The message caught me off guard. Twelve years — not a single call, not a single line. And now — “Sweetheart… can we talk?”

I stared at the screen for a long time, not knowing what to feel. Anger? Pain? Or just exhaustion? I didn’t reply immediately. Two days later the phone rang.

— We’ve missed you, — said my mother quietly. — We made a mistake.

A mistake. As if abandoning a child was just a poor decision, not a knife in the back. She spoke of debts, moving, difficulties… but I hardly listened anymore.

Then came the main point: — Your father is sick. He wants to see you.

I agreed to go. Not for them — for myself. I needed to close that chapter to finally stop rereading it in my dreams.

When I saw them at the airport, my heart did not tremble. They were smaller, quieter, older. Mother cried, father tried to hug me. I let him. But it felt like touching strangers.

During dinner he said: — We thought you were strong.

I looked him in the eyes and replied: — You weren’t wrong. Life made me this way, but in return, it took my parents. From the day I saw the empty walls of the house, I no longer had them.