Lay Low

Chapter Four

So, it is happening. I am meeting my Dad.

I can't quite believe it.

Mum had rang the solicitors and agreed with them that Tony would take me to meet him and that he would drop me home.

Just like that, it was happening on Saturday – today.

I hadn't slept much last night and I honestly felt lightheaded as I started to get dressed.  Doubt plagued me. I wasn't even sure what to wear.   Google didn't have much information on 'meeting your Dad after a long time' occasion-wear.  I mean, its kind of like first impressions – and people always say first impressions count, right?

It is so strange.  What would we talk about?  What would he look like now?  I had only one photo of my Dad.  I had managed to grab one before mum burned them all in a drunken rage, a few months after he left.   In it he was carrying me, and I was laughing.  I can't have been more than six.

The last time I saw him was probably about a year after he had left.  By now Mum was married to Tony and was heavily pregnant with Hannah.  I had seen him every so often that year, but it was always very tense when he would pick me up and drop me off.  This last time, he took me out to the park and we played on the swings.  I remember talking a lot about my new little sister who was coming and we picked out pretend silly names.

When we got back there was tension in the house and I can remember how she screamed at him, begging him to come back.  Tony had come home at that time and had told Dad to leave.   There had been no violence, but an implied threat.  Dad left and that was the last time I saw him.

That was eight years ago.

A lot of the time I can't be sure whether the memories I have of him are real or not.  I can't ask Mum to clarify because that would send her into a rage.  The last time I had asked about him, she had spat at me that he didn't care and that he wasn't interested in me.  That he never would be.

Even then I had hoped that maybe he would.  Even if I was as bad as they thought he was, at least I would be like someone.

As I pulled on my jeans, a thought that had been recurring through my head all week, popped back up.

What if this was all some elaborate cruel joke by Mum?

It wouldn't be the first time.  Over and above letting Tony lay into me, she had her own sadistic sense of humour.  One time, she said there was a present from my Dad and then she ripped it up in my face and made me put the pieces in the bin.  I think that was my 13th birthday.  That was the last time I had let myself cry in front of her.

The memory still jolted emotion through me and as I stood in front of the mirror, I pulled the comb through my messy mop roughly, as if I could brush the very thought away.

I took a final look at my face and sighed.  I have no idea if he will like me but there isn't much I can do about my face.

I padded downstairs casually, feeling for once unconcerned about where Mum or Tony were. The house had been a different place for the last ten days.  It seemed that both Mum and so by default her lap dog Tony, were being nicer to me.  There were no altercations and even the cruel words and taunts had stopped.

I don't know if it was intentional, if they were in some way trying to be better parents now they had competition or if they wanted me not to say anything about the violence.  Either way I certainly wasn't lulled into a false sense of security; the tension in the house built more and more the closer the day came.

"Come on Jake" called Tony, "Time to go".

I sat at the bottom of the stairs and pulled my boots on.

"I'll go and start the car" he said heading out the door.

Hannah sat next to me on the step.

"Have a good time with your Daddy, Jakey. Maybe he'll buy you presents!" she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up at the thought.

"May-be" I smiled.

Mum was hovering by the door.  As I stood up, she reached up and moved a strand of my hair back in to place.   I froze, unused to this motherly intervention.

"Give your father this" she said, placing an envelope in my hand. "Put it in your pocket now, don't let Tony see it".

As I did she went on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek.  Weird.

"Um..." she started to say something and then changed her mind. "Um, right off you go. Wave bye-bye Hannah".

They stood in the doorway waving us off as we drove away.  Hannah's joyful smile and Mums confused look, pretty much mirroring how I was feeling.