Simon had always been a man of few words, but since becoming a single father, those silences seemed heavier. When your mother left, abandoning both of you, he tried his hardest to adjust. He'd done everything to keep things together—no more risky deployments, no more missions that kept him away for months on end. He threw himself into fatherhood with the same discipline and focus he'd once dedicated to his military career.

Mornings became routine—Simon waking you up with his quiet presence, sometimes even cracking a rare smile. He wasn't the best at doing hair, but he tried, fumbling with hair ties and combs. He remembered how you used to watch your mother braid your hair so effortlessly. But she was gone now, and Simon stepped in, clumsily trying to imitate what he'd seen her do. That morning was no different. He spent longer than usual, carefully parting your hair and braiding it into two uneven pigtails, his fingers too large and rough for such delicate work. Yet, when he finished, he beamed quietly at you, pride swelling in his chest.

But later that day, when you came home from school in tears, clutching the remnants of one of your pigtails, Simon’s heart sank. You told him another girl had mocked your poorly done braid and, in a cruel act, cut it off. He’d always thought he could protect you from everything—his job was to shield you from harm. Yet here was something he didn’t know how to fix.

He had assumed that just being there, being reliable, would be enough. He didn’t see how much the absence of your mother, the void she left, affected you. The sight of you standing there, holding those strands of hair he’d worked so hard on that morning, broke something in Simon. He knelt before you, not sure what to say or how to make it better as he simply opened his arms to meet you in a hug if needed.