How long would an ambulance take to get here if I called one? How would I explain this? Death by question?
“No. No...” he wheezed. “Let me finish.”
Ahh okay, I wasn’t aware this meltdown was the beginning of his story. It was easy to see why I had so much trouble getting emotions out.
The fear bloomed fast and wide inside me like one of those monsters with three heads that, when you chop one off, three more appear.
“I decided to bury this with me. I didn’t…” he panted again, like he was trying to catch his breath but couldn’t. Panic attack? I’d never had one myself unless you counted my meltdown in front of Dax at the children’s home.
“Take some breaths, Dad,” I said, scooping my hand under his elbow and trying to steer him back to his chair. If I could get him sitting down, I’d be one step closer to not having to roll him into the recovery position. I could think of many more people I would rather practise my mouth-to-mouth skills on before I picked my father. Any of the guitarists from Metallica or Kinicki from the original Grease being a few. But Dad refused to budge.
“If you won’t sit down, dad at least make it look like you’re not dying.” I threw my hands in the air.
He looked up at me from his bent-over position for the first time, his mouth tilting.
“Okay,” he wheezed, as his spine slowly straightened and I could see his face again.
“I meant to take this to my grave,” he puffed.
“A bit of a dramatic choice of phrase, don't you think?” I said before I could stop myself.
He shot me a glare, and I shut up.
“Not because I wanted to keep anything from you. But because I never wanted you to feel any different from the others.”
He still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
My eyebrows bunched.
“I’m not following,” I said, shifting my hands to my hips.
He sighed again, like it physically pained him that I couldn’t decipher his morse code of disjointed words and bizarre body language.
“Sorry, Dad, but you’re actually going to have totalkfor this one.” I tried to keep it gentle, but my patience was slipping fast with every new alarming behaviour. I’d never seen my father look so small. It was unnerving.
“I didn’t want you to feel you were different from Josh and June,” he said, tugging at the loose skin around his neck.
“Still not following…”
Dad’s eyes pierced mine, pleading.
Part of me regretted coming now. A whisper of gut instinct—a voice I was learning to recognise—told me there would be a lifebeforethis conversation and a lifeafter. And not in a happily ever after kind of way. But I couldn’t stop now. Not if it led to anything that could help Olivia. What did I have to lose? What’s another skeleton in my path?
“When I went to Bellamy Children’s Home after Mum died, I dropped off Josh and June,” he said.
“And me,” I corrected.
He shook his head.
“Dad, IknowI was there. I remember that part,” I replied, eyes narrowing.
He shook his head again. “No. I dropped off Josh and June. You were already there.”
“What?” My mouth dropped open. “So, you’d fobbed me off there earlier?”
That little voice—the one that always said I wasn’t as good as June—started clawing at the box I’d locked it in.
“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head, and his pleading eyes misted over.
