The Night of the Candles, When My Wife Left and Never Came Back A Fathers Confession
From the first of December, our house already smelled of Christmas. Id flung fairy lights on practically everything, stuck candles on the windowsills, put up lanterns, bought mince pies and donuts, and for the baby, Id picked out a tiny red onesie with a woolly bobble hat. It was all set to be his very first Christmas. Only, my wife had started having… peculiar days. She came home late from work, always placed her phone face down, dashed straight for the shower without even a cursory hello. She kept telling me she was stressed out. And I believed her. Wed been parents for all of eight months, after all.
On the seventh of December, she woke up silent. Didn’t even fancy so much as a slice of toast. She shut herself in the guest room and barely emerged all day. At five in the afternoon, as I was wrestling the baby into his Christmas jumper for the candle-lighting, she appeared in front of me with a small suitcase.
Im off to my cousins, she said. Ill be back tomorrow.
I wasnt used to her celebrating candlelight anywhere but at ours, but I didn’t ask questions. Maybe she needed some space. If that’s what she wanted, who was I to protest? So I let her walk out the door.
Eight o’clock that night, the baby wailed as though hed just seen the Grinch in the hallway. I rocked him, warmed milk, tried the lot. I texted her, rang her twiceno reply. Her family, equally in the dark as me. I spent the night like some poor ghost, pacing our home while the candles flickered, baby in arms, wondering why his mum wasn’t coming home.
Just past midnight, I fell asleep on the sofa with the little one snuggled against my chest. Three in the morning: phone rings. Her.
Look after him. Well talk tomorrow.
I asked where she was, whether she was alright. She hung up.
By six, I was outside her cousins house with the baby, only to be told, in no uncertain terms, that shed never shown up. Thats when my stomach really dropped. Something much bigger was going on, something I couldnt stick a plaster on.
A day passed. Then two. Then a week. She didnt come back.
I fumbled through fatherhood as best I could. Left the baby with my mum while I went to work. Learned to bathe him solo, to mash up food, to get him to sleep without his mums lullabies. Every night I hugged him twice as tightly, so he wouldnt feel the yawning gap she left behind.
On the fifteenth day, a message pinged onto my phone. Long one, this. She said she wasnt ready to be a mum, that she needed to sort her life out. I begged her, at least come see the baby, help out, show your face. All I got was one blue tick. Never wrote back.
Three months on, I finally got the whole sorry story. Some folks from a nearby village said shed been seen living in the cottage of a bloke shed apparently been getting along with for months. She herself told them she wasnt planning on returning, that that chapter was closed.
I didnt know what to say, what to do, who to turn to. I just carried on me and my boy. When he turned one, she started messaging again but not about him. She wanted a document, nothing more. She didnt ask about the baby not his first tooth, not his first wobbling step, not his first word, not even about the time he was poorly.
Today, its been four years since that night with the candles. My son dashes around the house, goes to nursery, laughs in that thunderous, infectious way. Im still here for him mum, dad, home, and all the rest.
Sometimes, as I watch him drift off to sleep, I wonder:
What could a child possibly have done to deserve being abandoned?
How was it his fault?
Truth is, it wasnt. Not his, not mine.
The blame belongs to the one who chose to leave.
Thats the confession of a father.
