**Diary Entry**
*7th June*
“Look who finally decided to show up!” bellowed David Wilson. “You might as well turn around and leave!”
“Dad, whats gotten into you?” Andrew was stunned. “I havent been home in twenty years, and this is the welcome I get?”
“If it were up to me, Id have met you with a belt!” David tightened his grip on his trousers. “But never mindwell settle this now!”
“Easy there!” Andrew took a step back. “Im not five anymoreI can hit back if I have to!”
“Thats just like you!” David spat, still clutching his belt. “Picking on the weak, running from the strong, tricking the kind, and serving the wicked!”
“What on earth are you on about? What am I even guilty of?” Andrew shrugged. “If I did anything wrong, twenty years have passed! Surely its time to let it go?”
“Easy for you to say when youre the one at fault! Of course you want forgivenesswell, you wont get it from me!”
“Fine, then tell mewhat exactly did I do?” Andrew demanded. “Back then, I spent ages wondering why my own parents branded me a traitor and barred me from home! Not one letter answered, even though I wrote!”
“And you dont know why?” David sneered.
Andrew was completely lost, ready to press further, but the argument drew his mother out.
“Not this again!” Margaret Wilson snapped. “The devil himself mustve dragged you back! Throw him out, David! Hes a disgrace to our grey hairs!”
Andrew was so shocked he froze like a statue. His mother wasnt done.
“If God gave me the strength, Id thrash you with a poker! But I see fates already marked you!” She pointed at the bruise under his eye.
“Someone landed a fine punch!” David smirked. “Id shake their hand!”
“Mum, Dadhave you lost your minds? Twenty years gone, and this is how you greet me?”
“Who gave you that shiner?” David ignored him. “Well toss you out soon enough, but Id like to thank the lad who did it!”
“How should I know? I took the coach home! Then our old neighbour Peter recognised me, made a fussnext thing I know, some bloke jumps me at the stop, socks me in the eye, spits in my face, and legs it!”
“Some unsung hero!” David chuckled. “Ill ask Peter who it was.”
“Thats all you care about? That Ive been gone two decades means nothing?”
“Why would we want a traitor back?” Margaret cut in.
“What traitor? What did I even do?”
“Because!” a third voice shouted from the kitchen.
“And whos this brave soul?” Andrew snapped.
A figure stepped into the light.
“Thats the little sod who gave me this!” Andrew jabbed a finger at the young man.
“Well done, grandson!” David grinned. “Seized the moment!”
“Grandson? What the hell?”
“Thats right!” Margaret shielded the lad. “Your son. Abandoned.”
“I dont have a son!” Andrew shot back. “Never did! Id know if I did!”
“Then maybe remember why you ran from this village twenty years ago!” Davids voice cracked with emotion.
***
Andrew never called it running. His departure had been plannedjust moved up slightly. There were reasons.
He was heading far, nearly cross-country, for university. Going early meant securing a job before term started. The grant alone wouldnt cover much, and asking his parents for money felt wrongthey could only send food, not cash.
But there was another reason. Before he left, the village had turned restless. Had he stayed two more weeks, he mightve never left. The matchmakers were circling. Thats why he left.
To the obvious questionwhy?his answer was simple:
“I wanted a life at sea. Leaving a wife behind while I sailed? Not for me. I wont grow horns willingly.”
The sea had come by chance. After school, hed served in the Navy. A year was enough to realise land wasnt for him. Returning home, he already had his acceptance to maritime collegetrain as a ships engineer, then set sail.
But before term started, he intended to get his fill of freedom. Post-Army antics needed no explanation. Young men only stopped when they blacked out; the rest was one reckless stunt after another.
Andrew had seen enough of that. Lads came back proud as peacocks, ready to conquer the worlduntil a wedding ring shackled them to wives, kids, and drudgery. He wanted none of it.
His restraint earned him admiration. Young, ambitious, clean-cutthe village girls swarmed. Invitations, treats, whispered promises. Even delegations to his parents, angling for an arranged match.
Andrew saw the writing on the wall. Either theyd wear him down or pressure his parents. So he left early.
*Better safe than sorry.*
He arrived, found work at the docks, rented a dorm bed, submitted his papers, and wrote home to say hed settled in.
Their reply was a furious letter calling him a coward, a traitor, worse. No explanationjust disownment. *Dont come back. Men like you belong at the bottom of the sea.*
Baffled, he wrote again and again. No reply, not even a telegram. Hed have gone back to demand answersbut term had started.
When he graduated, one last letter arrivedjust half a notebook page:
*”Drown yourself, you cowardly traitor!”*
Signed not *Mum and Dad*, but *David and Margaret Wilson.*
Still clueless, he stopped expecting answers. He signed on with a ship and sailed. Every six months, hed dock, send another letter, and leave.
At forty, he finally needed to know: *What had bitten them twenty years ago?*
The reunion was anything but warm.
“Whyd I leave? To stop you marrying me off to God knows who!” Andrew scoffed. “You were haggling with half the village!”
“We wanted you matched well! Instead, you got some orphan girl pregnant and bolted!” Margaret hissed.
“Who? When?”
“She came to us after you left! Said she was carrying your child, asked for advice! Were we supposed to abandon our own grandchild?”
“When did she come? I wrote to you a month after leavingyou told me never to return!”
“Natasha said shed written to you! That you told her to get rid of it and clear off!” David said.
“Did you see this letter?”
“We believed her, unlike you!” Margaret snapped.
“Fine. DNA test. If hes mine, crucify me.”
The test was negative. Andrew handed it to them.
“Clear now? Natasha knew damn well it wasnt mine. She came to you anyway.”
“The real shame isnt that you believed a lieits that you never once doubted your son was a coward.”
“Twenty years. And now? I dont need your forgiveness. You said goodbye long ago.”
Andrew left. Stan stayed. To the end, he milked the old couple, insisting the test was wrong, his mother was a saint.
Just like her, in the end.
What would you have done?
