I was eight when my mum walked out of our house. She popped round the corner, hailed a black cab, and was off before I could blink. My little brother, George, was only five.
After that, everything in our house went a bit topsy-turvy. Dad suddenly became a jack-of-all-trades, doing things he’d never attempted before: waking up at the crack of dawn to fry us some bacon and eggs, figuring out the washing machine with more enthusiasm than skill, ironing our school uniforms, and trying (somewhat bravely) to tackle the knots in my hair before school. I watched him muddle up the rice, burn the toast, and forget to separate the whites from the colours in the laundry yet somehow, he always managed to keep us going. Hed come home knackered from work and still plop down to check our homework, sign our exercise books, and pack our lunchboxes for the next day.
Mum never popped round for visits. Dad never brought another woman home, never introduced anyone as his ‘partner’. We knew he went out, sometimes came home late, but his personal life was as mysterious as Stonehenge totally off-limits, never spoken of. It was always just me and George rattling round the house. I never once heard him say hed fallen in love again. His life became work, come home, cook, do the laundry, sleep, rinse, repeat.
Weekends, Dad would take us to the park, down to the Thames, or wander around the shopping centre even if we only gazed longingly at the new trainers in the windows. He learnt how to braid hair, sew on buttons, pack proper packed lunches. When school had a fancy dress day, hed craft costumes out of old cardboard boxes and bedsheets. Never once did he grumble. Not a word of, Thats not my job.
A year ago, Dad popped off to the great British bake-off in the sky. It happened so quickly no time for drawn-out goodbyes, just gone. While we sorted through his things, I found old notebooks where hed scribbled down grocery lists, reminders like pay the council tax, buy new shoes, book the girls doctors appointment. No love letters. No photos of some secret girlfriend. No hints of a romantic life. Just evidence of a man who kept this show on the road for his kids.
Since Dads gone, one question keeps rattling round my head: was he happy? Mum left, convinced happiness would be found elsewhere. Dad stayed, and it seems he put his own happiness firmly on hold. He never made a new family. Never built a new home with a partner. For years, he wasnt anyones priority but ours.
Now I see, clear as day, I had a remarkable dad. But I also realise he was a bloke who chose being alone, so his kids wouldnt be left that way. And that weighs on me. Because now, with him gone, I wonder if he ever got the love he truly deserved.
