THE WOMAN WHO PULLED A SINGLE HAIR FROM MY DAUGHTER EVERY DAY
I have served in the military for five years.
Five years of relentless training, tension, and strict discipline.
Five years living among barracks, training fields, and endless exercises, enough to make any woman age before her time.
In return, I hold a position everyone dreams of – a stable rank, a good salary, and a solid reputation.
The only problem… it takes away a lot from me.
Especially time with my daughter.
She is five years old.
Lively, obedient, with round eyes like morning dew. She is the one thing I have clung to in my life – the only thing giving me a reason to return home every evening.
I adopted her from an orphanage three years ago.
The records listed her parents as unknown, only noting that her mother had abandoned her at a hospital gate when she was just a few days old.
I still remember the first time I held her.
Her tiny hands, warm, gripping at me as if terrified of being left behind again. I didn’t even notice when tears ran down my face. Soldiers aren’t supposed to cry. But mothers… they can.
For the past month, every day when I pick her up from preschool, she repeats the same phrase:
“Mom… today the teacher pulled my hair again. I don’t know why.”
At first, I laughed.
She’s a child, overthinking is normal.
Maybe her hair was tangled. Maybe it had lice. Or maybe her curls were unruly… and the teacher pulled it out casually. Small matters like these happen all the time.
But the tenth day came, then the fifteenth… and then a full month.
Every day, she repeated the same words, her face a mixture of fear and confusion, and that innocent expression made my chest ache.
Could something truly be wrong?
That day, I brought her to class as usual. But instead of leaving, I stood hidden by the window, peeking inside.
And my heart nearly dropped.
The teacher – someone I had always trusted, praised for her gentleness – was holding my daughter in her arms. But not in a comforting, casual way.
It was a trembling hug.
A hug heavy with unspoken sorrow.
Her face pressed against my daughter’s hair, eyes shut tight, lips pursed as if holding back something unbearable.
I was frozen.
Why was she like this?
Then I saw her reach into her pocket and pull out a small box of milk – one she had never given to any other child in class.
She opened it and gently fed my daughter, her eyes full of care… and guilt.
My chest tightened.
She was treating my daughter… too specially.
And at that moment, she lifted her hand, parted my daughter’s hair, and… pulled a strand out.
I couldn’t contain myself anymore.
I pushed the door open and stormed in.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY DAUGHTER?!” – my voice broke, full of rage, panic, and confusion.
The milk box fell with a clatter.
She jumped back, pale as death, her face as white as if her deepest secret had been exposed.
“I… I can explain…” – she stumbled back, hands trembling visibly.
I grabbed my daughter into my arms, holding her tight.
“What are you doing? Why do you pull her hair every day? Are you crazy?!”
The teacher burst into tears.
No pretense. No excuses.
The despair in her eyes spilled over like a flood.
“Because… I think she is my daughter.”
Her words sliced through the room like a knife.
I stood still.
No feeling.
No thought.
Only… blankness.
The teacher – named Anne – was summoned to the principal’s office with me. There, she told the whole story, her voice shaking, choked with emotion, as if every word was a wound.
Three years ago, she had given birth to a baby girl.
The baby disappeared when she was only a few days old.
Anne’s mother – a strict, overbearing woman – had left the child at the hospital gate because she “didn’t want her daughter to be a single mother.”
She feared gossip.
She feared shame.
She feared the family’s reputation.
Anne was too weak at the time to fight for her child.
By the time she learned the truth, the baby had already been taken to an orphanage.
“I searched for her endlessly…” – she choked up – “Every feature… her face… her eyes… looked exactly like mine… I thought my heart would explode. I didn’t dare believe it… I didn’t dare hope…”
So she secretly pulled my daughter’s hair every day… to collect samples for a DNA test.
Her life was hard. Her teacher’s salary barely allowed her to afford sending even one strand for testing each month.
“But… the results?” – I asked, trying to keep calm.
She sniffled, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket, hands shaking as she handed it to me.
The thin paper felt fragile, and I was afraid it would tear.
Part of me didn’t want to open it.
Another part burned with the need to know the truth I had never been prepared to face.
When I opened it—
The first line hit me like a hammer:
“99.98% match – Mother-Child.”
My legs went weak.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t swallow.
My daughter… was my biological daughter?
Of course, I knew she wasn’t.
But what shattered me was this:
Her biological mother… was still alive.
And she was standing right in front of me, shoulders trembling, hands clutching at her coat as if afraid I would take my daughter from her.
Anne fell to her knees.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I never meant to hurt her. I just… I just wanted to know if my child was still alive.”
Watching that, I couldn’t breathe.
She was a mother.
A mother who had lost her child in unbearable pain.
A mother standing before her own child… unable to call her, hold her, or claim her… out of fear.
Fear that I would think badly of her.
Fear that I would forbid her.
Fear that my daughter would be scared.
Fear that… only a mother could understand.
I looked at my daughter – sitting on the chair, still innocent, unaware, still fiddling with the corner of the paper.
I exhaled.
A long, heavy exhale that carried years of exhaustion.
“Stand up.” – I said hoarsely.
Anne looked at me, tear-streaked.
“I… I never meant to fight for her. I know you are her legal mother. I know you raised her from infancy. I just… I just needed to see her… sometimes… I’ve been so grateful just to see her…”
“Don’t say that.” – I interrupted, heart aching – “You are her biological mother. This is not your fault. This is the fault of the one who took her from you.”
Anne cried, collapsing again.
This time, I didn’t stop her.
I didn’t say another word.
Because I knew… any words now would be meaningless.
Some pain… only tears can bear.
After that day, all three of our lives changed.
I arranged for us to sit together, talking as two mothers.
No competition, no struggle, no blame.
Simply… figuring out how to give my daughter the best life.
She didn’t understand what was happening. But she loved Anne.
Every time Anne approached, she chirped happily, like seeing a family member.
I knew… no matter how much I loved her, I could not deny the invisible bond between them.
A bond no one could break.
One evening, as the sky changed colors, I asked Anne:
“If back then your mother hadn’t done that… what would you have named her?”
Anne froze.
Her eyes drifted to some distant memory.
“I would have named her… Mai Linh.”
I froze.
I had never told anyone, but when I adopted her, I had renamed her Linh Mai.
Coincidence.
Unspoken connection.
A strange, inexplicable link… that only those truly connected could share.
That night, holding my daughter as she slept, I stroked her hair gently.
Not to check.
Not out of worry.
But because I remembered a woman who had quietly pulled tiny strands of hair, trembling with pain, just to find the child she lost.
A mother who might have lived a lifetime in torment.
I hugged my daughter tighter.
“My dear… you have two mothers who love you.”
She lifted her head.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” – I whispered, smiling, kissing her forehead – “Go to sleep.”
Streetlights cast shadows through the window.
The night wind rustled the trees.
In that moment, I understood:
Being a mother is not about giving birth – it’s about love.
And love… is never limited to one.
