My baby knows my face through a phone screen

Dear Delyara, I have worked construction in Qatar since before my daughter was born. She is eighteen months old now. Every evening, my wife holds the phone in our village in Nepal and says, “Look, Baba is calling.” My daughter smiles when the screen lights up, but she does not reach for me the way she reaches for her grandfather. Tonight, the connection froze while I was singing to her. My face stopped with my mouth open, and she tapped the screen, laughed, then carried the phone to her toy box and placed me among the dolls. My wife laughed too. I did not. I live with eleven men in one room and send almost everything home. The money has repaired the roof, paid medical bills, and bought my daughter a warm coat for winter. Everyone says I am sacrificing for her. They are right. What nobody says is that sacrifice can become a stranger’s face on a small piece of glass. When the call ended, I opened the photograph my wife sent yesterday and enlarged my daughter’s hand until it filled the screen. I pressed my thumb against it. Her hand was the size of mine for one second. Then the phone went dark.