One morning, I saw my father selling Mom’s dress at the flea market, and only then did I understand that he was secretly collecting money to send me to a boarding home.
I recognized it by the pattern. Thin white branches on a blue background, like the night sky. Mom wore that dress only on special occasions. There was still a tiny snag on the collar from the day she lifted me into her arms, and I awkwardly clutched the fabric. We laughed then. Now, the dress hung on a rough iron hook between old jackets and worn-out bags, and nearby stood my father, leaning on his cane and nervously clutching wrinkled bills.
I was walking past the market after school, my head buried in my old phone, when I spotted a familiar silhouette. At first, I felt relieved—thinking he had just gone out for a walk. The doctors said moving around was good for him after his stroke. But my relief vanished instantly when I saw that dress. Ours. Mom’s.
“Dad?” I breathed out, unable to believe my eyes.
He flinched as if caught doing something shameful, then tried to smile:
“Liya… You’re out of school already? I… I’m just helping a friend here.”
He was never good at lying. His eyes darted around like a child caught with a forbidden candy. I stepped closer, touched the dress, ran my fingers along a familiar seam. For a moment, I was wrapped in the scent of Mom’s perfume—or maybe it was just a memory.
“That’s Mom’s,” I whispered. “You promised we wouldn’t touch her things.”
He looked down.
“Things are just things, Liya. We need money.”
“For what?” Anger flared inside me, but my voice trembled. “For medicine? For food? I’d understand that. But you hide your wallet, stash envelopes… What’s going on?”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, as if fighting himself. The vendor nearby pretended not to hear, but his sideways glances only made the burning shame on my skin sharper.
“Dad,” I repeated. “What do you need so much money for?”
Finally, he met my eyes. There was the same helpless despair I’d seen when the doctors wheeled out an empty stretcher covered with a sheet. He didn’t cry then. Not now either. But I could see the silent scream inside.
“For you,” he whispered hoarsely.
I recoiled as if struck.
“What?”
“I can’t manage, Liya,” he spoke quickly, swallowing his words. “I can’t work, my hand hardly obeys me, my legs fail. Since Mom died, everything…” He shook his head, as if trying to chase away a haunting shadow. “I calculated, thought it through. Your textbooks, food, utilities, medicine… Then the doctor said I might need surgery. I can’t cope.”
“So you’re selling Mom’s things?” My voice wasn’t just hurt anymore—it trembled with fear.
He took a deep breath.
“I submitted the application,” he managed. “To a boarding home. For teenagers. It’ll be… better there. Food, school, clubs, a counselor. And if something happens to me… you won’t be alone.”
His words hung between us like an icy wall.
“You want to give me away? Like some unwanted thing?” I barely whispered.
“I want to save you,” he shot back sharply. “From poverty, from both of us ending up on the street. I’ve seen the downstairs neighbor’s looks when you come home alone at night. How the store no longer offers you credit with a smile. The world is cruel. I can’t always be there.”
At that moment, a middle-aged woman approached us and, ignoring everything, jabbed her finger at Mom’s dress:
“How much for this?”
Dad named a price automatically. I felt the air leave my lungs.
“No!” I ripped the dress off the hook. “This isn’t for sale!”
The woman scoffed irritably and walked away, but I didn’t care. I clutched the fabric like the last thread connecting me to the time when Mom was alive and Dad still believed everything could be fixed.
“You have no right to decide for me,” I said, looking him straight in the eyes. “If you’re planning to send me away, at least ask if I want to.”
He sank wearily onto a folding chair. The wind tousled his graying hair; red patches flushed his cheeks.
“So what would you choose, Liya?” he asked quietly. “To live with an old man who might not wake up tomorrow? To wait for the ambulance instead of worrying about college? To listen to neighbors whisper that both of you belong in a shelter, not this apartment?”
Something tightened in my chest. Suddenly, I saw him clearly—not as a strict, stubborn father, but as a man who probably wakes every night from pain in his hand and the horror of leaving me alone.
“I choose you,” I whispered. “Even if it’s hard. Even if I have to work after school, save, sell… everything except the memory of Mom and us.”
He smiled faintly with just his lips:
“You’re a child.”
“I’m not anymore,” I answered. “Do you know what will happen if you take me to that home? I’ll think every night that you’re all alone there. That you’re hurting, need water, medicine, and no one is near. I’ll hate that place and myself for agreeing.”
He was silent for a long time. The noise of the market faded for me, as if the whole world awaited his answer. Then he slowly pulled an envelope from his inner pocket—crumpled, with a corner darkened by sweat.
“This is the money,” he said. “From everything I sold. Including the ring Mom loved so much. I thought I was spending it on your future home. But it turns out, I was buying myself loneliness.”
He handed me the envelope.
“Take it. Let’s say we’re partners now. You and me. And her memory.”
I didn’t take the envelope. I placed Mom’s dress on top of it.
“First, we’ll bring her home,” I said. “Then we’ll decide together what to do with the rest.”
He stood up—heavy, awkward, but without his cane’s help. Took a bag in one hand, the dress’s edge in the other. I took his arm.
On the way home, he suddenly whispered:
“I already called there. To the home. I can still cancel it.”
“You will,” I nodded. “Tomorrow we’ll see the social worker. Let them see we’re not giving up.”
He looked at me the way he used to look at Mom—with tired but alive hope.
At home, I carefully hung Mom’s dress back in the closet. The room smelled of dust and medicine, but for a moment, I thought her scent had returned—warm, quiet, like an embrace. I closed the door and whispered into the emptiness:
“We’ll try on our own, okay? We’re not giving up yet.”
There was no answer. But in the living room, where Dad was sorting through a pile of papers, the atmosphere suddenly seemed brighter. As if someone invisible had cracked open a window for us.
