This is goodbye

Goodbyes are supposed to be loud.

That’s what people think —

shouting, slammed doors,

a final scene to prove the ending is real.

But the real ones,

the ones that change the shape of a life,

arrive quietly.

The children stood beside her,

one on each side,

their small hands warm and certain in hers.

They didn’t cling.

They didn’t tremble.

They simply stood,

as if they had already crossed the threshold

long before she found the courage to follow.

He hovered in the doorway,

confused by the stillness.

He expected tears.

He expected pleading.

He expected the version of her

he had trained himself to recognize.

But she wasn’t performing anymore.

Her daughter shifted closer,

chin lifted with a bravery

that made her mother’s heart ache.

Her son watched with that quiet,

measuring gaze —

the one that had learned too early

to read the weather in adults.

She felt their steadiness

and let it anchor her.

“This is goodbye,” she said.

Not a whisper.

Not a shout.

Just a truth placed gently on the table

between them.

He opened his mouth —

to argue, to rewrite, to rearrange the narrative —

but she raised a hand,

not in anger,

but in finality.

“No more,” she added.

Two words that closed a chapter

years in the making.

The children didn’t look at him.

Not out of cruelty,

but because they had already chosen

where safety lived.

Her son’s fingers tightened around hers.

Her daughter leaned into her hip.

And in that small, instinctive movement,

she felt the entire story shift.

Goodbye wasn’t an ending.

It was a boundary.

A line drawn with clarity,

with love,

with the fierce, unshakeable truth

that her children deserved a life

where peace wasn’t something they had to earn.

She turned.

They followed.

The door closed behind them

with a softness that felt like mercy.

Outside, the air was cold and clean.

A raven called from a nearby branch —

a single, sharp note

that sounded like acknowledgment.

She didn’t look back.

Goodbye had already been spoken.

Now came the living.