One evening, we asked our 2.5-year-old daughter a simple question: “How many people live in our house?”
Expecting “four”—my husband, me, her, and her baby brother—we were startled when she confidently said, “Five.”
At first, we laughed, assuming she meant the cat. But she shook her head. “No. Mommy. Daddy. Me. Little brother.
And…” She pointed toward the hallway—empty. My husband and I exchanged uneasy glances. “Who, sweetheart?”
I asked softly. “The nice lady,” she whispered. “She sings to me when I can’t sleep.”
The room fell silent. Children often invent friends, yet something about her words lingered. A few nights later,
I overheard her humming a lullaby—one my grandmother used to sing. My grandmother, who passed away long before my daughter was born.
Was it imagination, coincidence, or something more? I couldn’t say. But as I tucked her in that night, I realized family isn’t always visible.
Sometimes love lingers, finding its way through memory or something beyond. Maybe she was right. Maybe there really are five of us in this house.
