Even before my phone rang, I sensed something was off.
There was that prickling tension you feel in your chest when the world is slightly wrong, even if you can’t name why. My flat was eerily still, the kind of quiet that presses against your ears.
When Dad’s name flashed across the screen, my stomach sank. He never calls this early unless something is serious. And deep down, I already knew: this wasn’t going to be a normal morning.
Yesterday morning, Dad called frantic. Mara, my sister, was in urgent care and needed someone to collect her. Dad was in Oregon. I was in Manchester—a twenty-five-minute drive from the hospital. He begged me. I said no.
Then, impossibly, he broke down.
Dad doesn’t cry. He’s the kind of man who fixes things with tools, stubbornness, and an insistence that tea can solve almost anything. The last time I saw him cry was at the burial of our dog, and even then he turned away so we wouldn’t witness it.
“She’s scared, Adam,” he said, voice breaking. “She waited alone for hours before telling anyone she needed help.”
I rubbed my temples, still half-asleep. “Dad… I’ve got meetings. Back-to-back. I can’t just drop everything.”
“You think your job matters more than your sister?”
“She’s an adult. They wouldn’t discharge her if she wasn’t okay.”
A silence stretched.
“When you broke your wrist falling off the climbing frame, you sobbed all the way to A&E. I was working. Mum panicked. Mara—twelve years old—carried you to the car and held your hand the whole way. Didn’t let go even when they took you in for X-rays.”
I stared at the ceiling.
“Now she’s in pain. And you can’t spare thirty minutes?”
“Dad…”
He hung up.
I sank into the sofa, guilt tightening like a vice. My words had been harsh, yes. But I’d already rearranged my schedule twice that week. My manager had shot a pointed comment about “commitment.” Another absence could feel like the end of everything I’d worked for. That was my excuse.
I texted Mara: Dad said you’re fine. Get some rest. Let me know if you need anything later.
No reply.
I assumed she was sleeping. Or angry. Or both.
Later that night, guilt clawed at me, so I rang our cousin Lydia.
“She’s at Nan’s,” she said. “Didn’t want to go back to her flat. It felt too quiet.”
“Who took her?”
“One of her nursing mates. Priya—you remember her?”
Vaguely. Tall, wore a United hoodie at that barbecue. Didn’t even live nearby.
“She waited almost two hours for her,” Lydia added. Her tone was soft, like she knew how miserable I felt.
Sleep didn’t come. I imagined Mara sitting alone in that cold hospital lobby, drained, scrolling contacts, hoping someone—anyone—would show.
A week passed. Then another. No messages. No check-ins.
Then Dad called again.
“I didn’t raise you to be like this,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Detached. Irresponsible.”
“Seriously?”
“She’s your only sibling.”
“I didn’t harm her, Dad.”
Silence. Then quietly: “You broke her heart. That can hurt worse than anything else.”
I had no words.
“She doesn’t need an epic apology,” he said. “She just needs to know you still care.”
Mara and I had been inseparable growing up. Only eighteen months apart, sharing a room, whispering about ghosts, building blanket forts that swallowed the living room, prank-calling relatives. She was my first friend.
Then Mum died.
Mara stepped up. I escaped into school and later work. Distance became our default. I convinced myself it was normal.
It wasn’t.
I didn’t realize how far we’d drifted until I left her alone in a hospital waiting room, praying someone would show.
That weekend, I drove to Nan’s unannounced. Brought lemon tarts—her favorite.
Nan opened the door.
“She’s not here. Went back to her flat three days ago.”
“Oh. Think she’d let me come by?”
Nan smirked. “Not without a peace offering.”
I lifted the tart box.
“Then you might manage,” she said.
Her building looked familiar. Neat, modest, with the little garden she once tended—rosemary, sunflowers.
I knocked. Twice.
She opened the door. Pale, messy bun, hoodie hanging loose. Exhausted.
“I brought tarts,” I muttered.
She glanced, then stepped aside.
Inside smelled like citrus and soft laundry. Her plants crowded the window. Tiny green sentinels.
We ate quietly.
“You waited at the hospital,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“For hours.”
“I’m used to it,” she murmured.
That cut deeper than I expected.
“You shouldn’t have to be,” I said.
She didn’t respond.
Books, half-finished crochet projects, a hoodie tossed over a chair.
“You’ve been carrying everything alone since Mum died,” I said. “I didn’t help. I know that.”
She looked at me. “You left.”
“I know.”
And in that quiet, messy, citrus-scented flat, the weight of everything we’d lost—and what I still had to make right—finally sank in.