, rough from work but careful whenever he tied her shoelaces or helped remove a splinter from her finger.

Most often, however, she remembered the empty chair.

It had stood near the kitchen window for years after he died. Her mother eventually moved it into the garage, but Marisa could still picture it clearly: one loose spindle, a pale scratch along the back, and a cushion flattened by the weight of someone who would never sit there again.

Marisa had been nine when her father died.

At that age, grief arrived in pieces. It came when she saw other fathers waiting outside school. It appeared at birthday parties, graduations, and quiet Sunday mornings. Every milestone carried the same painful thought.

He should be here.

Years later, when Marisa met Daniel, that thought returned in a different form.

Daniel was warm, patient, and wonderfully ordinary. He forgot where he left his keys, sang the wrong lyrics to popular songs, and made pancakes shaped like countries no mapmaker would recognize. He never tried to fill the place her father had left behind. Instead, he listened whenever she spoke about him.

“I wish you could have met him,” Marisa said one evening.