A Boy in the Hand is Worth Two in the Head

Chapter 5

When I was seven, my dad had come back. He’d left when I was four, and had visited maybe twice a year, when it suited him of course. Then, at aged seven, I found myself living with him and Mum again. For a while it had seemed okay; what seven-year-old wouldn’t want their parents living together?

But every so often I’d walk across the road after school on a Wednesday, when he’d work late, to find Mum crying. Sometimes I’d hear her after one of his angry rants, or see her quiet for days on end, too afraid to rock the boat.

Sometimes when she helped me wash my hair in the shower, I could see ugly yellow and blue stains tracing up her arms, and I’d touch them, and tell her that I needed her. She’d tell me that she loved me, and sometimes she’d let me know that she was afraid, when her lip would quiver.

So I guess, by the time it was my eighth birthday, a couple of days after, once my best friend Ella had gone home after a sleepover, it was good that he wasn’t there.

I had been ecstatic; I’d never had a sleepover before. We’d gotten to watch two movies before we’d gone to sleep, and Mum had cooked us cupcakes for after dinner. She’d even put purple icing on them, my favourite colour at the time.

Then, in the morning, when my dad had left for his dead-end job, and Ella had gone home, Mum had rushed me into my room, and asked me to put my favourite clothes into my new Barbie suitcase that I’d gotten for the birthday just passed. I didn’t know what she was doing, but I listened to her, because she was my mother, and that’s what you did at that age. I left my fairy dress that my dad had gotten me, because it was red, a colour that made me feel yuck.

By about lunchtime Mum had gotten all of my stuff together, and her things in the lounge. She’d packed that morning, whilst Ella had been here still.

Later that night, I found myself in a cheap motel, on our way to Sunbury, where my grandma lived. Sure, it was the first place he’d look if he cared enough to drive that far, but my grandma had enough room, and besides, she had a couple of angry dogs.

While I was supposed to be watching cartoons, Mum was on the phone to someone, telling them about what my dad had done to her. She laid back, her eyes shut. She’d looked so fatigued, I remembered, but relieved. She’d looked like she was finally able to say what she wanted, when she wanted.

I hadn’t seen my father since the court appeal about a year after that, in which Mum had applied for full custody of me. He wrote me a letter once, but it was just some crap about how he was sorry, and I was old enough to understand that he didn’t really mean anything he’d written, so I’d thrown it in the bin before Mum had seen it.

I couldn’t understand how he’d gotten my number, Mr. Doherty’s number, no less. Even more pressing, I couldn’t understand why he wanted it, or wanted to speak to me.

I could hear the water running in the shower as I laid on my bed. Matt, unlike his brother, did not sing terrible renditions of mid-decade pop music, and I shuddered to think what was on his mind. Mr. Doherty, Benny and Will were downstairs talking about some bookwork they were having trouble with. I was supposed to be helping, but I’d excused myself with a headache, the little slip of paper with writing almost too fancy for a guy clutched preciously in between my fingers. Though I knew Will had noticed the slip missing, he hadn’t commented on it.

I wondered what my dad had wanted. Probably left his last hoe and needed some cheering up; however, he’d never needed that before, and I was curious about his motives.

My phone crushed between my thigh and the bed, making its presence known. I knew within half a minute I could be talking to the man that had left and abused his wife, and neglected his child. The thought made me a little nauseated.