The Unknown Road

46 - Archie

NEARLY AN HOUR WENT by before I was ready to speak to anyone else.

I read and re-read Mum's letter nearly eighty times, trying to find any clue that she did want to be found, and that she only wrote it in an emotional outburst. I focussed on the 'don't come find me' each time, and finally, by the time my eyes were red raw with tears, I'd accepted that I may never see my mum again.

One day I would find her, but for now I was too angry to want to do anything about it. She abandoned us when we needed her the most, and she admitted to me that she hid behind my innocence and stood back whilst Dad essentially brainwashed me into thinking hitting me was okay. Come to think of it, I felt quite sick. It made me question myself. Had I wanted to tell someone...? And then she'd told me not to? I can't remember, but the possibility of that being the case made me feel sick to my stomach.

When I was finally done thinking about it, I'd worked myself into such a rage, my vision had gone red. And when the door opened, I almost screamed at whoever it was until I realised it was Millie.

"What did yours say?" She asks, coming to sit next to me in the same place Tessa had. I automatically put my arm around her and hold her as close as I can.

I can never be angry with Millie for telling me the truth. And now that I've read the letter, I'm actually grateful to her for opening my eyes about this. If I hadn't read the letter, I might have spent the next however many years thinking it was my fault that I hadn't said anything. I wouldn't quite say what happened to me was Mum's fault, because it wasn't, but her deliberate silence has certainly been a contributing factor.

"Just that she was sorry. And that she should have come forward earlier... And that her leaving was for the best."

She nods. "Yeah, that was in mine too."

I don't want to sit here comparing letters, so I move the subject along.

"What are we going to do? I ask, close to tears. "I can't look after us. Not like this." I look down at myself and a sob escapes me.

More silence follows as both of us think of something we can offer.

"Could we ask Andy if he could?" She asks, looking hopeful. I smile at the fact she is the only person he lets call him Andy.

"I would love that, Millie, you know I would. But don't get your hopes up. We're 'wards of the state' now, so they could put us with Sara."

That wouldn't be a horrendous option, because she'd let us come down and visit the Grangers whenever we wanted, and at least that way we would stay with family. But it would mean moving... unless Sara moved down here while we were still at school. But then we couldn't ask her to uproot her life just for us.

"Sara wouldn't be too bad," Millie says, agreeing with my inner thoughts.

We did love our Aunt Sara, Mum's sister, but she wasn't great at the parental thing. She didn't understand that kids do sometimes need discipline, and that letting them stay up until past midnight with a billion E-numbers flooding through their systems wasn't conducive to controllable children. She always let us do what we wanted when we were little, which meant we were terrors for our parents when we got back home. Sweets for dinner, TV until the wee hours.

We went over all our options until the nurse came in to say that visiting hours were over. We'd come to an agreement that we'd ask Andrew to see if it was possible in the first instance, seeing as he looks after us most of the week anyway, and that we would chip in with bills, cooking and cleaning to help out. The second option was Aunt Sara. We were old enough now to know that sweets for dinner gave us headaches, and we now had way too much on after school or at the weekend to not appreciate an early bedtime. The third option depended on the local council, and wherever they deemed it appropriate to put us, whether it be with our second option or into foster care. No matter what option was chosen, we knew we'd never go to back to living with Dad. Never seeing him again was seeing him too soon, in my opinion.