The Weight of Ungrateful Hearts
“Oh, you ungrateful wretch! We raised you, fed you, and now you abandon your dying father!”
“Mum, enough! I wont send another penny while you drink it all away. I refuse to fund your binges!” Margaret fought to keep her voice steady, though tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.
“Then dont bother calling again. Ive nothing more to say to youand neither will your father!” Her mother slammed the phone down.
Margaret sank into a chair, setting the phone aside before burying her face in her hands. From the next room, her little son whimpered. She swallowed a quiet sob. She had to stay strongfor him.
But how could she, when her own memories gnawed at her?
Images from her childhood surfacedthe stale reek of alcohol and tobacco, peeling wallpaper, dents in the doors where fists had struck. Shed locked herself away in that room, listening to her drunken parents scream and smash plates. Too young to understand, shed dreaded waking to find one of them lifeless.
Her only toys were makeshift thingsempty tins, bread bags, bottle capswith which shed play at family, dreaming of a time when her parents might smile, or that she might one day be a proper mother herself.
Her mother was worse. Even sober, she snapped at Margaret for the slightest misstepa dropped cup earned a slap; spilled sugar, the belt. Now, Margaret knew it wasnt her fault. Back then, shed believed she deserved the torment.
Her father had moments of clarity. Hed return from work and ask, “Did you feed our Lizzie?”
“Shes old enough to fend for herself,” her mother would grumble.
“Lizzies seven! She cant cook yet. Fix her something.”
Reluctantly, her mother would boil pasta, sometimes with sausages. More often, Margaret ate what she could findbread, a lone carrot in the fridge, cold porridge.
Fear and anxiety were her constant companions. Shed fall asleep to the clink of bottles, wake to shouting, and pray for it to end.
Education was her escape. At the first chance, she fled to a college in another town. The dormitory felt like freedomthough guilt still choked her at night. She feared her parents would perish without her, that shed failed them.
Contact with her mother ceased instantly. Her fathers calls dwindled.
“Hello, love. How are you?” hed ask, and a dozen replies swirled in her mind*Im happier without you. Im exhausted from extra work. Ive friends who dont shame me.* But she only said, “Im fine. And you?”
She knew nothing had changed. It was almost a relief.
Her parents lives became her secret, a cross she bore alone. Even her husband, Phillip, didnt know.
“My parents wont be at the wedding,” she told him lightly, though her heart lurched. “They live too farin the countryside. They cant travel.”
“How? Well buy their tickets,” Phillip insisted. “All parents want to see their children wed.”
*All but mine.* She bit her lip. “Mums heart is weaklong journeys are dangerous. Ill send photos. Its fine.”
She remembered her tenth birthday, when shed dared invite a schoolmate over. Her parents had argued at the table, and when her friend tried to intervene, her mother had snarled, “Quiet! Youre eating my food in my house!”
The girl had locked herself in the loo, weeping. Margaret never invited anyone again.
She wouldnt risk such a scene at her wedding. She didnt even tell her parents. She had a proper family nowno shouting, no broken glass. And a son, Thomas.
But the past clawed back.
“Margaret, your fathers gravely ill,” a neighbour called one day. “Hospitalised.”
Her heart clenched. Shed always known this day would come.
“What happened?”
“Hes wasting awayyellow as parchment. Liver, they say, but with their ways… Maybe come?”
The unspoken *before its too late* hung between them.
“Ill try,” Margaret promised.
That night, she confessed everything to Phillipthe drinking, the neglect, the rare kindness from her father.
“You call that care?” Phillip scoffed. “Leaving a child with a drunk? Letting her flee?”
The pain in her eyes silenced him. She loved them stilllike a pup that licks the hand that kicks it.
“No trip, then. Not with Thomas,” he said. “But send money for medicine, if you must.”
She sent more than he allowed, claiming it was for a haircut.
Her father recoveredbriefly. Two months later, the neighbour called again, indignant. “Theyre your parents! How can you leave him to rot?”
Margaret froze. “I send money”
But the money bought drink. Her mother wailed that her daughter had abandoned them; her father swore his wife stole his medicine.
When Margaret confronted her mother, she was met with threats: “Dont call again.”
That night, she lay awake, researching rehabs. Perhaps this was the answera place where her father could heal.
The next day, she phoned him.
“Dad, theres a clinic nearbyspecialists who can help. Well pay.”
“Clinics? Ill quit when I want,” he snapped. “I dont need your pity.”
Then she understood: he didnt *want* help.
Her throat tightened, yet something loosened in her chest. Shed done all she could. More would destroy her own family.
At Thomass crib, she made her choice. She wouldnt call again. Her duty was to her son, her husbandto those who deserved her. The rest was in Gods hands.
