CHAPTER 19- MY SLEEPING PRINCESS

Anna's POV

It was already after nine when I got home.

The living room light was still on. Mama sat on the sofa with a folded scarf in her lap. Papa looked up from the small table where he had been sorting pharmacy receipts.

“You’re late again,” Mama said, but her voice held no sharp edge.

“The work ran long.” I set my bag down and loosened the top button of my blouse. “Everything is fine. The project is moving.”

Papa nodded once. “Good. We’re proud of you.”

Mama’s hands stilled on the scarf. “As long as you’re eating and sleeping a little.”

“I am.” I gave them both a small smile that felt thinner than I intended. “I’m going to check on Amyra.”

They did not stop me.

I pushed her door open carefully. The room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of the night-light she still needed. Amyra lay on her side, one arm tucked under the pillow, the other resting lightly over her chest the way she always slept. Her curls had spilled across the pillow. The yellow dress from the morning was folded neatly on the chair. A half-finished drawing of a hospital roof garden sat on the small desk, the blue crayon broken beside it.

I sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under my weight. She did not stir.

My hand hovered above her hair, then settled gently, smoothing one curl back from her forehead. Her skin was warm. The steady rise and fall of her breathing filled the quiet room. I watched the small movement of her chest and felt something tighten high under my ribs.

Since I got my job, I had missed the bedtime stories. The ones she always requested twice. I had missed tucking the blanket under her chin and listening while she told me about Maya’s wrong “Wensday” or the new song Teacher Lin taught them. I had missed the quiet minutes of watching her draw, the way her tongue pressed against her lip when she concentrated. I had missed being the last face she saw before sleep took her.

My fingers curled lightly against the edge of the blanket. I swallowed once, hard, until the pressure in my throat eased enough to breathe evenly again. The job could pay the hospital letters. It could ease the weight on Mama and Papa. It could give Amyra a future with lesser pains and more open sky. The knowledge sat solid in my chest. Beside it sat the quieter, heavier truth that every late night meant I wouldn't be close to my baby as I used to, moments I couldn't get back.

I leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her temple. She shifted once, then settled again. I stayed until my legs began to ache, memorizing the soft sound of her breathing, before I finally stood and left the room.

Mama and Papa were still in the living room. Mama looked up.

“She’s growing so fast,” I said.

Mama’s eyes softened. “We know. You’re doing this for her, for all of us. We can help with the mornings and the evenings. You don’t have to carry every hour alone.”

Papa added quietly, “The work is good. The child is safe. That is enough for now.”

I nodded. The tightness under my ribs did not fully leave, but it loosened enough to let me move.

In my own room I changed out of the work clothes and washed my face with cool water. The mirror showed the same tired lines I had stopped noticing weeks ago. I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the drawer of the nightstand without thinking. The silver cufflink still lay beneath the old receipts, untouched since the morning I had placed it there five years earlier.

I did not take it out.

The fragments arrived anyway, small and uninvited. A stranger’s voice, low and rough with alcohol. The weight of a body above mine in a hotel room. The clean scent of skin and sheets. Morning light cutting across an empty space beside me. The cufflink lying on the floor, catching the dim light as I left.

My hand closed around the edge of the mattress until my knuckles turned white. I forced my fingers open one by one and shut the drawer.

It was only one night..fiive years ago. A stranger whose name I never learned and whose face the years had already begun to blur.

I lay down, pulled the blanket up, and closed my eyes.