“Don’t show up without permission. I gave birth to a daughter, not to a reconciliation ceremony. I need peace — and so does my baby.”

I read that sentence again and again. Ten times at least. Her handwriting — slightly slanted, confident. But between the lines I sensed a boundary… a wall laid brick by brick over the past year.

And suddenly it pierced through me like a needle to a nerve:
she doesn’t want me near her… not even now.

The scream wanted to escape my throat — but silence gripped it tight.

I stepped toward the window. Outside, life looked so casually normal: cars humming by, pigeons hopping along the pavement, passersby laughing, someone carrying flowers, someone hurrying home. And I… I felt suspended between two worlds: the one where I had a daughter, and the one where I became a stranger.

Behind me, Roman approached quietly.
— Please try to understand… this was her call.
And I found myself wondering: was he telling the truth — or speaking for her?

I swallowed slowly.
— I don’t wish her harm, — I said quietly.
— She knows, — he replied.
Yet his voice betrayed uncertainty — the fatigue of someone torn between two loyalties.

I walked home—by choice—though the distance was long. I needed the cold air, the pavement beneath my steps, the sting in my lungs — something real, something grounding.

At home, I placed the gift bag onto the armchair. The tiny yellow hat. The soft blanket I crocheted. A fabric book for newborns. A gentle rattle that chimed like far-away bells. A little ribbon headband with a bow.

I stared at them — and inside me a storm began:

Did I do something unforgivable?
Where was the unseen breaking point?
When did love turn into accusation?

I remembered the day I gave birth to her. Holding her tiny body. Her midnight cries. My whispered promise: “I’m here. I will never disappear.”

And now…
she asked me to stay away.

It took days — long, aching days — to face a truth:
I was not a villain, nor a hero.
I was simply a person who perhaps loved too loudly,
too insistently,
too on my own terms.

Two weeks later my phone rang.
Her.

My heart startled — beating hard enough for the walls to hear.
— Hello? — I managed to say.

A brief silence on the line. Then her voice:
— If you’d like… you can come on Saturday. For an hour.

For an hour.
Like a scheduled visit.
Like an appointment.
Like supervised access to a life I once helped create.

I could have taken offense.
Could have exploded.
Could have recited every past hurt.

But all I said was:
— Thank you.

Saturday came. I stood at her door again. Holding the same bag of gifts — but this time, without the expectation of fixing anything. Only with the humble willingness to simply be present, however briefly.

She opened the door. She looked tired, disheveled… but luminous in her new motherhood. In her arms — a small, sleeping bundle.

She didn’t smile.
Neither did I.

But she stepped aside — silently saying: come in… not as a commander-mother, but as a guest.

I entered.
And when she gently placed my granddaughter into my arms, I didn’t cry.
I only held that warm, fragile life and thought:

Here she is — a new beginning. It won’t resemble the past… and maybe that’s a blessing.

The silence between us then was not hostility.
It was a bridge.

Sometimes relationships aren’t repaired — they are replanted.
Grown again from seed.
Without guarantees.
Without the weight of old stories.

Only with the tenderness of the present moment.