River, Sun, Freedom

8: The Story Behind The Story

“Mummy, Mummy,” cried a six year old Jodi and she grasped her mother’s sleeve. Her bright red coat and dark grey pants were all Jodi could see from where she was, but she didn’t mind, she was not looking at her mother. Instead she was staring all around her excitedly as they walked through the shopping centre, then called the Chadstone Shopping Centre, particularly at a build-a-bear workshop beside the food court they were about to enter. The shop was over 50 years old and boasted how it looked the same as it had since it had first been build, the same plastic furniture, the same case of foam, the same everything. But Jodi wouldn’t know this, this was something her Grandma had told her.

“Mummy, please can we make a bear?” she pointed eagerly at the shop.

He mother looked down at her and then at the shop. “Haven’t we already made a bear for you this week Jo-Jo?”

Jodi grinned sheepishly. “Maybe” she said.

“It’s almost your birthday; we’ll come back here and make one for you then.” She said.

Jodi nodded to herself. For the past month she had impatiently been waiting for her birthday, crossing off the days till then like she had seen her favourite cartoons do on TV. Grandma would be here then, and she and her new baby brother Jacob could come here. She’d make one for him too, and maybe for Grandma too.

“Come on, we have to meet your Daddy now.” Her mother said.

The kids at her kindergarten said their parents told them that her father was a world famous scientist, because he had made the flying cars and bikes that she saw on the roads. They said he was a good guy, but Jodi didn’t think so. She didn’t like him. He was never around, he came every now and then, and when he did her mother would tell her to call him “Daddy”.

Immediately any happy ideas of the bears she would make disappeared from her mind.

Her father, was a tall scary grown up. He didn’t like her, she knew. He hit her once, and didn’t say sorry like her mother did. He was always yelling, at her mother, at her.

He hit her mother too, and Jodi didn’t like it when he did, because then her mother would cry, and that always scared Jodi. But her mother never listened to her when she said she didn’t want to see him. She would shush Jodi when she said she didn’t like him.

“he’s your father.” She would say, and then pull Jodi along behind her. “Some day you’ll see how important he is.”

But Jodi didn’t think so. And she didn’t like it when grown ups said “Some day” because they could never tell her when that day would be, and Jodi really wanted to know.

When the two of them finally arrived home, no one was there. Jodi didn’t tell her mother, but she was glad. She didn’t want to meet her father.

Her mother tried calling him, but as usual his comm-device was turned off. She sighed and sat at her piano. She looked at Jodi and patted the space on the bench beside her. Jodi grinned and scrambled onto the bench, letting her mother support her waist. 

“What would you like me to play today, Jo-jo?” her mother smiled down at her with her beautiful brown eyes.

“Row, row, row your boat” Jodi shouted and wriggled excitedly in her seat.

Her mother laughed her beautiful deep throated laugh and began playing the song while singing. Jodi joined in singing at the top of her voice.

“ Row row row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily merrily merrily