If you come back now you’ll find me lying on the floor outside your bedroom door. I’ve given up trying to talk to your mother when she has shut herself in your room. I don’t want to eat and see the kitchen where you spent so much time. I know its lunchtime but there’s no need to eat at prescribed times now.
I wonder if you had some lunch today – wherever you are. Perhaps you had some chocolate or crisps? I like to hope that you are eating properly though. You always liked to snack and to eat with friends. You liked to eat at night, to come home hungry, but you never matched my capacity to eat sweet biscuits – especially where chocolate was involved.
What are you living on? Are you sleeping safely? Have you picked up men to find a bed for the night? Are you experimenting with drugs? I can’t help thinking these things!
I didn’t mean what I said about you the other day. I was concerned about the direction your life was taking. I work all the time so I can buy you everything that you could want. Maybe if I had spent more time with you. Maybe if I had worked less. Maybe you wouldn’t have changed like you did. I just felt that as you were getting older you would have appreciated my love in the form of money and clothes. I didn’t think that you wanted me hanging around, spoiling your fun. When I was young I hated my father being involved in everything I did. I hated not having any money. Not having the opportunities that my friends had.
I’m sure you wouldn’t have gone if you’d known how much I still needed you. It was those new friends you’d made at school. Those young guys. You’re easily flattered and naïve.
Your mother’s friends have been to visit and say they want to help. They really are just curious and want to gossip. The inadequate parents. I can’t let your mother know I mind though. She blames me of course. I try not to think about that night. I hate to think that whatever is happening to you, what ever you’re going through, is all my fault. I don’t like to tell your mother that I think she was the one that drove you away. We never talk. One or two words a day now.
You have got to understand that I didn’t mean those things I said when you stumbled home in the early hours of the morning drunk. We care for you and we want you to know that. I could take the verbal aggression from you – the alcohol reducing your cool and manners. When you said that you smoked pot I couldn’t relate to this. You were being too juvenile and irresponsible. You were so innocent. What happened to my little girl?
It would be so much easier if your mother would let me in. That is all she is to me now. The mother of my child. I didn’t realize when she stopped being my wife. I wonder if she every really loved me. She only married me because she didn’t want everybody knowing how much she was hurting. My friends told me that I could do better, that I was only going to be hurt. I had always loved her. Ever since I first spoke to her in high school.
I’m looking to the future again. Picturing walking into your room and seeing you sleeping there as though nothing had happened. I go in every night just to check. I used to do that before you left. I always wanted you to wake up although I knew if you did, I wouldn’t have anything to say.
I really do love you. I always have. I should have told you this. I wish I had. I wish I could just touch your beautiful hair, kiss you, and hold you in my arms. I want to hear your voice and watch you sleep. My greatest fear is not being able to say I’m sorry not being able to say how much I love you. I love you!
By Rachel Cook 11SR
