She smiled so wide, her cheeks might’ve cracked. Lina’s tiny fingers cradled her newborn sister, Elsie, like she’d practiced in dreams. From my hospital bed, I watched through the haze of exhaustion. For four years, Lina had been our only child. Now, with Elsie here, I thought we were complete. But then Lina leaned close to the baby and whispered, “Now I have someone to keep the secrets with.” When I asked what she meant, she only smiled and asked for a cookie.

At first, I brushed it off as imagination. But weeks later, I heard her tell her dolls, “We don’t tell Daddy. That’s the rule.” Then one day in the yard, she whispered to Elsie, “The monster only comes when Daddy’s not home.” When I asked what the monster looked like, she said, “Tall. Shadowy. No face. He bangs on windows. Hides in the kitchen.”

Concerned, I installed a baby monitor. One night, I saw Lina standing silently in the hallway, watching our bedroom door. She denied it the next morning. I searched her room and found a drawing: a faceless figure behind our kitchen table, next to two small figures. Underneath: “Don’t let him take her.” We planned to see a child psychologist. But the day before, Lina disappeared with Elsie. Hours later, James found them in the garden shed. Elsie was safe.

When I asked Lina why, she said, “The monster said he was coming. I had to hide her.” The psychologist later told us Lina showed signs of trauma. We were stunned. No one had hurt her… or so we thought. Later, at the park, I gently asked Lina if the monster looked like anyone. She replied, “He smells like Daddy. Sounds like him when he’s angry.”

I confronted James that night. He broke down. During my pregnancy, he’d started drinking. He admitted yelling at Lina, even grabbing her once. He thought she’d forgotten. She hadn’t. Her fear turned her father into a monster in her mind.

James moved out, entered rehab, and stayed sober. Lina began therapy. Slowly, the nightmares stopped. Months later, she said to me at bedtime, “I don’t need to keep secrets anymore.” That’s when I knew: the healing had begun. Sometimes, the monsters don’t hide under the bed. Sometimes, they’re the people we love—lost in their pain. But people can change. And children deserve homes without secrets.