Two Years in Silence: She Erased Me from Her Life as I Near 70
Two years had slipped by. Not a whisper from my daughterno letters, no calls, nothing. She wiped me from her world. And here I stand, on the brink of seventy
Everyone round here knows Margaret Wilkins. Sixty-eight, living alone in her little terraced house in Bristol. I sometimes drop by with a tin of shortbread or a fresh loafjust being friendly. Shes gentle, polite, always with a smile, fond of recalling holidays she and her late husband took along the Cornish coast. But family? Thats a door she keeps shut. Then, one frosty evening before Christmas, as I handed her a box of mince pies, she cracked open a truth that left me chilled to the bone.
That night, Margaret wasnt her usual self. Normally warm and chatty, she sat rigid, eyes fixed on the empty fireplace. I didnt pushjust brewed a pot of Earl Grey, laid out the digestives, and waited. For a long while, she said nothing, as if wrestling with ghosts. Then, with a shuddering breath, she began.
Two years Not a peep. I rangnumber disconnected. No idea where she lives now.
Her voice frayed, her gaze lost somewhere beyond the walls. Then, like a dam giving way, the words poured out.
We were happy once. Thomas and I married young but waited for childrenwanted time just for us. His work took us everywhere. We laughed till our sides ached, loved our home, built it brick by brick. A proper three-bedder in central Bristol. His masterpiece.
When our daughter, Eleanor, came along, Thomas lit up like the Blackpool illuminations. He carried her on his shoulders, read her Beatrix Potter at bedtime, never missed a school play. Watching them, I thought I had it all. Then, ten years ago, Thomas was gone. A cruel illness drained our savings, and then silence. A hole in the world where hed been.
After he died, Eleanor drifted. Moved into a rented flat in Birmingham, wanted space. I didnt fussshe was grown, after all. She visited, we chatted, things felt steady. Then, two years back, she turned up and announced she was taking a mortgage to buy her own place.
I sighed, explained I couldnt help. What little wed scraped together had gone on Thomass care. My pension barely covers the heating and prescriptions. Then she said sell the house. We could get you a studio in the outskirts, she insisted, and the rest could go toward my deposit.
I couldnt. It wasnt the moneyit was the memories. Every beam, every nailThomas put them there. My whole life lived in these walls. How could I walk away? She shouted that her father had done it all for *her*, that the house would be hers one day anyway, that I was being spiteful. I begged her to understandI just wanted her to come home someday and remember us But she wasnt listening.
The door slammed that evening. Not a word since. No calls, no visits, not even a Christmas card. Later, a mutual friend let slip shed taken the mortgage, working herself to the bonetwo jobs, no weekends. No husband, no kids. Even her mates havent seen her in months.
And me? I wait. Every morning, I glance at the phone, willing it to ring. It never does. I cant even reach hernumbers gone, I suppose. She doesnt want me. Doesnt want to hear me. Thinks I failed her that day. But Ill be seventy soon. I dont know how many more evenings Ill spend at this window, wondering. Or what I did to make her hate me so.
