“Your mother was unhappy, Clair, but it had nothing to do with you,” her father said. “Sometimes people, even those who love each other, drift apart. They develop new interests, have different needs.”
“Will she ever be coming back?” Clair asked.
“I don’t know, honey, but I wouldn’t count on it,” he said. “She found another man who made her feel better about herself and decided that she’d rather be with him than with me.”
“And she’d rather be with him than with me, too,” Clair said.
“We’ll be okay, honey,” he said. “We have each other and this place.”
(100 Words)
Written for this week’s 100 Word Wednesday prompt from Bikurgurl. Her photo this week has the same scene as last week’s 100 Word Wednesday prompt, but with two different people in the scene. She wanted to see, if given the same scene but with different people, we would find provocation for a different story. My two stories certainly are different. If you’re interested, HERE is the post I wrote last week.
This, That, and the Other 
It’s such a familiar scenario and so sad for the kids.
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Heart-rending, yet tender.
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The daughter’s words cut. Deeply. Good story.
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Thanks.
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I had a friend, down the street from me when I was growing up, whose mother had left her father/them/motherhood and was no longer around. It didn’t make sense to me. How could a mother do that? And then her father had died (of cancer). But she lived with her grandparents and her uncle (who was a polio survivor). They were a happy family.
The man in the story is a good dad. Oddly enough, the dialogue reminded me of a relatively very minor incident in my life. My mom had invited some girls my age over, and we had plans to see a Disney movie at a theatre. (Going to a movie theatre was something I almost never did.) My mom always wanted me to eat a lot of food, but I couldn’t finish my plate.
Therefore, Mom left with all the girls. Dad and I sat on the front porch, and he said he thought she might come back for me. After a while, my dad said he didn’t think she was coming back. This was years before we lived in the neighborhood I mentioned at the start. It didn’t dawn on me that my own mother was cruel. Years later, she slept with one of my boyfriends.
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“Years later, she slept with one of my boyfriends.” Your mother slept with one of YOUR boyfriends? Wow!
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Yeah… I wish that after she divorced my dad I could’ve blocked her out of my life, but I was a minor and at her mercy. That’s in hindsight, though; at the time, before I knew what an extreme jerk she was, I just wanted my parents to get back together. I’ve said that she was ahead of her time — a conservative who fails to see why she should behave the way she insists that everyone else should.
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Yesterday you had me laughing, today you have me crying – heart-breaking little scene.
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The whole range of emotions! I laughed, I cried….
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Sad story, but well done.
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