Tacenda (noun): things better left unsaid

Every color of evil and suffering imaginable resided inside Pandora’s box: pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, sloth… and countless diseases that savagely ripped souls from their human bodies. Yet, there was also a misfit among the group.

Hope.

And today, she learned why.

Her small figure was quivering uncontrollably before the bed, inches away from the man that gave her life—the man she hated the most.

All she knew of him was his absence. An empty spot at the dinner table, an unfilled chair during her concerts, a long silence instead of the warm praise and comfort that all other fathers gave their daughters.

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He called her yesterday, out of the blue. And apologized.

Not a full sentence was exchanged that call, but her insides toiled and whirled ever since, wondering, guessing, hoping that he had recognized his mistakes and returned to be a proper parent at last. She’d tasted a faint sweetness of joy on her tongue, a shy excitement to call someone “dad” again.

That someone currently laid in front of her, dead. Probably called her before he died; out of shame for leaving her or out of selfishness to rest in peace, she would never know.

The anticipation buzzing in her chest vanished without a trace, and even the lingering resentment she had harbored before did not come back. There was a gaping hole in her heart, and she cursed, cursed him for being a horrible man, cursed her mother for choosing him, and cursed herself for ever feeling hope.