“Mummy, when will the fairy give me a daddy?” my daughter once asked, her wide eyes shining with more hope than I could bear. We often played magical games together—drawing, inventing stories. That day, she pulled a crumpled sketch from her toy chest: a little girl whispering to a tiny winged figure. Then she found another—a child stretching and laughing in the morning sun.
“This is me doing exercises, then I’ll splash my face with water, Mummy!” she chirped before drifting off to sleep, her dreams as bright as her laughter.
That moment made me realise life has a way of unfolding in ways we never expect. But let me start from the beginning.
Long ago, I enrolled in a teaching college alongside my dearest friend, Evelyn. We were inseparable—studying late, sharing dreams, whispering about the future. After graduation, we both became schoolteachers. Evelyn had a gift, though; in her spare time, she illustrated children’s books, her hands spinning gold from ink and paper. Her talent caught the eye of a London publisher, and one day, she left—vanishing into the misty streets of England for three long years. We wrote letters, shared calls, ached with the distance.
When Evelyn finally returned to her home in Bristol, she wasn’t alone. A tiny girl clung to her hand—her daughter. She never spoke of the father. Her parents were gone by then, and she raised the child alone, though I did what I could. Little Matilda was sunshine itself. In quiet moments, Evelyn sketched—visions of her daughter as a schoolgirl, a teenager, a woman grown. I marvelled at how real her drawings felt.
“How do you know what she’ll look like?” I’d ask.
“Wait and see,” she’d reply with a cryptic smile.
But joy is fragile. When Matilda turned two, Evelyn’s heart gave out. Years abroad had worn her thin, and one morning, she simply didn’t wake.
I began adoption papers that same week. My greatest fear? That strangers might claim Matilda first. The thought of her slipping away haunted me—but luck was kind. I became her mother. She knew her real one lived among the stars, and every night, we’d trace Evelyn’s sketches together, as if her hand still soothed us.
Matilda grew clever, kind, lost in dreams. She was thirteen when, one evening, I returned from a birthday dinner to find a tall man on my doorstep, his words thick with an unfamiliar lilt. His English was hesitant, but his meaning struck like lightning.
He was… Matilda’s father. The real one. A Londoner. His story unspooled slowly: Evelyn had fled after a misunderstanding, never telling him she carried a child. He’d searched too late. By the time he learned of Matilda, I’d already claimed her.
Matilda stood frozen as she listened, her gaze tracing his face for something familiar. Later, over tea, she began to smile. He left for a hotel, and that night, she clutched her fairy doll, murmuring:
“Thank you, fairy, for bringing me a daddy.”
Months passed before it all settled. Matilda moved to London, into his terraced house, his bustling world. He had three other children, but Matilda—eldest now—found her place among them. She attends school, learns the violin, dances at recitals. We write, we call, we share our days.
I miss her. Dreadfully. But I’m happy.
Happy that my Evelyn left behind not just a radiant daughter, but a love strong enough to pull her father across years and miles.
That’s the story, then. Unbelievable, almost magical. But like the best fairy tales, it’s really about faith, love, and the quiet wonders that stitch our lives together.
