Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 2, Issue 2
Page 5
She fell to her knees, crying, her feet twisted beneath her, and began rocking back and forth. She felt sick, exhausted, defeated. It wasn’t meant to happen like this.
She shook her head. ‘You don’t know who I am.’ All those times she’d tried to speak to him but couldn’t find the words, couldn’t work out how to start. If, just once, she’d told him who she was. Just once. ‘I’ve called you so many times,’ she blubbered, the tears flowing freely now. ‘I’ve called so many times, but I can’t speak, I can’t…’
‘You!’ He rose out of his seat, blood pulsing at his temple. ‘It’s you! What do you want? You psycho bitch!’
‘Mum died. She died, so I came looking for-’
The hard crack of his hand across her face stopped her short.
Cheek throbbing and vision blurred, she looked up, felt the blood dribble from her lip.
His hand was raised to strike her again, but he let it fall to his side, her words sinking in. Suddenly, he was afraid. Confused and afraid. He pushed past her, walked down the stairs and rushed towards the club’s exit. He couldn’t breathe. A daughter? He had a daughter. He’d hit his daughter. Stephanie could never find out. Never.
* * *
Charlie woke earlier than usual and stretched in her king-sized bed. Sunlight filtered through the blinds above her and outside she heard the sound of a truck changing gears. She touched the welt on her left cheek, remembered what had happened and pushed away the nausea. She reached for her laptop, logged into NetBank and checked her savings. $12,327.42. By the new year she’d have over twenty grand, and that meant she’d have enough to go back to school. She would take care of herself, just like she’d always done. She rolled onto the floor, hooked her feet under the bed and did two hundred stomach crunches. As soon as she was finished, she showered and dressed, listening to the radio, wanting to know more, to better understand the world and her place in it. The names of countries and politicians flowed around her like a foreign language, but it was a language she was determined to understand. Everybody told her how beautiful she was, but it wasn’t enough, she was going to be more than that.
She picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she came to Isaac’s number. Dad, she’d written. She stared at those three letters and shook her head. Dad? Isaac would never be her dad. She hit delete. Then she dialled directory assistance and asked for the police.