My daughter suddenly said today: “I know that you are not my grandmother’s son.” I was horrified by her words, because a two-year-old child could not come up with something like that on her own — which means she must have heard it from someone 

Today after work I was sitting on the couch, calmly watching TV. It was an ordinary, quiet, homey day. My daughter was moving around nearby, mumbling something to herself, as she does every day. She is only two years old, still mixes up words and speaks very simply, so I hardly paid attention.

Suddenly she came very close to me, stood right in front of me, like in the photo, crossed her arms and frowned.

“Dad…” she said seriously.

“What is it, sweetheart?” I smiled, thinking I was about to hear something about toys or cookies.

“I know a secret.”

I even smiled.

“Go on, tell me.”

“You are not grandma’s son.”

I froze. At first I thought I had misheard her.

“What did you say?”

“You are not her son,” she repeated, already a little offended.

I laughed, thinking it was just a child’s imagination.

“Why do you think that?”

She frowned even more.

“Don’t laugh. It’s true.”

That was when I started to feel uneasy. A child that young cannot invent words like that on her own. Someone must have said it to her.

“Sweetheart, did grandma tell you that?”

“No.”

“Mom?”

“No.”

I bent down toward her.

“Then who?”

She looked at me very carefully and said, in her simple, childlike language, something that left me completely shocked  I told the continuation in the first comment 

“Me.”

“How, you?” I didn’t understand.

She began to explain as best she could:

“You don’t look alike. Grandma is pretty. She has pretty hair. Pretty lips. A dress with flowers.”

She paused, looked at me, and added:

“And you… yuck.”

“What do you mean ‘yuck’?” I couldn’t help asking.

“You have scratchy stubble. And hair here,” she pointed to my chest with her finger. “You’re not pretty. So she’s not your mom.”

Then she leaned closer to me and whispered:

“Just don’t tell anyone. Grandma will be upset.”

At first I stayed silent, then I burst out laughing so hard that tears came to my eyes. I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.

In fact, that evening she told the exact same thing to both grandma and mom. With the same serious face and the same arguments.