Wait Until My Father Gets Home
Dysfunctional Family Relationships
‘Someone’s been here’.
I make the statement in my matter-of-fact voice.
I know immediately something is different. Not just a little bit different but massive. The energy has shifted. I look at my mother calmly, with a certainty I rarely feel around her, waiting for my words to sink in. I’m fifteen and just came home from school. I’m standing halfway up the stairs, in my school uniform. She is at the top, wearing one of her best summer dresses, and slightly blocking my way. I want her to move, so I don’t have to make physical contact with her to get past. She has her back to me, but instantly spins around.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Someone not in our family has been here, in the upstairs of our house.’
Her face changes immediately.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, how can you possibly know something like that?’
She turns to walk away, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. My mother looks very smug. Not a good sign. Her being happy usually means she’s got something over on someone, like when she reports my misdemeanours to Dad. Except he isn’t my ‘dad’ anymore. He has become my father, a biological fact. Not a friend, not on my side, definitely not ‘there for me’. Like…
