**Diary Entry 12th March**
Life after the wedding was peaceful for Emily and me. Our little flat in Manchester felt like heavenuntil the phone rang at two in the morning. I woke first, groggy, and grabbed it. My mothers voice, barely above a whisper:
“Oliver are you asleep? Is everything alright?”
Strange, but I assumed shed had a bad dream. Emily even felt sorry for her.
Then it happened again the next night. Same time, same question. And the next. And the next. We were exhaustedI could barely focus at work, Emily snapped at everything. By the third night, we turned our phones off.
At half two, the doorbell rang.
Mum stood there in her nightdress, barefoot, calm as you please. “I couldnt reach you,” she said, stepping inside. “I got worried.”
Emily was furious. I tried to be patientshe was my mother, after allbut even I knew this wasnt right.
A week passed. We begged her to stop. Yelled once. She only smiled.
Then, one night, we silenced our phones again. No call. No visit. We slept properly for the first time in ages.
The next afternoon, we dropped by her house in Leeds. The moment we opened the door, the smell hit us.
She was in her armchair, gone. The phone clutched in her handswitched off. The coroner said shed died around two in the morning.
Thats when it hit us. The calls stopped because she *couldnt* make them. Shed known. And wed been too selfish to see it.
Never ignore your parents calls. It might be their last.
