**Diary Entry 12th May, 1995**
Dad has a happy life with someone else now, while Mum is lost in depression. Is it his fault?
He came home from work, ate dinner, chuckled for a few minutes at the tellysome old rerun of *Morecambe and Wise*then, as casually as if mentioning the weather, said, “Sarah, I’m leaving.” And he did. Gone, just like that. To her.
A story as old as time, and yet it never hurts any less.
Mums backsharp shoulder blades pressing through her nightdress, her neck thin as a childs. And Dads brand-new, gleaming Jaguar. Those are the two sharpest memories of my childhood.
Mums back on the sofa in the parlour was the clearest sign of her depression. But I didnt know that then.
Back in the early nineties, in our little town, nobody talked about depression. Even the GPs at the surgery hadnt a clue. They tried to rouse her with vitamin injections and cheerful lectures”Youve a daughter to care for, love, you cant just lie about all day.”
But it *was* depression. The heavy, suffocating kindthe sort that sits on your chest like a great black bear, stealing everything: joy, appetite, sleep, even the will to move. Mum could barely speak, and when she did, the words came out hollow, lifeless.
If it werent for Gran, I dont know how wed have managed.
Mum turned from a lively, bright woman into nothing more than a sad shape on the sofa one May evening. The same evening Dad came home, ate his dinner, laughed at the telly, then said those awful words”Sarah, Im leaving”and walked out.
I was seven. I remember it because it felt so unrealthe telly still blaring laughter, Mum weeping silently into the wall. How could that be right? How could life just go on like that?
After that, I hardly spoke to Mum. Or rather, to the shell of her, curled on the sofa.
Dad came back two years later. Another May evening. Let himself in with his key, glanced at Mum asleep in the parlour, then winked at me*Come to the kitchen, dont let her hear.* Gran was out.
Hope fluttered in my chest. In his smile, I saw an apology, a promise of better days, maybe even the hope that Mum might get well again.
“Look, Lizzie,” he whispered, leading me to the window. I pressed my nose against the glass, expecting something magical. Hed been gone so longsurely thered be something wonderful waiting?
Outside sat a brand-new Jaguar, shining under the streetlight. Dad beamed even brighter.
“Dyou like it, love?”
“Very much!”
“Its mine! Bought it meself!”
He reminded me of a caveman from a cartoon Id seen*Ug the Stone-Age Man*grunting out his thoughts without a care for anyone else. That was Dad.
He didnt ask how Mum was. Didnt wonder how Id been these two years. Didnt know Id started piano lessons. Didnt ask about school. And it certainly never crossed his mind that I might have feelings.
Anger. Confusion. Fear. A tangled mess in my chest, too big and too heavy for a child to understand. No one had taught me how to unravel itthey were too busyso I shoved it deep down and tried not to think about it. But it was always there, like an ache.
Dad grinned like a schoolboy. “A *Jaguar*, Lizzie! Brand new! Dreamed of this my whole life!”
I didnt understand.
His smile faltered. He sidled out of the kitchen like a thief, quietly shutting the door behind him.
I made a wish then: *If he looks back, if he sees me in the window, Ill forgive him.* Id try to understandthis joy over a car, while Mum was ill and my heart felt like it had been torn out.
He didnt look back. Just strode to the car, got in, and drove off. And that was the last I saw of him.
I grew up. Became a doctora psychiatrist. Gran never saw the day I pulled up in my own shiny new car. Or maybe she did. I tell myself shes watching from heaven. Smiling. Proud of her Lizzie.
But that came later. First, I got Mum proper helpa good hospital, proper treatment. She came back to life. Started looking at the world again instead of that faded wallpaper.
But I never did forgive Dad.
Because he never looked back. Not once. Not even when he walked out of my life for good.
