Frigid Flora

seventeen - familiar face

Chapter Seventeen

If there was one thing on this planet that I hated almost as much as touching, it was surprises. It didn't matter in what form they came, pleasant or unpleasant, you were left in the dark.

Opening presents in front of the people that gifted them to you left you unprepared. Did you have to fake a smile because they knitted you a hideous pair of socks? Or could you genuinely grin because they bought you that CD you wanted? Simple things like that - I hated them. Perhaps it wasn't so much the surprise itself that scared me, but being unable to predict what the unknown held in store.

My first experience of that was when my mother had walked into the kitchen a few weeks after my tenth birthday. She had a look on her face I had never seen before. The woman was constantly upbeat with a sparkling smile and those bright green eyes that I had inherited from her twinkling. Even on the bleakest of days, her mood would never falter. She was one of those people that when faced with a problem, would only seek the positive aspects and the ways to work around it, never once dwelling on the negatives.

When she sat down at the table with an uncharacteristically grim expression on her face, I had no idea what to do. She had always been the one I turned to with my problems but I'd never cast a thought about who my mother would turn to when she faced her own. Was it supposed to be me? Surely it was my father. Then again, he hadn't been home for the last few weeks. Was that what this was about? Was she having to turn to me instead to play the role of her rock? I didn't have a clue.

So I sat in silence opposite her, spooning cereal into my mouth as I waited for her to speak. She too sat in silence, but instead of eating, she just stared at the cereal in her bowl until it became a soggy mess.

I finished my breakfast, still waiting for her to break the uncomfortable stretch of quiet that had settled between us that morning. It was only when my spoon fell back into my bowl with a loud clink that she finally met my gaze. There were smudges of darkness under her eyes and I had wondered if it had been her makeup at the time. Looking back, it was clearly bags that encircled them from lack of sleep and stress.

"Sweetheart, I've got to tell you something..." Mum had trailed off, her hands that rested on the table tightly clasped together before her. I had still been confused as to what mood she was in. She had looked tired and upset. Now I knew it was closer to apologetic and worried.

"What is it?" I was getting more concerned as each of the silent seconds ticked by. I just wanted her to spit it out because the wait was making me nervous.

"It's about dad."

"Is he back from work?" I had asked.

"Sweetheart," Talking appeared as though it was becoming immensely difficult for her which only deepened my bewilderment. It hadn't been the first time my father was forced to travel some place for his police duties. Sometimes it could take him weeks. What was so different about this one? "I lied."

"About what?" I felt sick and I didn't know why. She wouldn't answer me now. She wouldn't even look at me. "About what, mum?"

"The last time we saw dad was on your birthday..." Her breathing seemed uneven. Then she was crying. Big, heaving sobs that caused all of her body to shake. I wanted to grab at her hand but I couldn't. She didn't know that I couldn't comfort her with touch. Not yet. It was another year until she would attempt to tickle me in the kitchen and realise that I wasn't going through an awkward phase of I-dislike-hugs-because-they're-embarrassing and that it was a real phobia. "That's the last time we'll ever see him again."

"What do you mean?"

"I- I told you he was working because I didn't want to frighten you," She frantically wiped at her eyes. "I had no idea where he went. I still don't. His work friends- the police, th-they've been looking everywhere for him but-" She gritted her teeth together and I could only watch as the women I'd grown up with, who was always so calm and collected, crumbled before me like a house of sand. "I got an email from him this morning. He's never coming back home. He's gone."