The colored pencil drawing trembled in my hands as I stared at the familiar face my granddaughter had perfectly captured. After years of polite apologies and backhanded invitations, a child’s innocent drawing revealed the secret my son and his wife were hiding in their basement.
My life has been full of ups and downs, like most people my age. I’ve weathered storms, celebrated victories, and learned to find joy in the little moments.
The best part of my journey, without a doubt, was raising my son Peter.
A little boy | Source: Pexels
He has become a good man and started his own family. He loves Betty, his wife of twelve years, and their daughter Mia.
Mia is the sweetest eight-year-old granddaughter a woman could wish for.
But something changed about three years ago. Peter used to invite me regularly for Sunday dinners, casual weekday visits and afternoon teas, when Betty made those wonderful lemon biscuits. We would sit in their cosy living room and catch up on life. No special occasion was necessary.
Then the invitations stopped.
A woman standing in her house | Source: Midjourney
It’s not like we stopped meeting.
They still visited me in my small downtown apartment. We still got together for Thanksgiving at my sister’s house and for Christmas at my brother’s house. They showed up for everything, including family reunions and birthday celebrations.
But their house? It has mysteriously become off-limits.
“The guest room is being renovated,” Peter said.
“We have plumbing problems,” Betty explained another time.
I never questioned it. People are busy. That’s life. Maybe they just wanted their privacy.
That was until last Tuesday, when I decided to surprise them.
Close-up of a door | Source: Unsplash
I had found a beautiful old music box at a flea market that reminded me of a box Betty had admired months ago. Without thinking, I took the bus across town and showed up at their door, gift in hand.
To be honest, the visit was strange. As soon as Peter opened the door, his smile seemed forced.
“Mom!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” I said, walking in before he could object. “I found something for Betty.”
“That’s…that’s great.” He glanced nervously toward the kitchen. “Let me just tell him you’re here.”
A man standing in a doorway | Source: Midjourney
Their house was tense.
Betty emerged from the kitchen with that same strained smile, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Martha! What a nice surprise!” she said, hugging me a little too tightly.
Despite my unexpected visit, they insisted that I stay for dinner. As we sat around the table, little Mia chattered happily about school while Peter and Betty exchanged glances that I couldn’t read.
During the main course, Betty reached for her wine glass and frowned when she found it empty.
An empty glass | Source: Pexels
“We need another bottle,” she said. “I’ll get one from the…”
“I can go get it,” I offered, already standing. “Where do you keep them? In the basement?”
Betty almost knocked over her chair by standing up so quickly.
“Oh, don’t bother!” she exclaimed. “I’ll get them!”
She disappeared downstairs as Peter sat stiffly next to me, suddenly very interested in cutting his chicken into precisely identical pieces.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Very well,” he said, without meeting my gaze. “Everything is fine.”
Something is wrong. I could feel it in my bones.
Close-up of an old woman’s face | Source: Pexels
A few days later, Peter and Betty had an emergency at work and asked if I could babysit Mia for the afternoon.
Of course, I was excited to spend time with my granddaughter.
Mia loved to draw, and as we sat at their kitchen table with crayons and papers spread out everywhere, I admired her artistic talent.
“Can I see your other drawings, dear?” I asked her.
She nodded enthusiastically, ran to her room and came back with a folder overflowing with artwork.
A little girl holding a folder | Source: Midjourney
As I sifted through colored pencil landscapes and stick figure family portraits, one drawing in particular caught my eye.
It showed their house with a stick figure underneath, separated from the others. The figure had gray hair and was standing alone in what appeared to be their basement.
My heart was pounding against my ribs.
“Honey, who is this?” I asked, pointing at the lone figure.
“That’s Grandpa Jack,” she said simply. “He lives downstairs.”
Grandpa Jack? My fingers have gone numb.
Jack was my ex-husband’s name.
Jack, who abandoned us twenty years ago.
Jack, who I had erased from my life.
Silhouette of a man on a street | Source: Pexels
“Does… does Grandpa Jack live here? In this house?” I managed to ask.
Mia nodded. “Dad says it’s a secret from you because it would make you sad.”
I put the drawing down carefully, my mind racing. Jack was here? He lived in my son’s basement?
All those years of excuses and redirections suddenly made perfect, horrible sense.
As soon as Peter and Betty got home, I sent Mia upstairs to play. When Peter and Betty went to their room to freshen up, I walked down the hall to the basement door.
It was locked.
I knocked firmly. “I know you’re there.”
A door handle | Source: Pexels
After a long pause, I heard shuffling footsteps. Then, the door slowly creaked open.
And there he stood. Jack.
He had abandoned us twenty years ago. He had cheated on us, left and never looked back.
He was older. Weaker. But he was still him.
His voice cracked as he said two words I didn’t expect to hear again.
“I’m sorry.”
I stared at him as a thousand emotions washed over me.
“Martha, please,” Jack said, opening the door wider. “Come in. Let me explain.”
An old man looking straight ahead | Source: Midjourney
I wanted to turn and leave, but my feet carried me forward into the space he called home. The basement had been converted into a small apartment with a bed, a couch, and a tiny kitchenette.
“You have five minutes,” I said, my voice colder than I intended.
Jack sank into an armchair, looking smaller than I remembered.
“I lost everything,” he begins. “About seven years ago. My job, my money, and the life I thought I wanted more than… more than what we had.”
“Spare me the pity party,” I snapped. “Why are you here? How long has my son been hiding you from me?”
Older woman talking to a man | Source: Midjourney
Jack looks down at his hands. “Three years. After I lost everything, I realized how stupid I had been. How I had thrown away the only things that had ever really mattered.”
“So you came crawling back? After twenty years?”
“Not for you,” he admitted. “I knew I had hurt you too deeply. But I went to see Peter. I needed to see him. I wanted to apologize and try to make amends before…”
“Before what?” I asked.
“Before it’s too late.” He gestured vaguely to a pillbox on the counter. “The heart isn’t what it used to be.”
A pillbox | Source: Pexels
I refused to feel sympathy. “So you showed up on his doorstep?”
“He almost slammed the door in my face,” Jack said with a sad smile. “You raised a good man, Martha. True to his mother.”
“So how did we get here?” I asked.
Jack shifted uncomfortably. “I begged him for five minutes. Just five minutes to apologize for being away all these years.”
“And he granted them to you?”
“He gave me five minutes,” Jack confirms. “And at the end he told me he never wanted to see me again.”
An angry man | Source: Midjourney
I couldn’t help but feel a flash of pride. He looked like my Peter.
“But I kept coming back,” Jack continued. “Once a month I would visit him. Just to sit on the porch and talk. I never asked to come in.”
“What’s changed?” I asked in spite of myself.
“Time,” Jack said simply. “Time and persistence. Peter was hurting too, Martha. He had been hurting since he was a child. He had questions that only I could answer.”
“Like the reason you abandoned your family?” I said bitterly.
A woman talking to a man | Source: Midjourney
Jack grimaces. “Yes. And I didn’t have any good answers. Just the truth that I was selfish and stupid and afraid of responsibility. That I convinced myself you’d both be better off without me.”
I scoff. “We were.”
“I know,” he whispered. “But Peter… he always wanted a father. Not the one who left, but the one he barely remembered when he was little. The one who taught him to ride a bike and took him fishing.”
I remembered those good days too, even though I tried to forget them.
A man guiding his son to ride a bike | Source: Pexels
“One day he let me inside,” Jack continues. “Just for coffee. Then dinner a few months later. Slowly, we started talking more. He was cautious, Martha. He didn’t forgive easily.”
“So how did you end up living here?” I asked.
Jack sighs heavily. “A year ago, there was a fire in my building. I lost everything. Again.”
“And Peter took you in,” I finished, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place.
He nodded. “I had nowhere to go. He and Betty fixed up the basement. It was supposed to be temporary.”
A man talking to a woman | Source: Midjourney
“But it wasn’t,” I said.
“No,” he admitted. “And the longer I stayed, the harder it was for them to tell you.”
“They felt guilty,” Jack said quietly. “Like they were betraying you. They didn’t mean to hurt you.”
At that moment, I was shaking. I realized that my son had been living a double life. He had been hiding this huge secret from me for years.
“So you’ve all been lying to me,” I said. “For years.”
“We were trying to protect you,” Jack said.
“Protect me?” I laughed bitterly. “Oh, please!”
“It’s not what you think, Mar-“
“Forget it,” I interrupted. “I need to talk to my son.”
Older woman looking at man | Source: Midjourney
When I emerged from the basement, Peter and Betty were in the hallway, frozen in shock as they watched me emerge from their secret.
“Mom…” Peter began, his face ashen. “I can explain.”
“Go ahead.”
His wife stepped forward, trying to mediate. “Please understand. We never meant to hurt you. We just…”
I interrupted her. “You lied to me. For years.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Peter admitted. “At first, I didn’t even want to forgive him. But… he was different. He was sorry.”
A man talking to his mother | Source: Midjourney
I scoff. “Sorry? Is that all it takes? Do you have any idea what he did to me? To us?”
“I was there too, Mom,” Peter said, his voice growing firmer. “I lived it too.”
“So how could you let him back into your life? After what he did to us?”
Peter’s face hardened. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to grow up without a father? I spent my whole life resenting him, but at the end of the day, he was still my father.”
An upset man | Source: Pexels
Her words made me realize that I had never really asked Peter how he felt about his father leaving. I had been so focused on moving on and being both his parents that I had never given him the space to grieve.
“You should have told me,” I said, looking away.
“How?” Peter asks. “When? There was never a good time. At first, it was just occasional visits. Then, when the fire happened, what was I supposed to do? Send him away?”
“Yes!” I exclaim. “Or at least be honest with me!”
“I was scared,” Peter admitted. “Scared you’d make me choose.”
A man looking down | Source: Midjourney
At that moment, Jack appeared in the doorway.
“So you’re just going to be able to be part of this family again? Like nothing happened?” I asked Jack.
He swallowed hard. “I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t even expect kindness. I just… I wanted to be there, to make things right.”
I shake my head. There is no “fixing.” You just have to live with what you’ve done.
“Mom,” Peter said softly, “he’s dying.”
“What ?”
“His heart,” Peter explained. “The doctors give him maybe a year.”
An older man standing in his son’s house | Source: Midjourney
I looked at Jack again and remembered the brief time he had mentioned his heart downstairs. For some reason, knowing his condition didn’t soften my heart as much as it should have.
“That doesn’t erase the past,” I said.
“No,” Jack agrees. “It doesn’t erase the past. And I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Martha. I know that.”
Tears welled up in Peter’s eyes. “Mom, I love you. But I’m not going to apologize for having a relationship with my dad. Especially now.”
I took a deep breath. “And I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
A woman talking to her son | Source: Midjourney
Then I took my bag and started walking towards the main gate.
“Mom? Where are you going?” Peter asks.
“Home,” I replied. “I need some time.”
“But mom, I…”
“At least now I know why I was never invited here,” I looked at Peter and Betty. Then, my gaze went to Jack. “I just need some time to digest all this. I’ll come back when I feel better.”
And just like that, I walked out of my son’s house, unsure of what would happen next.
A woman walking away | Source: Midjourney
It’s been two days since I last visited him, and I’m still having a hard time processing it all. Do you think I should accept Jack back into my life? Do you think I should forgive him for abandoning us? What would you have done in my place?
If you enjoyed reading this story, here’s another one you might like: When Sara’s mother-in-law calls her on her honeymoon, claiming that something terrible has happened to her son, Sara rushes home in a panic. But what she discovers is far from an emergency; it’s a betrayal. Now, Sara must confront her mother-in-law’s shocking lie and protect her family’s peace at all costs.
This work is inspired by real events and persons, but has been fictionalized for creative purposes. Names, characters, and details have been changed to protect privacy and enhance the narrative. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to real events is purely coincidental and is not intended by the author.
The author and publisher make no claims as to the accuracy of events or portrayal of characters and are not responsible for any misinterpretations. This story is provided “as is,” and all opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not reflect the views of the author or publisher.
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