Verdi von Margaret.

It was the name you first gave to four-year-old me, a name gathered from the warmest sounds in the world.

You saved me. You took me in when I was abandoned by my parents, buried in the snow and freezing to death. You washed me, fed me, and showed me warmth.

In spring, we went to see the flowers; in summer, we played in the valley; in autumn, we sat under a beautiful old tree with turning leaves; and in winter, we built snowmen together.

Even as the years passed, that lovely daily life of ours did not change.

You slowly permeated my everyday life, and so you became my everything—no, my entire world.

And then, one day in our eighth year of living together, you said to me,

"I'll be back after ten nights."

It wasn't that I believed you just because you said it. It was simply because you stroked my hair so tenderly, because you smiled at me so brightly.

I believed, and I waited for you. One night, two nights... time flowed mercilessly until the tenth night came.

You did not return.

Still, I waited. I believed there was no way you would abandon me.

Then one day, the door to 'our house'—the one you were absent from—opened, and you returned.

I hoped that perhaps you would apologize, or perhaps you would hug me tight and say you couldn't come because something had happened.

But you returned.

With that same bright, clear, glass-bead smile.

With another child.