"Your mother lied to you. That's the truth"

Welcome to my first short story in what will be a little series drawn from a really thoughtful gift a friend gave, to help drive inspiration for a story. Maybe it will help you too :)

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“Your mother lied to you. That’s the truth.”

I could never have believed the words my father was telling me after all these years, not in that moment. The lies, the sheer amount of them had built up so much pain over the years I believed they were causing me physical strain as well as mental anguish. I had cut him from my life with a move to a different city, changed all contact details and made sure my closest friends never caved if he came their way.

I didn’t know how he had found me, but I was too shocked to care about this then, for I was hearing something I had never thought I’d hear my father say.

“She lied to me as well honey, you’ve no idea how terrible I feel as a result of this.”

Could this be another lie? As I stood there in the market square, suddenly aware of how exposed I felt at seeing my father again after all these years, I found my ability to express myself crashing against all the emotions that were racing to get out before the others could.

Overriding them all was…why now?

“Pardon?”

His confused expression revealed that he heard me ask this.

“Why are telling me this now? It’s been over thirty years since I lived with you…you people.”

Expressing my brother, mother, and father as people and not family did not suage my anger in this moment for they were the most deceitful, cruel and dishonest people I had ever met.

But at least here was one of them in front of me, saying what I had longed to hear for so many years.

That I was right about my horrible mother, who for my entire childhood systematically abused me with horrible verbal filth, made me feel less than at every turn, turned a blind eye to my brothers cruelty and lie all the time about all of it.

“I’m telling you this now as your mother and I have had counselling. After many sessions, she broke down revealing what she had done to you for all those years. I was dumbfounded. I felt like I was kicked in the gut.”

I wish I could do that right now for the enabling you did of her treachery! I needed you and you never believed me!

The words screamed in my head but again, the battle of emotions found a winner in that moment and found myself just wanting to hear more.

“Therapy?”

It was all I could ask. I couldn’t even look him in the eyes at this point. When I did I heard the echoes of the times back then that my own therapy sessions tried so hard to heal.

“There you go, making up lies again.”

That’s what they told me. That ever present accusation that I was just never telling the truth, always looking to stir and cause trouble just to get attention.

NO! You didn’t spend all that time in therapy to get this far in recovery to have it all unravel just because he, HE, has chosen to find you and bare all.

It’s his damn turn to do the explaining, it’s his turn to tell the truth!

“Marriage counselling yes, and I’m here to also tell you that it hasn’t worked. I’m seeking divorce. I never want to see her or my son ever again for what they did to you.”

These words and how he told them to me made me look him in the eye once more. Just like my use of person earlier, he was using the same conviction in his tone to describe cutting his wife and son from his life….for me?

Is it too late?

The gravity of the situation and how he had finally seen the light was too much to bare as I stood there. I had to sit down.

Moving to a nearby bench I was soon chilled by the cool metal thus making me realise that I was still present, still able to feel something.

My father had chosen to sit down as well and wait for my response. He was looking so genuinely sorry for the position caused by those we should have been able to trust but I could not shake how he had enabled the very thing that hurt me so much, to happen.

I had pleaded with him to understand my position. Begged him to see that I was being victimised by a mother who wished I never been born and a brother who saw me as his punching bag.

But it never worked. He always saw the majority vote against my claim as over ruled and told me to be quiet. He was so often doing long hours for the police, so was never around to see what was happening.

Should I forgive him now that he knows what happened?

I decided there and then to have some time to think. I couldn’t look him in the eyes anymore, it threatened to do damage it was too scared to face.

He didn’t follow. He didn’t call out after me.

When the time had come for me to have a clearer head, and speak with my husband about this I felt that I was in a good space to at least…talk to him again.

But I didn’t know how to find him. My efforts to avoid him, I thought, we good enough but he must have pulled some strings in the police force to do something.

I however didn’t have that so I resorted to wondering around town at the same time I had seen him last. Maybe I would catch up in the café, maybe he works nearby

Should I go to the local police station and ask?

Then I realised, why am I going to all this effort? He needs to prove himself here, not me!

My anger justified those words and I was comfortable in their claim until I turned around and saw him in a café window.

By himself.

Appearing to read a newspaper. He had a penchant for reading the broadsheets back then. Seeing him in this pose brought back a memory of the thing he does with the newspaper, or did. Swishing the pages to see what was next always made me giggle as a child.

“Silly Daddy!” I would say.

“Would a silly Daddy be reading such an important newspaper?” he would say with his comical voice before swishing the page again, sending me into a fit of laughter that only a child could have.

But he wasn’t doing this now. He was turning the pages slowly and seemed like he was desperately upset as he did so.

I knew then as much as I had suffered, here was a man, my father, who was now seeing the destruction of a marriage of over 25 years, an isolation of his wife and son, and with the last of his hope of a family life hanging on the one member he had left.

Me.

I couldn’t bare to make this situation any worse than it already was.

As I moved a step closer to the café I felt a swell of pride building.

And then he saw me.

I have never seen my father smile like that before.