**Diary Entry**
Mum screamed, “You’ve betrayed me!” and Dad just vanished.
Emily was fast asleep when the phone shattered the silence. She grabbed the receiver, her heart already pounding.
“Emily!” Her mother’s voice trembled with despair. “Come now! Immediately!”
“Mum, what’s happened?” Emily jolted awake, trying to steady her nerves. “Another fight with Dad? You’ve been like this your whole lives—sort it out yourselves!”
“There’s no one to sort it with!” Mum shrieked, her voice breaking. “You don’t have a father anymore!”
“Mum… is Dad gone?” Emily froze, feeling the blood drain from her face.
“Come here, see for yourself!” Mum snapped. “This isn’t a phone conversation!”
“See what?” Emily nearly shouted in confusion.
“Just come!” Mum hung up.
Emily, shaking, threw on her clothes. She raced to her parents’ house in the outskirts of Manchester, unable to imagine what awaited her there.
She remembered the relentless chaos of that house growing up. Her mother, Margaret, ruled with a voice like a foghorn, while her father, William, just gritted his teeth until his lips thinned into a line. He never shouted back, but Emily knew—inside, he was seething.
The fights had started when she was still in school. At first, they were rare, then daily. The neighbours in their council estate would shake their heads, muttering, “How does he put up with her? Poor bloke.”
No one asked how Emily felt. On the surface, the family seemed respectable—her father a professor at the university, her mother a housewife. But “housewife” was generous. Margaret commanded everyone: her husband, Emily, even the cleaning lady William hired to ease the tension. It didn’t help.
When Emily left for university in London, she thought she’d escaped. But every visit home was ruined by shouting. Once, after another tirade, her father finally snapped, “What more do you want, Margaret? The moon on a plate?” Mum had fallen silent—for all of five minutes.
At Emily’s wedding, Mum outdid herself. She corrected William’s toast, sneered at his speech, and when the MC handed him the microphone, Margaret snatched it away: “I’ll do it. He can’t be trusted with anything important.” The guests exchanged looks; Emily burned with shame.
After the wedding, her father secretly gave her a flat in London and swore her to secrecy. She told only her husband, James. “Blimey,” he’d said. “Hope we don’t keep secrets like that.” “We won’t,” she promised. “I take after Dad—I can’t stand quarrels.”
Now, speeding toward her childhood home, Emily braced for more shouting. But reality was worse.
Mum flung open the door, wailing, “I gave him everything—my youth, my life! And he repays me like this!”
“Mum, where’s Dad?” Emily gripped her shoulders.
“Your father ran off in the night!” Margaret sobbed.
Gone. Just like that. He’d left a note, taken some clothes, and vanished.
Emily called him. He answered calmly, as if he’d been waiting. “I’ve earned the right never to see your mother again. I’m at a mate’s cottage. If you need me, I’m here.”
“Dad, where are you?” Emily asked, feeling her mother’s glare bore into her.
“Not coming back. We’ll talk later.”
Mum raged. “Traitor!”
“Enough!” Emily snapped. “He’s not a traitor. He’s tired. Tired of *you*.”
For once, Mum had no retort.
Dad never returned. Mum stalked his friend’s cottage, banging on doors, screaming into voicemails. When she finally accepted there was no other woman, she crumpled. “How dare he leave me for no reason? Am I nothing?”
Two years later, Dad died. His last words: “Bury me alone.” Mum laughed bitterly when she heard. A year after that, she fell ill. Emily nursed her until the end. In her final days, Mum whispered, “I had enough… I just never saw it.”
Now, Emily visits the cemetery often. Her parents lie in quiet at last.
Lesson learned: Love isn’t possession. Sometimes, the loudest silences are the ones that break you.
