No Way Back to Yesterday: A Story of Family, Guilt and Forgiveness

“He’s not coming back, Mum. You have to accept it.”

My voice cracked as I said it, standing in the kitchen with the kettle whistling behind me. Mum’s hands trembled as she clutched Tom’s old football shirt, her knuckles white. The rain battered the windows, relentless, as if the sky itself mourned with us.

It’s been seven years since Tom disappeared. Seven years since that night I’ll never forget – the night that split our family down the middle like a jagged crack in a favourite mug. I was seventeen, Tom was fifteen, and we were supposed to be looking out for each other. But I let him go.

I remember it so vividly. The house was full of shouting – Dad had lost his job at the plant and was taking it out on everyone. Tom wanted to escape, just for a bit, he said. “Come on, Ellie,” he pleaded, “let’s go down to the canal.”

But I was angry too. Angry at Dad, angry at Mum for crying all the time, angry at Tom for always trying to fix things. “Go by yourself,” I snapped. “I’m not your babysitter.”

He left, slamming the door behind him. That was the last time I saw my brother.

The police came, neighbours searched the woods and canal banks with torches, but nothing. No sign of him. Just his phone found in the mud by the towpath, screen cracked, battery dead.

After that, our house became a mausoleum. Mum stopped cooking; Dad started drinking more. I barely spoke to either of them. Every day felt like wading through treacle – thick with guilt and regret.

I’d lie awake at night replaying that moment over and over: what if I’d gone with him? What if I’d stopped him? The questions gnawed at me until I felt hollowed out.

Mum clung to hope like a lifeline. She kept Tom’s room exactly as he’d left it – posters on the wall, trainers by the bed, his schoolbag slumped in the corner. Every birthday she baked his favourite chocolate cake and set a place for him at dinner.

Dad was different. He grew bitter, blaming everyone but himself. Sometimes he’d lash out at me: “If you’d just looked after him like you were supposed to…”

I started spending more time out of the house – working late shifts at Tesco, crashing on friends’ sofas when I couldn’t face going home. But no matter where I went, Tom’s absence followed me like a shadow.

One night, about three years after Tom vanished, I came home late to find Mum sitting in the dark, clutching a letter. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

“Ellie,” she whispered, “someone sent this.”

It was an anonymous note: ‘He’s alive. Let him go.’

My heart hammered in my chest. Was it a cruel prank? Or was Tom really out there somewhere? The police said it was probably nothing – just someone playing games. But Mum latched onto it like gospel.

After that, she started seeing psychics and mediums, desperate for any scrap of hope. Dad scoffed at her – “You’re being daft, Marion” – but secretly I think he wanted to believe too.

The years blurred together in a haze of missed birthdays and silent dinners. I moved out eventually – a tiny flat above a chippy in town – but guilt kept me tethered to home. Every Sunday I’d visit Mum, bring her groceries, sit in Tom’s room and try not to cry.

Then last year, Dad had a stroke. It wasn’t fatal, but it left him frail and softer somehow. One afternoon as I helped him into bed, he grabbed my hand.

“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he said quietly. “For everything.”

I didn’t know what to say. The words stuck in my throat like stones.

Mum grew older overnight – her hair silvered, her back stooped. She still talked about Tom as if he might walk through the door any minute.

“Do you think he blames us?” she asked one evening as we watched the rain streak down the window.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “But I blame myself.”

She squeezed my hand. “We all do.”

Last month would have been Tom’s twenty-second birthday. Mum insisted on baking his cake again – chocolate with raspberry jam in the middle. We sat around the table in silence until Dad finally spoke.

“We can’t keep living like this,” he said softly. “We have to let him go.”

Mum wept then – great wracking sobs that seemed to shake the whole house. I held her as she cried, feeling my own tears spill over.

That night I dreamt of Tom for the first time in years. He was standing by the canal, smiling at me.

“It’s not your fault,” he said gently.

I woke up sobbing into my pillow.

Sometimes I wonder if forgiveness is possible – not just from Tom, but from myself. Can you ever truly let go of guilt when there are no answers? Or do you just learn to live with it?

Maybe there’s no way back to yesterday – only forward into whatever comes next.

Do you think it’s possible to forgive yourself when you’ll never know what really happened? Or does the not knowing make it harder?