The Past Within

The Hallow Silence

Lucy sat alone at the dinner table long after Tim had left the room, her body rigid, her mind refusing to accept what had just transpired. The food had gone cold, but she hadn't noticed. All she could feel was the crushing weight of Tim's words echoing in her mind, a slow, creeping sense of abandonment settling in her bones. How could he leave her like this? How could he walk away when Tamara needed them the most?

But a small voice whispered in the back of her mind, *Am I really surprised?*

The truth was, Tim had been slipping away for months, and deep down, Lucy had known it. She just hadn't wanted to face it. Not with everything else crumbling around her.

With a deep breath, she pushed her chair back and stood. The sound of the legs scraping against the floor startled her, a sharp reminder of the suffocating silence that had taken over their home. The house felt impossibly empty. The void of Tamara's absence had become a familiar ache, one Lucy could never quite adjust to, even though Tamara had been staying out later and later—or sometimes not coming home at all.

She wandered into the living room where Tim sat on the couch, his face buried in his hands. He didn't look up when she entered, and for a moment, she considered walking out of the room without a word. But something kept her rooted to the spot.

"We promised we'd never leave each other," Lucy said quietly, her voice strained. "That no matter how hard things got, we'd face them together."

Tim's shoulders tensed, but he didn't respond.

"I can't do this without you, Tim," she continued, stepping closer. "I don't want to."

He finally lifted his head, his eyes red, not from tears but from exhaustion. He looked at her like a man already half-gone. "I don't know how to fix this, Lucy. I'm barely holding it together myself."

"I'm not asking you to fix it," she said, her voice cracking. "I'm asking you to stay. To be here with me."

Tim shook his head, rubbing his temples as though trying to ease a pressure that had no release. "I've been here, Lucy. I've been *here,* but it's not enough. It's never enough."

Lucy felt something inside her snap, a thread of patience and understanding that had held for so long, it almost shocked her to feel it break. "So you're just going to walk away? Leave us to pick up the pieces of this mess on our own?"

"I don't want to leave," Tim said softly, though his eyes told a different story. "But staying feels like drowning. I need to get my head above water before I can help anyone else."

Lucy crossed her arms over her chest, trying to hold herself together. She wanted to scream, to make him understand that walking away wouldn't save him. It would destroy them. "Do you think I'm not drowning too? Every day, I'm terrified that Tamara won't come back, or that when she does, she'll be worse off than before. I'm scared too, Tim. But I'm still here."

He looked away, unable to meet her gaze, and that hurt more than his words. "I don't have your strength, Lucy."

The room felt colder, the distance between them growing wider with every second. Lucy's throat tightened. "What am I supposed to tell her? That her father couldn't handle loving her anymore?"

Tim winced. "It's not that simple."

"It never is, is it?" Lucy whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "But she's still our daughter. And I'll fight for her, even if you won't."

Without waiting for a response, Lucy turned and walked toward the stairs, leaving Tim alone in the dimly lit room. She heard him call her name softly, but she didn't stop, didn't turn back. If he wasn't willing to fight for them, she would have to fight harder—for herself, for Tamara, and for the family they'd tried so desperately to hold onto.

As Lucy ascended the stairs, she thought about the child who had once filled their home with laughter and light. The little girl who had clung to Lucy on the first day they brought her home, scared and fragile but full of hope. Where had that child gone? And when had they lost her?

Lucy reached Tamara's bedroom door and paused. It was closed, just as it had been for days. Tamara hadn't come home tonight—again. The room was untouched, abandoned like so many of their attempts to reach her. The bed, neatly made from the last time Lucy had desperately tried to tidy up her life, was a stark contrast to the chaos Tamara now lived in outside these walls.

Taking a deep breath, Lucy rested her hand on the doorframe. "Tamara," she whispered into the empty hall, knowing her daughter couldn't hear her but needing to say it aloud. "Please come back."

There was no answer. Only the hollow silence that had become all too familiar.