At times, I wonder where my mother is, how she found the courage to leave me and not look back. I’m still not a father, but I feel an unconditional love for this child that will never go away. How can a person not feel something so strong, how could you forget that it’s a part of you? How could you leave it, alone, with no safety, no future?
I’ll never find the answer and I won’t know how things really went – a part of me will always suffer for that. But the time has come to put it behind me and think about the future.
I take a sip of my coffee as I look out the window overlooking the garden, that’s just starting to flower. Dad helped Riley plant some rose bushes, and comes round to cut the grass when he can. Even though I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself, he insists on coming and I let him because he has good intentions. He loves giving back, and making himself useful to the family.
He adores Riley as if she had always been his daughter. She’s the only one he talks to when he’s having one of his moments, other than my mother.
Maybe sensitive people just recognise that trait in one another. Maybe it binds them somehow with strangers. Perhaps Dad feels the need to reassure her and make her feel special, even though half the time he has no idea who she is. And maybe Riley feels the need to be there for him, because she knows what it means to be alone, to feel left out and not know where to go.
I’m happy about their relationship. And the one she’s got with my mother too. I’m a little less thrilled about how well she gets on with my brothers and how they all gang up on me together. I just want her to be happy, see her laugh, because when I see her laughing I know that I’m doing the right thing, that I’m the right person.
The only one who will love her more than anything else in the world, someone who’s hers forever.
All hers.
