The silence was the loudest thing in the house. It wasn’t just the absence of her voice; it was the echo of all the things that would never be said again. My mother had been gone for three months, and every single day felt like wading through quicksand. Thick, heavy, suffocating. I missed her laugh, her smell, the way she hummed off-key while cooking. I missed her.
My dad, on the other hand, was a stone. He moved through the house like a ghost, his face a mask of what I assumed was grief, but it felt… empty. Not like my grief. Mine was a gaping wound, bleeding freely. His was a scar, already sealed, almost invisible. How could he be so strong? Or was he just cold? He didn’t cry. He didn’t break down. He just… existed.
It drove me insane. My own pain was a relentless beast, tearing at my insides, and seeing him so composed, so normal, felt like a betrayal. He was supposed to be as shattered as I was. He was supposed to understand this agony. He was supposed to grieve with me, for her, for us. But he just kept going, making coffee, going to work, tending the garden she once loved.
A car parked in a driveway | Source: Pexels
The memories of her were my only comfort, and they were also my torment. I’d replay moments in my head, the way her hand felt in mine, the stories she used to tell, the quiet wisdom in her eyes. She was perfect. My anchor. My everything. And now she was gone, leaving this chasm, and a father who seemed to have moved on before her funeral even happened.
One evening, it all just boiled over. I found him in the kitchen, washing dishes, the mundane clinking of ceramic on ceramic sounding like a cosmic insult. It was the straw that broke me. He was just washing dishes while my world had ended.
“Are you even sad?!” The words erupted from me, sharp and uncontrolled. He froze, his hands still in the soapy water, his back to me. “She’s GONE! Don’t you miss her?!” My voice cracked, raw with unshed tears and burning resentment. “How can you just… act like this? Like nothing happened? Like she was just… a thing you misplaced?!”
A smiling man standing on a porch | Source: Midjourney
He turned slowly, a towel in his hand, his eyes finally meeting mine. They were usually so quiet, so guarded. But tonight, they held a stormy depth I’d never seen. Not anger, not pity, but something far older, far more tired.
“I don’t know why you don’t cry,” I sobbed, my voice rising. “I HATE YOU! YOU DON’T CARE! YOU NEVER CARED!” The injustice of it all was a physical weight on my chest. “I want her back! I want my mom back! WHY AREN’T YOU CRYING?!”
He stood there for a long moment, just looking at me. His chest heaved once, a silent, profound breath. Then, his voice, when it came, was a low, guttural rasp I barely recognized. “You want your mom back?”
A flicker of hope, of shared grief, sparked in my chest. Finally. He understands.
He dropped the towel. It landed with a soft, wet thud. He took a step closer, his eyes fixed on mine, and for the first time, I saw something truly terrifying in their depths. Not the calm sorrow I expected, but an ancient, weary pain that went beyond death.
A man standing at his front door | Source: Midjourney
“I wanted her back for thirty years,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, yet heavy with it. “Every single day, I wanted my wife back. The one I married. The one who was kind, and gentle, and loving. The one who wasn’t a master manipulator.”
The air left my lungs in a whoosh. What?
“The one who didn’t systematically dismantle my self-worth in private, while presenting a perfect, angelic facade to the world. Especially to you.” He took another step, closing the distance, and the words he spoke next felt like physical blows. “She was a monster, honey. A beautiful, brilliant, charming monster. And I spent three decades trying to protect you from seeing it.”
My head swam. No. This couldn’t be right. My mom? My sweet, caring, wonderful mom?
“She drained me. She poisoned every small joy. She made me believe I was worthless, all while building you up, making you her perfect little reflection. She needed to be adored, and she knew exactly how to get it from you. You were her prize. Her proof of goodness.” He reached out, not to comfort me, but to press a hand to his own chest, right over his heart. “Every day was a performance. Every smile was calculated. And I lived it, because I couldn’t bear the thought of you seeing the real her. The vicious, controlling, deeply unhappy woman beneath the surface.”
A smiling little girl in yellow pajamas | Source: Midjourney
He looked away then, his gaze fixed on the empty space where she used to stand. “Her death… was the first moment of peace I’ve had in a very, very long time. And yes, it breaks my heart that she was so sick, so twisted. But it also breaks my heart to finally be free.”
He turned back to me, his eyes now filled with a crushing sorrow that had nothing to do with her absence and everything to do with her life. “So no, I don’t cry for the mother you loved. I cry for the man I was, who slowly withered under her control. And I cry for the child who will now have to learn that her entire childhood, her entire world… was built on a lie.”
A smiling man wearing a suit | Source: Midjourney
The world spun. My perfect mother. Her loving gaze. Her comforting words. All of it felt like ash in my mouth. A performance. A lie. The love I felt, the warmth I remembered, was suddenly tainted, curdled. It wasn’t just that she wasn’t who I thought she was. It was that my dad had endured a silent hell, for me. And in her death, he found a painful, guilt-ridden freedom.
My scream for my mom back died in my throat, replaced by a suffocating silence. It wasn’t just my mom I’d lost. It was everything. Every memory. Every belief. And my dad’s raw, unflinching honesty didn’t just break my heart; it shattered my entire reality into a million irreparable pieces.
