Looking Back (for Writer's Cramp)

Looking Back



I sighed and lay back in my seat, stretching my legs out as much as I could in the cramped space. The steady, rhythmic noise of the train heading resolutely north seemed at odds with the irregular beat of my heart. I fiddled nervously with my hair, wishing I could have been driving, knowing it would have helped take my mind off things. Instead, the long journey by rail had left me plenty of hours to fret about the ever-nearing visit, and the time spent worrying had done nothing to ease my fears.

I’d tried reading to calm me down, but I couldn’t settle, and the book lay on the table where I’d thrown it down hours ago, sliding sideways occasionally when we rounded a sharp corner.  I hadn’t seen my dad in over three years; hadn’t spoken to him in nearly two, and I was dreading coming face to face with him again. He’d shut the door on our relationship, and that decision had hurt me more than I cared to admit to people.

The train had stopped, I suddenly realised. I jerked to my feet, moving mechanically towards the exit, wishing it would close and whisk me away before I could reach it. But of course it didn’t, and my feet carried my reluctant body all the way to the station entrance, and suddenly he was standing in front of me.

My dad. “Hello daughter.” He spoke in a flat voice. This had been his standard greeting ever since I could remember. I knew from my aunt that he’d lost weight, but the man in front of me was hardly recognisable. He’d gone from dangerously obese to looking fit and healthy, and I couldn’t help being pleased that he wasn’t eating his way to a heart attack any more.

The conversation in the car was stilted and uncomfortable. How was I?  Did I have a boyfriend? What was work like? How was his girlfriend? Etc. Safe questions.

Finally, we got to my hotel, and with palpable relief we turned our attention to dinner in the restaurant. I felt torn and confused, still angry and hating him, yet oddly proud of how well he looked. He was my dad, after all. And he’d wanted to see me. Maybe he was going to explain things. To apologise? Despite myself, I knew if he asked me to, I would forgive him.

As we waited for our desserts, the conversation lightened. It was still a little forced, but I felt myself relaxing as he talked about his job, his weight loss, and I told him about how well the sick foal we had at home was doing.

“And how’s the fat bitch doing these days?” I knew, without asking, that he meant my mother. Even when he’d outweighed her by several tons, he’d referred to her this way. I felt anger rush through me all at once, and memories washed over me.

My mother, a single parent, raising and paying for me on her own, until my stepdad came along. My wonderful, beautiful mum, never saying a bad word about my father to me, because she wanted me to make up my own mind about him. My father, leaving the country to avoid paying child maintenance, hardly ever seeing me.

“She’s fine.” I said through gritted teeth. He didn’t seem to notice.

Suddenly, I wanted to go home. I was thinking about the time when, on one of our rare phone calls, I’d asked this man to ring me more often because I missed him. He’d promised to ring every Sunday night, and I’d been so happy. I was only about 8, but I’d sit by the phone every single week, waiting for him to ring. Even now, 15 years later, I could feel the tears threatening out of compassion for my childhood self; constantly getting disappointed, but never giving up on him. As a child, I couldn’t comprehend how someone I loved so much could apparently care so little. Even now, understanding the pressures and demands of adult life, I find it hard to forgive.

“Why did you ask me to come here?” I asked him, swallowing hard and trying to compose myself. I was privately wondering if he’d decided to give me my inheritance; the money he’d won from my mum when I was 20, as some kind of extension or remnant of their original divorce settlement 18 years previous. My practical self knew hell would freeze over before I saw a penny of that money, but every little girl dreams of her daddy showing her how much of a princess she is.

“I need to borrow money.” I stared at him, hardly believing he’d said it. My dad had always been well off compared to us, always going on holidays and buying new cars. Not like me, crawling in with mum every night because she couldn’t afford to heat the house, eating tuna and rice six days a week.

“Why?” I was too stunned to say more.

I didn’t even hear his reply. It had sunk in that my money, my inheritance, was gone. He’d spent it. Another memory hit me like a ton of bricks, and this time it wasn’t about my dad. It was of my wedding day. I remembered walking down the aisle, towards the man I was about to marry. My stepdad had his arm through mine, gripping me tightly for support as he rolled his wheelchair to the front of the church. His face had drained of colour as the day wore on and pain overtook him, but nothing could mask the look of pride on his face as he’d watched me on the most important day of my life.

Dad had never replied to the invitation. I stood up abruptly. I wanted to be home with my family; my husband, and the mother and father who had raised me, not this cold stranger. I left.

There was no reason to look back.

1000 words.