A few months ago, my father passed.
My mum didn’t deal with his death well, and had a sort of nervous breakdown, she had been hospitalized and then transferred to a psychiatric facility. It broke my heart to see my mother so distraught.
Her and my father had been inseparable and to see her suffering was awful.
In the haze of my own grief, and trying to deal with my mother’s health as well, I wasn’t coping the best either. But it was up to me to get things done, starting with sorting out the estate.
That’s where it all started I guess. Before all this, I thought we were just a normal, regular family.
But I was so, so wrong.
I’d finished packing, sorting, organising.
Dads shed was all that was left, and it took me ages to find the key. Even though it was a place where dad spent a lot of his time, I had actually never been inside. Mum had told me it was where dad went to work, to focus and concentrate.
She never seemed fussed about not going in, so I never really cared about it either.
Because I had never been inside, never been allowed so to speak, I felt like I was doing wrong when I inserted the key in the door.
I waited for a moment to be berated by my parents but after a second I realised that wouldn’t be happening, I was alone, with the heavy responsibility of sorting out my parents home, their lives.
The shed was unremarkable.
A couch, Old and faded. It was tidy. I saw a desk and in the first draw I found the notebook.
Dad had always been a passionate writer. He had never had anything published, but it was a hobby that brought him a lot of joy.
I decided that a lunch break was overdue and I’d sit out in the sun, flick through dads notebook and maybe be able to connect with him again by the words he had written.
I settled in the sun, a juice box and curried egg sandwich at my side, book in hand.
***
I hadn’t planned it, not really.
I had been driving, and she’d been walking. Just two strangers, going about their daily lives, until their paths had crossed.
And yeah, maybe i’d had a hand in that. I was the one who had gotten her attention in the first place, and then told her that story about the puppy.
She hadn’t said she didn’t wanna see the puppy though, and she had willingly climbed into his passenger side door. I had seen her earlier, as I sat in my car, fiddling with the damn blu tac, and because I had just given up smoking and I needed to do something to keep my hands occupied.
It was pretty late by then, after 9. The winters came cold and fast down here, so the sky was dark, and had been for hours. The few street lights that were still standing, literally and figuerutbely, the ones that hadn’t been smashed out, were few and far between, making the suburban street seem eeiry and empty.
The air was ice, the chill of snow in the breeze. The girl was wearing a green short sleeved t-shirt, her skinny arms crossed tightly across her chest. She bounced up and down, perhaps trying to keep warm against the weather, but her pace was nothing more than a dawdle, painfully slow. She Didn’t want to go where she was headed, I could feel it. It wasn’t like I had even thought of what to do, what to say, when suddenly I had turned on the ignition and driven down towards her. I pulled up to the curb just ahead of her, watching her in the rear view mirror as she approached.
I wasn’t sure where the story of the dog had come from. I would have to think about that.
“It’s not too far, just down here a little further.” I was sweating, trying to keep his voice normal, friendly. Portraying a man with a puppy was harder than I realized. But I needn’t have worried. If she was worried she didn’t look it, she just shrugged, stared out the window. She didn’t say anything and I felt relived and we settled into a silence as I drove along.
The house was my mother’s, and mine, i supposed, though before my mother had got sick, it hadn’t ever really felt like mine.
I had so many rules, so many things I couldn’t do, that the house was almost like a prison, I had almost grown to hate it.
But then the blessing that was my mother’s cancer had arrived, and suddenly the house was mine and mine alone while she was having treatment in the city.
I wished I had cleaned up, when i drove into the yard and saw the overgrown lawn, the broken window. I decided i would make it a home, I would start tomorrow. It would be better than ever.
I closed the door behind her, locking the dead bolt as I went. She was standing in the kitchen, looking around at the papers piled up, and I felt embarrassed.
My mum was a hoarder and if I ever tried so much as to throw a piece of paper out.. But I had made the shed my happy place. The one, and the best, gift my mother had ever given.
My own space that I could keep and do as he pleased, as long as he was away from her. In my case, it was a 6x9 tin of heaven that i kept immaculate. I was glad I had a decent place for her, until I could get the house sorted out.
My mum had groceries delivered before she left, and I had ate nearly everything in the fridge but managed to put together a sandwich with thick cheese and over ripe sliced tomato. I rinsed a mug out and poured the last of the orange juice carton into it.
“Are you hungry?” I pushed the meal towards her, and she looked like she’d never seen food before. She glanced back up at me, as if waiting for something. I didn’t understand so i tried a reassuring smile, and nodded at her to eat.
It was gone in seconds, I had never seen anything like it. She mustn’t have chewed before she swallowed, and then the juice was down in one gulp. She looked up at me again, with embarrassment and something like fear shadowing her eyes.
“You’re very hungry?” I asked softly, for some reason I felt like crying. When she nodded I opened the cupboards and began searching through them until I had enough ingredients to make a basic Mac and cheese. It was the one recipe I had learnt in school that I had made again and again, and this was, I realized, the very first time I was cooking it for someone other than himself.
It wasn’t until later, after a big bowl of pasta and another mug of water, the girl mentioned the dog, or lack their of.
“There’s no puppy, is there?” it wasn’t even a question, more a statement. She knew.. And she had already registered the answer, before I said she was right, she had already resignated herself to a lifetime of lies and disappointment and untruths, long before she opened the passenger side door to my car.
She didn’t ask for her mum. She didn’t cry, when i led her outside, to the shed. She was quiet and aware.
I thought this would be better. I knew it would be.
The little girl was indifferent to it all. Another bleak moment in a life already stained and tarnished, hopeless. She had no will to fight to live, no bother. I could see how painfully tired she was.
If she was surprised by the others, occupying the couch and staring vacantly at an unplugged TV, she didn’t say so.
I noticed she kept a wide berth, choosing to sit on the single armchair than take up space next to the others.
I understood.
I also had trouble making friends, fitting in. Sometimes it was just easier to keep to yourself.
We enjoyed spending time together, but towards the end of the evening I could tell she was getting a bit jealous of the others.
And I think that’s fair, really I do.
So tonight, I’m going to Bury Jessie and Meg, so she can have this place to herself.
She likes to be alone, I can tell. She’s like me. More than the others had been, anyhow. Maybe I’ll even get her that puppy I lied about..
***
I thought about my mother. The 22 year old age gap between her and my father.
I thought about the dog that had been mum’s pride and joy, even more so than me, her actual son.
I think about the local girls that went missing over the years.
I think about my mother, cooking and baking. I think about her taking multiple plates of food out to my father. He would eat some meals in his shed., especially if he was working on a special and important project.
I think about the freshly dug land. My mother often planting and pottering around in the garden.
I think about my mother, sobbing hysterically in her hospital gown, being sedated. I think about her crying out, girls names I did not recognize, as she drifted into unconsciousness.
My dad wasn’t a bad man..
But according to his diary, he had done some pretty bad things.