The house was a mess.

  Eve’s father sat slumped in his chair, rubbing a hand down his face as he glanced toward the kitchen. The sink was already piling up. Dishes from the last two nights. Maybe three.

  “Little madam thinks she’s too good for this house now,” her mother muttered, arms crossed. “Running off to that fancy school.”

  Her father grunted. “Bet she doesn't last a term.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” Her mother scoffed, shaking her head. “She thinks she’s clever, that one. Like she’s not from here. But she’ll learn.” There was a long pause.

  Then her father sighed, shifting in his chair. “Who’s gonna do the shopping, then?”

  A silence stretched between them.

  Her mother clicked her tongue, irritated. “Reckon she’ll come crawling back soon enough. And when she does?” She narrowed her eyes. “We’ll see how high and mighty she feels then.”

  Neither of them noticed the opened acceptance letter still sitting on the side table. The only evidence she had ever been there.

  Lila’s father sat at his desk, reviewing a file on his tablet, his expression as unreadable as ever. He had not mentioned her departure. He had not needed to.

  Her mother sipped her tea, glancing at the doorway as if expecting her daughter to appear.

  She did not.

  “She was anxious,” her mother murmured, setting down her cup with a soft click. “Too soft. Too hesitant. And yet…”

  Her father did not look up. “Then she will either learn strength or break.”

  Her mother exhaled, fingers trailing absently over the delicate rim of her saucer. “She’s always had potential,” she said finally. “I hope they teach her how to use it.”

  Neither of them voiced the alternative.

  They did not expect failure. But they had planned for it.

  The house was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Sophie’s mother sat at the breakfast table, her fingers resting absently against the rim of her coffee cup. Across from her, her father scrolled through his tablet, but he had been staring at the same page for the last ten minutes.

  It wasn’t that they hadn’t expected this. They had always known Sophie would leave one day—boarding schools, summer internships, exchange programs, all of it had been preparing her for this.

  “She’s really gone,” her mother murmured, staring at the empty seat across from them.

  Her father exhaled slowly, setting his tablet down. “It’s good for her,” he said, though his voice lacked its usual certainty. “She needs this. A place where things don’t just fall into place for her. Where she isn’t at the top from the moment she walks in.”

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  His wife hummed, stirring her coffee absentmindedly. “I know.” A pause. “But it’s strange, isn’t it?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “No demands. No stories. No dramatics.” She let out a small laugh. “I keep waiting for her to come in here, sighing about some grand injustice, or spinning some scheme that, somehow, always works out in her favour.”

  Her husband’s lips twitched. “She always did have a way of making things happen.”

  She smiled, but it was softer now. Quieter.

  For years, they had moved—new schools, new countries, new experiences. Sophie had thrived on it, adapted with ease, remade herself in every place they landed. She had learned charm, strategy, adaptability. But they had moved just as much for her sake—to keep her from getting too comfortable, too certain of her own power.

  Phoenix would do what they could not.

  It would temper her.

  A silence stretched between them. The kind that came with absence.

  “She’ll come back different,” her mother murmured.

  “She’ll come back better,” her father corrected.

  They both knew it was true.

  But that didn’t make the house any less quiet.

  The apartment was quiet.

  Not empty—just quiet.

  Li-Chen set down her cup with deliberate care, as though any sudden movement might shatter the fragile peace between them. Across the table, David flipped through the morning paper, the rustle of pages too loud in the stillness.

  For the first time in seventeen years, Maya was not in her room.

  And neither of them could quite decide if that was a victory or a mistake.

  No quiet humming while she read, no endless questions; no boundless curiosity, always testing limits, rejecting convention, defying custom; no restless need to challenge every assumption—making them worry if she would ever grow up and specialise.

  David was the first to speak. “You regret it.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  Li-Chen exhaled softly, fingers tracing the rim of her cup.

  A pause.

  David set the paper down with careful precision, lining up the edges against the table. “You encouraged her to take the exam.”

  “I assumed she would fail,” she admitted. “At best, score well enough to use on a CV.”

  David’s jaw tightened. “And when she passed?”

  A silence stretched between them, heavy with everything unspoken.

  Maya had left. And it had been their decision.

  Not a rash, emotional decision, but a calculated one. A sacrifice. The kind their own parents would have made, without hesitation, without doubt.

  Eat the bitter. Build the future.

  It was what was expected.

  But David had expected that future to be here.

  He rubbed his temple, exhaling slowly. “We did everything right.”

  “We did.”

  “We worked. We sacrificed. We gave her every opportunity.”

  “We did.”

  “And now she’s—” He stopped.

  Gone.

  Somewhere far beyond their reach.

  Li-Chen studied him. “You blame me.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said too quickly.

  She gave him a pointed look.

  David sighed. “You encouraged her.”

  “And you let her go.”

  He stilled.

  She had said it without accusation, without heat. Just fact.

  “I did. She passed. I couldn’t–shouldn’t–stop her after that.”

  They both had their reasons. She had wanted Maya to challenge herself, to push against her limits—but not this. Not an island unknown to any map, buried in a system even they, with all their knowledge, could not fully understand.

  David had believed in the principle of it. If she could succeed there, she would have no limits. And how could he say no to that?

  But now—

  “She should have stayed here, in Singapore,” Li-Chen murmured. “There are good schools here.”

  “Not like Phoenix. Good is not best.” David’s fingers curled against the table. “Would that have been best for her? Or just best for us?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Because she wasn’t sure anymore.

  The logic was perfect. But the logic did not fill the silence in their home.

  Li-Chen reached for her cup again. “You know,” she said, after a long moment, “we always told her that Singapore was the perfect place.”

  David didn’t look at her. “Maybe that was the mistake.”

  Silence.

  Neither of them said it, but they both knew the thought had been simmering since the moment Maya had left.

  She had gone to Phoenix because, deep down, she had known there was something beyond.

  And that knowledge had been their gift.

  Who are your favourite parents?