I once believed the most devastating moments in life announced themselves with thunder. I was wrong. The worst night I ever lived began with excitement I had carefully prepared, wrapped in pride and hope, and carried in the trunk of my car like a fragile gift.
Two years earlier, after selling my first company, I did what I had dreamed of since my student days. I bought my parents a home. Not a mansion, not a showpiece, but a quiet place on the edge of a coastal European city where the mornings smelled of salt and bread from a nearby bakery. I told them it was their reward, that they had earned rest after a lifetime of sacrifice. They cried, my mother more than my father, and promised to finally slow down.
That night, I decided to surprise them. I did not call. I did not text. I imagined my mother laughing when she opened the door, my father shaking his head and calling me irresponsible for driving so far without warning. I bought a good bottle of wine and rehearsed nothing, because love never needs a script.
Rain started halfway through the drive. By the time I reached their neighborhood, it fell in sheets, blurring the streetlights into trembling halos. As I turned onto the main road near the old tram stop, something caught my eye. Two figures stood under the narrow awning of a closed pharmacy, bent against the wind, holding plastic bags like shields.
My chest tightened for reasons I could not explain. I slowed down. The headlights swept over them, and time seemed to crack open.
It was my parents.
My mother held a photograph against her coat, pressed to her heart as if it were proof of existence. I recognized it instantly. My university graduation picture. My father stood slightly in front of her, trying to block the rain with a jacket that had seen too many winters.
I stopped the car. I lowered the window. Cold rain struck my face.
“Mom. Dad.”
They froze. Their eyes widened, not with relief, but with fear so raw it hurt to see. My father spoke first, his voice barely surviving the rain. “Matthew. Son. You were not supposed to see this.”
I stepped out of the car, shoes sinking into water. “Why are you here. Why are you not at home.”
My mother looked away. Her voice was small. “The house was never really ours, Matthew. Not in the way we thought.”
