<<It's not Toronto, it's Pickering.>>
Mandy
"You aren't serious, are you?", I can't hide how shocked I am. "Did you say Pickering?!"
My Mum laughs a bit insecure. "Yes, I did. And I'm absolutly serious. What's wrong, Mandy?"
"It's just..." Ridiculus. I can't say it, but that's, what I'm thinking. "It's just, I wasn't prepared for this, Mum. Since Dad..."
"Oh darling, I totally understand it. But sweety, your dad isn't dead, he's just living with his new family."
"I know. I know", I say. We both keep silent for a moment.
I never talk that much about my dad as you may have recognized, and everybody, who knows me, understands and respects that.
Once, we moved to Canada, and my parents split up, my dad just needed a half year, to find a new woman and he just needed the same time, to built up a new live. He married, he and his new wife bought a white painted house, with a wooden veranda and a nice, well organized garden. The next year, she gave birth to twins. Now, they have three kids, and they live together, as if they always did. The first time, they always wanted me to visit them. I was "the big sister", that just didn't live with them. Everytime, I came by on "a cup of tea", my "stepmother" asked me out about my hobbies, my school and friends and all that stuff. Surely, she gave her best to be nice to the kid of her now husband. But we never really got anywhere. And to commute between two locations over a long time, with a distance of a drive of two hours, it isn't easy, to stay in contact. It was never a home for me, and I didn't want it be a home for me. I mean: My parents just got divorced, and in the same year, my father got married again and his wife got pregnant. How would any child react on that?!
But honestly, my father didn't even ask me, if I would like to live with them. He just got more and more uninterested, and I got more and more desillusioned. After two years – I just got fourteen – he forgot my birthday. He just didn't show up. He didn't even call. He just forgot, that he was the one, who should have brought the ordered It's-Mandy's-14th-Birthday-Cake. My aunt was the one, who left the party to get the cake. And when my mother called him the next day, all he wanted to talk about, was having her advice in a law-matter. My mother told him, to shut up, and asked, why he didn't came to my birthday-party.
He had no answer.
Right.
He had no answer.
The father I loved and admired my whole life, has had no answer, why he didn't show up at my birthday-party. He just had forgotten.
Surely, he wanted to talk to me, he excused, and I heard his excuse, and then, I told him, the way, a fourteen year old tells someone, who disappointed her extremly, that I wasn't interested in having contact, anymore.
My father didn't contradict.
After that, my mother and I got really close and the home we've made us was and has been my favourite place since we've moved. Even after I moved out for studying.
So, that's the explanation for my reaction on my mum moving out from our last home without telling me.
My mother sigh. Then she says: "Will you come visit me next weekend? We didn't see each other for too long. Maybe, you wanna bring Amy with you?"
"I can't next weekend", I answer. "But I would love to come next week, maybe Friday to Sunday? And Amy won't come. She... can't. She's really... busy."
"Oh, okay. It's a pity. But I'm really happy, that you're coming. And maybe, we can go shopping, just like the old times."
I smile. "I'd love to, mum."
We chat for a while, and then, we say "Goodbye, and to next week!", and I hear the typical toot in the telephone wire. And then, my head sinks on the plate of the table, and I close my eyes. I can't believe it. I really can't believe it.
My mother could have moved everywhere.
Everywhere.
And she moved to the hometown of Shawn Mendes.
I can't believe it.