Making Love

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

“What do you mean, Dad wants to see me? I’ve hardly seen that man two dozen times in my life.” While skyping Hannah, I could tell something was bothering her, and I’d finally wheedled the truth from her.

“Come on, he was around a lot when you were little.”

“I was little, I don’t remember. I do remember when he missed by 6th birthday party, a trend that continued for the next twenty four years.”

“He sent presents!”

“For Christmas, maybe; birthday were about 50/50 whether he’d remember or not, which is hardly surprising, considering he still thinks my name is spelt E L L E N O R. I mean, he’s only had 30 years to learn how to spell my name. Besides, you can't hug a present. You can't ask a present for help with your homework. A present won’t come and watch your dance recitals.”

As it turned out, the same applied to my father.

“He’s not perfect, Ellie, I know that, but he did his best.”

“Maybe he did, but I hardly know the man.” Hannah was six years older than I was and she had more memories of our father, who had left when I was two.

“Look, he’s trying to reconnect. Can it really hurt to meet him?”

It had always been a fantasy of mine to have my father be a real father, but that dream had died a slow and painful death over the years... Or so I thought. I was tempted, I admit.

“Why now?” I was also still cynical.

“Why not now?” Hannah asked. “He often askes after you when he phones.”

I knew they spoke sometimes, but not that he ever asked about me.

“Come off it, Han, if you didn’t think there was something shifty going on too, I wouldn’t have had to pry this out of you.”

Hannah sighed. “Okay, so I think the timing is odd but maybe seeing you in the papers just reminded him of what he’s missed and gave him the kick up the butt he needed.”

“That was over two months ago. What happened, has it been so long that he didn’t recognise me at first?”

“If you go looking for problems, you’ll always find them. And it can't hurt to try and reconnect, can it?”

“Then why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I know you’re away for another month or more, so I told him I wouldn’t say anything until you were back.”

“Our family is so fucked up,” I muttered.

“At least we’re not,” Hannah said softly.

“We are, Han, and you know it. In your defence though, you are an amazing mother and I think the problems will end with our generation.”

“Do you really think that?” She looked surprised and I considered taking a screen shot of her face.

“You adore those kids, and you might have had less experience, but you were a pretty good mum to me too, back in the day.”

She began to blink rapidly. We didn’t often get sappy with each other. Maybe we needed to open up more and take less embarrassing screen shots.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure, I’m only telling the truth.” I sighed. “And you are absolved of guilt on the Dad thing, but I am not going to even think about it until I get back. Okay?”