Chapter 2
Every single year, I made a family portrait as a souvenir. In those photos, I was always holding Henry in my arms and smiling with pure affection. It wasn’t just the family portraits. Even my phone gallery was filled with thousands of photos and videos of Henry. There was a photo of him on the day he was born. His tiny body curled up and he could barely open his eyes. There was also a cute photo of him when he was breastfeeding while looking at me with his big watery eyes. There were videos of him babbling and calling me “Mommy” with his baby voice. There was also a daily recording when I was cradling him and crying because I was heartbroken that he was sick. I went through every photo, picture and scene, but there was only Henry in them. Not a single one of my daughters. “Sophia, Henry has been the most clingy to you since he was little. However, lately, you’ve been cold-shouldering him every day. This made him cry every day. He was always anxious and kept saying that it must be that it must be because he’s done something wrong that made you stop loving him,” my father said. “He never bears to blame you, even though you treat him this way. He is such a good child, so how can you keep hurting him every day?” my father asked with a heavy tone. The eyes that looked at me were filled with worry and blame. My mom let out a sigh and added, “Sophia, I know you’ve always envied people who have daughters. If you really want one, you could have another baby.” “However, why pretend you don’t know Henry and imagine a daughter who never existed?” she asked. Listening to them defend Henry, I inexplicably felt a sharp pain in my chest. My daughter was attached so vividly in my mind, so how could she be just a figment of my imagination? I refused to talk to them any further and locked myself in my room. Inside the walk-in closet, aside from mine and Jerry’s clothes, there were only children’s clothes for little boys. On the nightstand were photos of Jerry and me holding Henry in my arms. Even the walls were decorated with the certificates that Henry had won in kindergarten. Everything seemed to be just as everyone said, that I only had one child, a son, who was Henry. I had never had a daughter. However, still, I still could never believe it. Whenever I close my eyes, my mind is filled with images of my daughter. Her soft, sweet voice, her eyes that curved into little crescent moons, her adorable expression as she hugged me and acted kittenish at me. Those joys, sorrows and laughter were so real, so how could they be fake? I tore through the house like a madwoman, but there wasn’t a single trace of my daughter anywhere. A strong wave of uneasiness engulfed me. Driven by instinct and worry, I went to the police station to report my daughter missing. However, after some investigation, the police were dumbfounded. “We’ve checked everything. You have one child. A son. There’s no record of any daughter.” In the end, amid everyone’s criticism, Jerry brought me back home. Even though all the evidence and everyone insisted Henry was my only biological son, I still couldn’t be intimate with him. I denied his call and resisted his approach. Even when my eyes landed on him, all I could think about was my daughter, whose whereabouts are unknown. In the beginning, Jerry tried to reason with me. He told me to stop hurting our son’s heart and tearing our family apart over someone who never existed. When faced with how fiercely I still rejected Henry, Jerry had no choice but to invite a psychologist to treat me. Eventually, the psychologist diagnosed me with severe paranoia. That diagnosis shattered the last bit of defense in my heart. I began to become more muddled and lost my grip on distinguishing illusion from reality. Everyone was convinced I had lost my mind and even I began to doubt myself.