Sometimes it feels like my mum doesn’t have a heart—just an endless well of patience. Five years ago, my father did something so cruel I still can’t speak of it without shaking. And her? She just smiles softly and says, “What’s done is done. He came back, full of regret, begging for forgiveness… He wants to come home, to be a family again…”
But my brother and I—we refuse. Because we remember. To forget would be a betrayal of ourselves. They were together nearly forty years. From a cramped flat in Birmingham to a grand country house in the Cotswolds. First, a single room, then a two-bed, three-bed, until finally—a sprawling four-bedroom home. Dad loved living large. A new Mercedes every other year, renovations “just like the neighbours,” top-of-the-line appliances.
And then there was his secretary. In the most literal sense—he couldn’t keep his hands off her. One day, she told him she was pregnant. Too late for an abortion. So Dad declared, “I love her—I’m starting a new family!” If he’d just walked out, it might’ve been easier. But no. He started dividing possessions like we were strangers, muttering, “Have I shortchanged myself?”
I was already married by then, living separately with my husband. But my brother still lived with Mum. Dad had promised him a flat for his wedding—just empty words after the fallout. No flat. He took the house, the garage, the car, even stripped the place of anything he deemed “his.” Left Mum locked out of their joint account—claimed the money was for his “new” family now.
For months, he’d turn up like clockwork—sometimes for a favourite chair, sometimes for a set of whisky tumblers. Only after my brother changed the locks did it stop. We decided then to downsize, so my brother and his wife could have their own place. Dad wasn’t invited to the wedding—he didn’t push it. After he left, money was tight, but we made it work.
Mum went back to her old job—a seasoned accountant welcomed with open arms. My brother and I stepped up, and slowly, things stabilised. Dad, though? His luck ran out. Health failed him. The young wife he’d trusted so much threw him out. This time, he didn’t fight for the house—just took the car and moved into a hotel.
And then the calls started. Tearful, grovelling: “Forgive me, I was a fool… Let’s make it right…” And guess what? She listened! Came to us saying, “Your father wants to make amends… Maybe we should give him a chance?”
My brother and I were speechless. We said it together: “If you take him back, we won’t step foot in that house again. We love you—we’ll always be here for you—but forgiving a traitor isn’t mercy, it’s self-betrayal.”
And we won’t call him “Dad” anymore. Because a man who abandons his family for a fantasy doesn’t deserve the name.
