“Who are you to me now?”—Thirty years later, my father returned to my life… only to end up in hospital.
James returned home from work. He pulled into the car park of his high-rise flat in a quiet neighbourhood of Manchester, parked, popped the boot, and grabbed two heavy bags of groceries before heading toward the entrance. Just as he was about to press the intercom code, someone called his name.
“Jim? Is that you?!”
James turned. A dishevelled old man sat on the bench—unkempt, wearing a tattered coat, his beard tangled and grey, eyes dull. He looked like a vagrant. James frowned.
“Sorry, do I know you?”
“Jim… It’s me. Victor. Your dad. Don’t you recognise me?”
James recoiled as if struck. His father. The very man who’d walked out on him and his mother nearly thirty years ago, when he was only nine. And now here he sat, as if nothing had happened.
“I got your address from Lydia, your late mum’s friend… She told me Emily had passed. I had no idea. I knew nothing. God, how she suffered, and I was… out there somewhere—”
“Where *were* you?” James cut in sharply. “Where were you when Mum cried herself to sleep? When I made her tea because you’d gone off ‘for a drink’ again? When you raised your hand at her—at *me*? Forgotten? Well, *I* haven’t.”
“Son, what’s the point in dredging up the past? Things weren’t easy with Catherine after, either. At first, it was all laughs—drinking, her glad I’d left. Then… it all went wrong. Money, rows. We never had kids. Her daughter finally kicked me out. And that was it. Now I’m no one. But remember when I took you to the park? Bought you that fizzy pop?”
“Are you *serious*? You think a bottle of lemonade makes up for it? Forgotten how you emptied the last of Mum’s money from the drawer before leaving? How you spat in her face when you walked out for your ‘better life’? *Forgotten?* Well, *I* haven’t!”
James turned sharply and strode into the building, leaving his father on the bench. He was shaking with anger. His wife, Charlotte, met him at the door.
“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost—”
“My *father*. Turned up. Sat outside—filthy, ragged. Said he’s got noHe stood there, waiting, as if thirty years of absence could be erased with a single plea for forgiveness.
