Second oportunity

Marcus was examining the artifacts from an old box spread across his desk, his fingers absentmindedly tracing the worn surfaces, while his daughter, Helena, unleashed a torrent of bitter truths. She stared at him, her eyes filled with frustration and hurt.

“You were always absent, Dad,” she said, her voice shaking with anger and sadness. “My entire childhood, you were gone, obsessed with dead civilizations, on endless expeditions. The only thing you sent home was your fat paycheck, but that didn’t raise me, and it didn’t keep Mom company.”

Marcus remained engrossed in the artifacts, avoiding her gaze, but Helena’s words pierced through his defenses, even though he refused to show it. The weight of decades of absence hung in the air, yet he didn’t know how to respond.

“I’m here, trying to talk about our lives, about how Mom was so lonely that she ended up dying, and even now, you prefer these old relics,” she said, her voice rising in frustration. On impulse, Helena grabbed the object he held in his hands — an ancient amulet carved from stone — and burst out, “I just wish you could understand what it was like to raise a daughter alone all these years!”

A flash of light flooded the kitchen, so bright that Helena had to cover her eyes for a moment. When the light faded, she blinked, disoriented, trying to make sense of her surroundings. Everything seemed... different. The chairs, the table — everything appeared gigantic. She glanced at her reflection in the shiny metal of the fridge, and her heart nearly stopped.

She was seven years old again.

But the shock didn’t end there. Trembling, Helena slowly turned to the chair where her father had been sitting. Instead of the middle-aged man she expected, there was a woman, identical to her late mother, staring back at her with the same eyes that had once raised her — now filled with astonishment.