three thousand seven hundred and forty nine

Hazel

Three thousand, seven hundred and forty nine. This is the first thing Dad says to me when I open his front door. He is sitting in his chair in the living room, the living room I spent so many years playing in with Skye, texting my boyfriends while hiding the texts from Dad, watching movies with Mum. I wonder if those same memories are dancing through Dad’s head right now.

‘Three thousand, seven hundred and forty nine,’ he says as I go in to greet him.

‘I know, Dad.’ A calendar is spread across his lap; a red marker has crossed out today, the twenty third of March. My sister’s birthday, her twenty fifth. I remove them and place them on the coffee table.

‘I didn’t say goodbye.’

‘You did, Daddy. I took you.’

‘I didn’t.’

I kneel beside him and take his hand in mine. ‘Listen, Dad. It’s Skye’s day today. She needs you to be her Daddy, there for her. Can you do that? For Mum?’ He focuses in on me and smiles, leaning over to kiss my forehead.

‘Three thousand, seven hundred and forty nine,’ he repeats as we get into my car and I put the ignition on.

‘I know, Daddy. I know.’

Back at my house, chaos reigns. My husband, James is burning the chicken while Auntie Jackie is yelling ‘Open the window! Open the window!’ and my six-year-old twins, Oscar and Tris, are running wild with streamers and balloons, ‘decorating’ for their beloved aunt. As soon as Dad gets out of the car though, they hurtle towards him and cling to his knees.

‘Come draw with me!’ Tris, the budding artist, begs.

‘No, watch me play basketball,’ Oscar insists.

By the time Skye arrives, Dad is sitting on the kitchen floor by the French windows, painting on Tris’ mini easel whilst occasionally glancing out at Oscar shooting hoops.

‘How many days today?’ Skye asks me as she pulls me into a hug.

‘Three thousand, seven hundred and forty nine,’ I say into her shoulder. She squeezes me extra tightly before letting me go.

After Skye arrives, the house fills quickly. Auntie Maddie comes along at five on the dot, bringing Nana Fuhrman with her, still going strong for all her years. She falls asleep in the garden. All of Mum and Dad’s old friends come, weighed down with gifts and food stuffs, and after a lot of talking and kisses, we all settle down in the garden to eat. It is a relatively calm meal. No one starts a food fight, which happened at my twenty first. Aunt Jennifer doesn’t set anything on fire. Skye blows out her candles on the cake I made and the twins decorated yesterday and she refuses to tell us what she wished for. Auntie Jackie and I carry Oscar and Tris up to bed when they fall asleep in our laps and when I look up from kissing their foreheads, Dad is standing in the doorway watching me, tears forming in his eyes.

‘My girls don’t need me anymore,’ he whispers.

I go to him and fling my arms around his neck. ‘Stop it. Just because we’re grown up, doesn’t mean we don’t need you.’

He pulls me away and holds me at arms-length. ‘But you’re big girls now. There’s nothing more for me to do.’

‘There will always be something for you to do around here,’ I say and hug him again. ‘Come on. I’ll drive you home.’

Alexander

                She’d called goodbye to him as she’s gone out the door. He hadn’t replied. Why? Why couldn’t he be bothered to tell her he loved her, she was his whole world? Simple. He was annoyed with her. Because she had an emergency meeting for her new film it meant that he would have to drive Skye, their daughter to school and miss part of the match he wanted to watch. Now, it just seemed so trivial and selfish that he kicked himself every time he thought of it.