I still remember that evening in our apartment block in Kaunas as if it happened just yesterday. My sister Eglė and I were making our way up the stairs when we caught the sound of our mother Rasa yelling from behind the door of our flat. Her voice carried through the whole entrance: “What’s wrong with you again this time? How much longer must this drag on? I am completely fed up with it all!” We stopped dead in our tracks, as though we had run into an invisible barrier. For a brief moment our eyes met, and in that quick exchange no words were needed. We understood each other perfectly without a sound: it was better to leave right then. Breathing out together, we turned around and slipped away from the building without a word. Clearly we had no intention of going back home that night.
Who would choose to spend the evening listening to never-ending parental rows? Not us, for certain. We walked with purpose toward the neighboring entrance where our grandmother Kotryna lived. In those days her flat had turned into our real refuge. What used to be only weekend visits had become almost nightly shelter for us.
The air at our parents’ place had grown completely intolerable long before. Mother and father, as though the rest of the world no longer mattered, shouted at each other without pause. The worst part was how they tried more and more to drag us into their disputes. Sometimes mother would spin toward Eglė and demand to know if she was right and if she agreed. Other times father would not even wait for an answer before turning to me and insisting I back him up. Eglė and I stayed quiet. Neither of us wanted to pick a side or become part of that endless clash. We simply longed for quiet, for calm, for warmth all the things we found at grandmother’s.
Scenes like that played out day after day, repeating like an old folk melody that no one could bring themselves to end. We had grown skilled at spotting the early signs that trouble was brewing. The pitch of a voice, the sudden sharpness in movements, the way our parents glanced at each other all became warnings that it was time to slip away. What child would enjoy living under constant strain, where any ordinary talk could explode into a loud fight in seconds?
Eglė and I could never figure out what had sparked this family disaster. Our household had never been flawless like something from a storybook, yet before this our parents had known how to reach agreements. Disagreements arose now and then they always do but they usually ended in steady conversations rather than raised voices. Mother might look displeased, father might speak a little louder, but within half an hour everything was settled. We would all sit at the table again, share herbal tea, and talk over plans for the weekend.
Roughly two years earlier everything shifted. It felt as though someone had quietly swapped our former parents for different ones people who now found reasons to argue over the smallest matters. A dirty mug left on the table? That became a long speech about carelessness and disrespect. A shirt hung on the wrong hook? A chance for cutting remarks about keeping order. A teaspoon forgotten in the sink? Almost a serious offense that deserved minutes of discussion.
One evening Eglė sat in grandmother’s kitchen, stirring her tea without thinking. She stayed silent for a long while, watching the golden swirls spin in the cup, then asked with bitterness in her voice: “How can it be like this, grandma? Everything turned after their trip together. What took place there?”
Kotryna paused for a moment, set her cup on the saucer, and gently ran her hand along Eglė’s arm. She herself could only guess at the causes of the family trouble, and those guesses brought her no joy.
“Adults will work it out on their own,” she answered softly, doing her best to sound steady. “Sometimes people need time to decide what is best to do.”
Eglė nodded, yet doubt showed clearly in her eyes. She knew grandmother was keeping something back, but she chose not to push. What would be the point? As long as we were seen as children, nothing truly important would be shared with us.
“We cannot bear these shouts any longer!” I burst out with despair in my voice. “We cannot finish lessons properly or read a book in peace! I can hardly recall the last time our whole family sat down together. If being together is so hard for them, let them separate it would ease things for everyone!”
The words came out on their own, yet they held the full truth of the past months. I spoke not only for myself I knew my sister felt the same. Our home had lacked quiet for ages: either mother would say something sharp or father would reply with irritation, and the quarrel would start once more, leaving us nowhere to hide.
“Matas…” grandmother said, caught off guard. She set her knitting aside, studied me carefully, and slowly shook her head. “Have you considered what will happen if they separate? You two would have to be split up. Are you prepared to live apart from Eglė?”
“We will stay with you!” Eglė spoke up at once, her eyes pleading as she looked at grandmother. “We are already here almost every night! You would not mind, would you?”
Kotryna stood still. She understood our feelings she saw how heavy things had become for us, how worn out we were from the endless arguments. On one side, we would truly be safe with her in a peaceful, welcoming setting where we could do lessons without noise, read books in quiet, and simply feel protected. She loved us deeply and was ready to surround us with care.
On the other side, what about our parents? How could we explain that we no longer wished to live at home? Would they accept such an arrangement? And if they did, how would it shape their bond with us? Might the result of this step turn into a complete break with them?
“Let us not hurry,” she said after a deep breath. “I am always glad to have you here, you know that. But first let us try speaking with your mother and father. Perhaps together we can find a way to set things right.”
“Do not worry, we will speak with them ourselves,” Eglė stated with confidence, smiling brightly. Grandmother had nearly agreed, and that mattered most! “Just do not turn us down, please! We truly cannot stay there any longer! It will be better for them apart otherwise one day they might truly harm each other! I saw father raise his hand toward mother yesterday… He did not strike her, truly! But he came close.”
Eglė grew quiet, recalling that frightening instant. She had gone into the kitchen for a glass of water and halted in the doorway: father stood half-turned toward mother, his arm lifting sharply upward while mother instinctively bent down. A second later he lowered his hand, yet that second stretched into forever for Eglė.
“Grandma, please agree!” I backed my sister. I moved nearer and took grandmother’s hand, as though afraid she might refuse. “We will help you with everything around the house. Just do not send us back there. They pay us no attention at all! Yesterday I went to father and told him about the parent meeting. Do you know what he answered? ‘Go ask mother!’ So I did. Guess what mother said?”
“Go ask father?” Kotryna asked quietly, already knowing the reply.
“Precisely!” I smiled with bitterness. “Then they argued for another two hours over who would attend. They sat in separate rooms and shouted across the hallway. I simply stood and listened.”
“I asked them to sign a permission for a museum trip,” Eglė added, her eyes down. Her fingers nervously pulled at the edge of her sleeve. “Now I am the only one in my class who will not go. Neither of them signed the paper. Instead they started arguing again mother shouted that it was father’s duty, and father insisted mother should handle school matters.”
Kotryna watched us and saw how deeply tired we had become. In our eyes there was no ordinary childhood weariness this was the kind that builds over months when every day mirrors the last, when family warmth gives way to constant rows and support gives way to indifference.
“It is always this way,” I sighed, letting my shoulders drop. My voice carried fatigue, as though I had repeated it hundreds of times. “Any request from us becomes a reason for a fresh quarrel. We do not even want to return home. A couple of days ago we came back at eleven at night do you think they scolded us? No! They simply sent us to bed without asking where we had been. Later they still spent a long time blaming each other for poor upbringing.”
Eglė and I sighed at the same moment. In recent months we had seriously considered that our parents’ separation might be the only escape from this situation. Yet the prospect of being parted from each other frightened us a separation that would surely follow any divorce. One of us would remain with mother, the other with father, and the closeness we knew would shrink to occasional weekend visits.
We weighed the choices, speaking of them in whispers during evenings when we were alone in our room. Once I suggested in jest that we run away from home simply grab our bags and go wherever our steps led. I said it with a smile, hoping to ease the mood, yet Eglė took the idea in earnest. Her eyes lit up for a second, then she spoke softly: “What if we really left? Even for a few days…” In that moment we both understood the state of our family had grown so unbearable that even the thought of running away no longer seemed entirely mad.
Then the idea struck us: grandmother! Why not move in with her? The thought arose in both of us at once, as though our minds worked together. Eglė spoke it first: “What if we ask grandmother to let us live with her? She surely will not shout or argue. We will not have to hear these endless disputes…” I added at once: “Yes! She is kind and always stands by us. Her flat is large enough there will be room for us.”
We began to picture a new life in our minds: calm mornings, a chance to do lessons in quiet, evenings spent playing board games with grandmother. No shouts, no accusations, no need to hide in our room to avoid a sudden outburst. For the first time in a long while hope began to glow in our hearts. Let our parents settle their own matters, while we finally found rest that was what Eglė and I thought as we imagined living with grandmother…
“Mother, father, we need to speak with you seriously,” we said firmly, standing before them. We had waited until evening when both were home and stepped into the living room with resolve. Eglė held my hand tightly it helped her stay steady. “But first promise you will hear us out to the end before sharing your thoughts.”
Mykolas lifted his eyes from his phone, looking surprised. Rasa, who was arranging items on the couch, straightened up sharply. Their faces showed the same expression, as though we had said something unimaginable.
“This is all your doing in raising them!” she huffed, folding her arms across her chest. “The children are already giving us conditions! As though we must answer to them!”
“Who is speaking!” the man shot back at once, setting his phone aside. “I am always at work, doing my best to support the family. You have been with them all the time! And what have you taught them? Why are they now giving orders?”
We glanced at each other. We had expected something of this sort that the talk would slide at once into the usual pattern of mutual blame. Yet we could not turn back.
“Enough!” Eglė cried out, her voice nearly breaking with tears. She took a step forward, doing her best to speak clearly and calmly even though everything inside her shook. “Matas and I have thought it over and decided that you need to separate.”
The room fell silent at once. Rasa stood frozen with her mouth open, while Mykolas rose slowly from the couch.
“That is news indeed!” mother’s voice took on a threatening tone. “Eglė, you are still too young to tell adults how they should live! And what else have you ‘decided’? Perhaps you will also divide the flat for us?”
“If you do not separate, we will go to the child welfare authorities,” I said, gripping my sister’s hand as though drawing strength from it. My voice sounded steady, though inside I was not entirely sure I meant what I said. “And then, father, you could lose your job. Your company does not welcome scandals, does it? You said yourself that reputation is everything.”
“And you, mother,” Eglė went on, looking straight into her eyes, “the neighbors will stop respecting you. They will not even speak with you! Everyone knows how you shout at each other, and we will add more details!”
“They are threatening us! Just look at them!” Rasa finally managed to say, moving her gaze from one of us to the other. “These are our children! How can you treat us this way?”
“We are not threatening,” I said quietly yet with certainty. “We simply want you to understand that living like this is impossible. We are exhausted! Exhausted from the shouts, from you not listening to us, from even simple requests turning into fights.”
“You will separate and move apart, and we will live with grandmother,” we finished together, the way we had practiced. “It will be better for everyone: calm for us, fewer conflicts for you. We no longer wish to stand between you like between two fires.”
Our parents stood motionless. For the first time in a long while they had nothing to say in reply. Usually in talks like this they would start arguing right away, cutting each other off, searching for someone to blame yet now both seemed struck dumb.
Their thirteen-year-old children were acting in a way no one expected! Eglė and I stood side by side, hands clasped, and looked at them with steady eyes, without our usual hesitation. And we spoke of serious matters that the adults had tried to avoid thinking about.
The couple themselves had considered separation more than once. Yet they were always stopped by the same question with whom would the children stay? Splitting the twins seemed unthinkable we were remarkably close, always did everything together, and supported one another. Our parents could not picture tearing one from the other, forcing us to live in separate homes and meet only on weekends.
The idea of us staying with grandmother had never occurred to them before. For some reason this thought had never crossed their minds perhaps because both were too caught up in their own hurts and shared complaints. But now, hearing our suggestion, Mykolas and Rasa could not help wondering: what if this was the solution? Grandmother loved her grandchildren, her flat was spacious, she was always glad to see us… Perhaps this would truly resolve at least some of the problems?
“I will call my mother,” Mykolas finally said through clenched teeth. His voice came out thick, as though the words were hard to form. “If she agrees…”
He did not finish the sentence. Rasa cut in sharply, and in her voice there was such weariness that it surprised even her:
“Then we can finally stop tormenting each other. Make the call. I will be glad not to see your face every day.”
Her words hung in the air. She had not meant to speak so harshly, yet years of stored hurts and disappointments let the words escape on their own.
“And I will be just as glad!” Mykolas answered, trying to mask with irony the pain her words had caused him.
There was no anger in his tone only a bitter smile at what their family life had become. He took out his phone and slowly dialed his mother’s number. While the rings sounded, both spouses looked in different directions, avoiding each other’s eyes. They did not yet know what this conversation would bring, but they understood that the point of no return might already have been crossed…
That day our family made a decision that would shape everything ahead. It began with a long talk between Mykolas and his mother. Kotryna listened closely, without interrupting, only now and then asking for more details.
When Mykolas had finished explaining everything, a pause followed. Grandmother drew a deep breath and said:
“If you both see that this will be better for the children, then I agree. They will be safe here, and I will look after them.”
By evening the couple met in the kitchen the first time in a long while without shouts or mutual reproaches. They sat facing each other and began going over the details. Little by little, step by step, they reached the same conclusion: separation was the only sensible way forward. The children would move to grandmother’s, and the parents would send her money each month for their upkeep.
No one planned to leave the children without support. Both father and mother gave their word to visit on weekends yet on different days, so as to keep their own contact to a minimum.
“I will come on Saturday morning to take them for a walk, and you can come on Sunday,” the man said wearily, and his still-wife nodded in agreement. “That will make things easier. The main thing is that the children do not feel left behind.”
Their chief aim was to keep communication low and thereby avoid fresh conflicts. They promised not to speak ill of each other in front of us, not to try pulling us to one side or the other, and not to settle scores when we were present.
“We are still their parents,” Mykolas said. “And we must remain so, even if we are no longer husband and wife.”
As time went on, the choice proved to be the right one. Eglė and I could finally relax and begin living like ordinary teenagers. Eglė joined a drawing group something she had long wished for, yet earlier there had never been enough calm because of constant worries. I began playing football and made new friends on the team. We started spending time together once more: walking through the city, going to the cinema, talking about school without the fear that a quarrel might erupt at any moment.
Steadiness also returned to our studies. Now we had a quiet place to work, with no one breaking our concentration with shouts or arguments. Homework was done calmly, without nerves, and this quickly showed in our marks. Teachers noticed the change: “You have become so focused, you two! Keep it going!”
Little by little life settled into a new rhythm not perfect, yet calm and steady. We no longer hid in our room, no longer jumped at loud voices, no longer fretted over every small thing. We simply lived the way teenagers should when they have found support amid the hardest times…
Five years later the life of our family moved along at a steady, quiet pace. Eglė and I had long grown used to the new way of things: studies, clubs, time with friends, warm evenings at grandmother’s. Our parents still came on alternating days each on their own day, bringing gifts and attention, yet without shared complaints. Over those years they had learned to speak with restraint and courtesy, without the old flashes of anger.
The first real meeting between the former couple took place at our graduation evening. The school held a formal event, and both parents came, of course. At first they kept their distance, sitting at opposite ends of the hall, but slowly the tension eased.
When the dancing began, Mykolas walked over to Rasa unexpectedly:
“Shall we dance? For old times’ sake.”
She paused for a moment, then nodded.
After the evening they sat for a long time in the schoolyard, watching the graduates laugh and play near the fountain. Conversation started naturally first about us, then about the past.
They talked a great deal that night, recalling happy times from their marriage, and they behaved with dignity. They spoke not of old hurts but of the good that had once joined them. Watching our parents from afar, Eglė and I could not help feeling glad. Still, it pained us to see two people so close to us treat each other almost as strangers.
Yet trouble struck without warning. The very next day Mykolas and Rasa invited us to a café. Over cups of tea they glanced at each other, took hands, and Mykolas announced with a broad smile:
“Children, your mother and I have thought about it and decided to marry again. Over these years we have seen that our feelings never faded! We still love each other and want to become a family once more.”
His voice rang with joy, as though he were sharing the happiest news of his life. Rasa glowed, clearly waiting for an excited reply.
We looked at each other our faces darkened at once. Distrust flickered in Eglė’s eyes, and I tightened my fists beneath the table. The same mistakes again! What were they thinking? Could they truly live together without falling back into conflict?
“Are you serious?” was all Eglė managed to say.
“Completely,” Mykolas answered with assurance. “We have both changed. We have learned to listen to each other. And we want to give our family another chance.”
We stayed silent. Conflicting feelings stormed inside us: on one side we wanted to believe our parents had truly changed; on the other we feared the return of the pain we had once known.
Still, we did not try to talk them out of it. We did not even comment on the announcement, which deeply hurt our parents. Rasa looked at us, confused:
“What is it, are you not happy? We thought you would be pleased for us.”
We only exchanged glances and lifted our shoulders. What could we say? “Do not do this! Do not ruin your lives!”? The words stayed stuck. We did not want to seem heartless, yet we could not pretend all was well.
The conversation never flowed smoothly for the rest of the meeting. Our parents tried to share their plans; we nodded politely, but our thoughts were elsewhere. On the way home Eglė spoke to me quietly:
“I hope they know what they are doing.”
I could only sigh in reply…
“So we are heading to the capital?” Eglė opened her laptop, ready to look through university websites. “Farther from this madness. I can already picture how this circus will finish!”
“Of course we are going,” I said firmly, and an adult sort of weariness sounded in my voice. I passed a hand over my hair as though trying to shed the weight of the past months. “They will live peacefully for a month, maybe two at most. Then it will all start again: shouts, slamming doors, accusations… I no longer wish to be a prisoner of their relationship. I do not want to wonder every morning what mood they woke in and which of us will face the next wave of complaints.”
I stood and walked around the room, gathering scattered books without thinking. One thought kept turning in my head: why do adults, who ought to show wisdom and steadiness, act like unsettled youths? Why, instead of solving problems, do they keep stepping into the same pitfalls?
“We must leave,” I repeated, pausing at the window. Outside the light was slowly fading, coloring the city in soft orange hues. I gazed into the distance as though trying to glimpse my future there. “Far away. Far enough that their fights cannot reach us. Let them sort their own matters. We are no longer their counselors, their go-betweens, their shields. We have our own lives, our own dreams, and I will not allow them to destroy those with another round of parental chaos.”
“When will we send the applications?” Eglė asked calmly.
“Tomorrow,” I answered without hesitation. “So we do not have time to change our minds.”
My sister nodded in silence, keeping her eyes on the screen. Pages from university sites in Vilnius flashed by she had spent a week studying the programs, the dorm arrangements, and the chances of finding work after graduation. In her notebook beside the laptop the lists were growing: the good and bad points of each choice, the papers needed, the deadlines, and the contacts for the admissions offices.
“The main thing is to study in peace, without being pulled into their quarrels,” she said quietly, as though summing up her thoughts. “It is good that we will be so far away.”
“Exactly,” I agreed, sitting down beside her. I leaned my head slightly, reading the lines on the screen. “And when they begin arguing again over who is to blame, we will not even hear it. Let them call, complain, try to summon us to a ‘family meeting’ we are no longer part of that. And their wish to ‘give the relationship another chance’,” I smiled with a touch of bitterness, “is their decision, not ours.”
Rasa and Mykolas went ahead and held the second wedding. This time they deliberately skipped any grand celebration: they did not want extra costs, they did not wish to draw attention, and truthfully they did not feel the need for anything large. They kept it to a simple ceremony at the registry office and a dinner with only the closest people parents, a few friends, and us children.
In the photographs from that day they looked genuinely happy. They smiled, held hands, and gazed at each other with warmth and care. Their intertwined fingers, gentle looks, and light touches were all visible in the pictures. It seemed every hurt had been forgotten, that the years apart had helped, and that now they knew exactly what they wanted, with only a bright future ahead. Looking at those images, we children could not help wondering whether this time things might truly turn out differently.
But… alas, no. The first weeks after the wedding passed in surprising calm: the couple tried to be more attentive to each other, said “thank you” more often, and did not pick at small things. Yet old habits gradually crept back. Already within a month raised voices sounded again in their flat. At first they were restrained reproaches quiet yet sharp: “Did you leave that behind again?”, “Why did you not say you would be late?”, “You could have helped since you were home.”
Then open clashes began. Arguments flared over nothing: someone left damp towels in the bathroom, someone forgot to buy bread, someone turned the television up too loud… Words grew harsher, voices louder, and the gaps between fights shorter.
After two months, just as I had foreseen, the situation reached a breaking point. One evening a dispute over who should buy groceries turned into a real storm. Mykolas, losing control, hurled a cup at the wall in fury it shattered with a loud crash, pieces flying across the kitchen. Rasa, equally furious, snatched a plate from the table and smashed it on the floor with all her strength. The sound of breaking dishes rang through the flat.
After scenes like that our parents always tried to reach us by phone. Each time the call began the same way: one of them dialed, still short of breath from the quarrel, and poured out all the stored grievances at once.
“Can you imagine what he said today?” Rasa would break into tears when Eglė answered. “He does not even try to understand me!”
“Son, you have to understand me she has no control over herself,” Mykolas would say to me in an agitated voice. “I am trying, I truly am, but she seems to hunt for reasons!”
Yet Eglė and I had learned to cut these long speeches short, gently but firmly. We no longer let ourselves be drawn into drawn-out discussions or attempts to decide who was right or wrong. Our replies were brief yet steady.
“Mother, I am in class now, I will call you back later,” Eglė would say calmly, glancing at the clock: twenty minutes remained before the lecture began, but she had no wish to hear another long complaint.
“Father, I have urgent work to finish, let us talk about this at the weekend,” I would answer, keeping my eyes on my laptop screen. I knew that if I let a parent speak freely the call would stretch for an hour, and afterward I would still have to calm them down.
“Later” and “at the weekend” were always put off. We found reasons studies, part-time work, time with friends and gradually the calls from our parents grew less frequent. We felt no guilt over this: we were simply guarding our nerves and our time, knowing we could not change what was happening between mother and father.
We truly had lives of our own rich, purposeful, and far removed from parental dramas. Each of our days now was built from our own concerns, interests, and plans, not from waiting for the next fight behind a wall.
Eglė threw herself into studying psychology. She enjoyed learning how the human mind works, why people act as they do, and how to help those facing hard times. In her third year she began volunteering at a center that supported teenagers from troubled homes. There she ran group sessions, helped the young people voice their feelings, and guided them toward solutions in difficult situations. Eglė saw reflections of her own past in those teenagers and tried to offer them what she had once lacked: attention, support, and the sense that someone was listening.
I discovered my place in information technology. From the early years I became absorbed in programming the logic of code drew me in, along with the chance to build working systems and solve complex technical problems. I spent many hours at the computer, learning new programming languages and taking part in student competitions. In my fourth year my team placed third in a regional contest for developing mobile applications this gave me confidence and confirmed I was on the right path. I took a part-time position at a small IT firm, where I quickly proved myself a reliable and capable worker. Working on real projects taught me how to collaborate with colleagues, manage time well, and find answers in unusual circumstances.
We began shaping our future without constant reference to our parents’ fights. Eglė dreamed of opening her own practice to help families learn to understand one another. I considered starting my own business. We discussed these ideas over tea in cafés, drew up outlines, and wrote notes in our books. In those moments we felt we had something solid to stand on. There was a path. There was a life that belonged only to us.
When Rasa and Mykolas tried once more to pull us into their troubles calling in tears and beginning to describe how badly everything was going and how they could not understand each other we answered calmly and firmly. We had already talked through how we would handle the conversation so we would not lose our tempers or slip back into our old role as mediators.
“Enough, dear parents work it out between yourselves,” Eglė stated firmly. “You have your own life, and we have ours.”
“But you are our children!” Rasa sobbed. “You must support us!”
“If you acted properly instead of like small children, we would support you,” I replied at once. “You made a mistake by remarrying, and you keep tormenting each other. You cannot live together in one space without trouble, so why keep hurting one another? Separate properly and move apart.”
Those words may have sounded harsh, yet my sister and I simply wished to live in peace.
Looking back on all of this now, I see clearly that the most valuable lesson I learned is the need to protect one’s own peace even when it means setting firm limits with those closest to us. Family bonds matter, yet they must never come at the cost of one’s own well-being; sometimes distance and focus on personal growth are the only paths to true stability and happiness.
