I don’t know when it all began. It has always been his way. I’ve never seen them having a moment or forget it, not even a smile for each other. I don’t know about who’s meant for whom, but if there are two people who shouldn’t stay as a couple then it should be my parents.

I thought it was universal. The coldness between a husband and wife. Thanks to the group lunches and the sharing we had at school, I realized it wasn’t. The friends I had, talked endlessly about their fathers’ greatness. They’d all take turns, and it doesn’t seem to end. Staring deep into my lunchbox was all I could do because I didn’t want anyone to know how great of a person my father was.

The father comes home and gives his piece of mind to the mother. The night ends with the mother crying to sleep and the father in front of his laptop doing God knows what.

I’ve tried talking her into leaving him. She had no options. She had nowhere to go. Not only did she deny her unhappy life, but she also ignored what I said.

Days and nights came. The father gave all his love to the mother daily. Sometimes as cuss, other times as red marks on her face. If he was that bored, he’d shatter a few dishes. All I could do was grow up watching this scene get repeated again and again.

It happened again and again until she turned towards that door which she didn’t know where it’d lead her to, like the Janus that was guarding her every move, but the truth was, only he knew what was behind the door and she could only blindly fall into it.

The ‘love’ I watched and learned was of this kind. Everything else happened only in movies and outside the roof we had. I wonder if they accepted this ‘love’ for each other at least once. But they kept choosing it over and over again.

Now that she’s gone, the father sends his love to me.