In the Wind

by Lilliana Anderson

  “Why doesn’t he love me?” She looked at me with wide eyes that looked as though they were coated with a thick layer of glass then broke down and cried. As much as I hated going through this, my heart was breaking for her over and over again. I sat and listened to her wails and attempted to force her to drink some water in between gulps. “He said I was beautiful. He promised –promised – that he’d never leave. But he did. HE’S A LIAR!” She threw her head back and yelled the last part, her limps sticking out in the effort before she slouched back onto the couch, her hair covering her tear stained face.

  “Give me the bottle, mum,” I coaxed, sitting on the coffee table in front of her and taking a hold of the bottle and her wrist. “Don’t let him do this to you. He’s the arsehole here. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re still beautiful. If all those dates you go on don’t tell you that then I don’t know what will.”

  She fought me for a moment then released the bottle into my care. “They’re not him,” she said quietly.

  I pressed the glass of water into her hands. “I know,” I whispered, pushing her hair out of her face and genuinely feeling sympathetic toward my mother’s mental state. I’d been feeling sorry for her while also thinking she was weak and pathetic. Tonight, I was understanding that she was a mess because she was broken, and in a way, I’d contributed to it, I’d abandoned her too. I’d been so busy with my goal to get out of Hargrave Cove that I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I should have fought for her to stay home and spend time with me instead of enabling her by supplying her with condoms and taking care of her when she came home messed up. Granted, I was the child, and she was the adult. But as I’ve been learning, age was just a number, and sometimes the responsible one was the youngest person in the house. I could have done more. I should have done more.

  I was cleaning up the destruction when I should have been addressing the cause. I guess I figured that I was hurting too, and I just didn’t want to deal with it, but seeing her completely falling apart in front of my eyes showed me that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. She might be the parent in our relationship, but like that letter from my dad’s lawyer said, I was an adult now, and it was time to start acting like one.

  Moving to sit on the couch beside her, I put my arm around her and she rested her head on my shoulder. I felt her tears continue to flow as they soaked through the fabric of my shirt. “We need to forget about him, mum,” I murmured, gently stroking her hair as if she was a child. “It’s just you and me now, and we don’t need him. You don’t need him. And you don’t need those other men either. What we need is each other. We can do this, mum. As long as we have each other, we can do anything.”

  As the words left my lips, I felt so sure of them. My path in life was changing. My priorities had been altered. I had a new plan forming in my mind of how it needed to be. Somehow, we’d get through it. I was going to help her be strong. I was going to fix it all…

  I watched the sun set that day through the back sliding door with my mother passed out on my lap. The sun was a muted orb of gold that turned everything in my house a subtle orange colour that would forever remind me of the day I finally grew up and started looking at the world like an adult instead of a kid who was simply the right age.

  Twice, there was a knock on the door. And twice I ignored it. I knew it was probably Zeke, and possibly Shea too. But, I didn’t want them in that moment. I didn’t want to be a part of their carefree lives. They had their whole futures ahead of them, while I was struggling to work out what I was going to do to survive the next week without my mother completely falling apart on me. I simply wanted them to leave me alone. I wanted to be with my mum.

  For the first time in my life, I had a real problem to overcome. It wasn’t just kids not liking me. It wasn’t just not fitting in. No. It wasn’t anything as juvenile and meaningless as popularity. The problem I faced was real. It was life changing, and it would force me to accept responsibility for my life and take back my control. But then, control is a funny thing…

  14

  Unable to sleep, I sat on my window seat looking up at the clear night sky. My mother was sleeping soundly on the couch, and I had decided to shower and retire for the night, only to spend my time in bed tossing and turning because I couldn’t stop my mind from hanging onto my angry thoughts toward my father, and the confusion that laid itself inside my heart.

  The same thoughts kept rolling around and around inside my head. What was I supposed to do? How could I fix it? I was on my own. Mum wouldn’t be any help. She was too much of a mess…

  We were going to lose everything. I could feel it in my bones.

  As I looked up at the sky, I tried to remember where the constellations were that Shea had shown me. All I could see were millions of glittering stars. The only thing I could clearly identify was the Southern Cross, and that was only because it was a prominent feature of our national flag.

  A light flicking on caught my attention, and I looked down to find Shea looking up at me from her window. Thankfully, she wasn’t naked or in the throes of passion with anyone this time. I don’t think I could have handled another shock after the day I’d had.

  Lifting my hand, I acknowledged her presence. In return, she gestured for me to open my window. So I did.

  “Where were you today?” she asked in soft voice that still managed to be loud enough to carry between our houses.

  “I was here. I just wasn’t up for visitors.”

  She tilted her head slightly, a concerned look in her face. “Did something happen?”

  When I went to open my mouth and tell her that dad cut us off, I decided against it, instead saying, “I just wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Is that why you took off from The Palms too?”

  I nodded.

  “It wasn’t anything to do with me or Zeke?”

  “I just haven’t been feeling well.” And it was true. I hadn’t been feeling well, the confusion over my feelings and the anger toward my father had made my stomach churn constantly.

  “OK. If you say so. Do you need anything? Chicken soup, paracetamol?”

  Pressing my lips together in a smile, I shook my head. “I’m fine. What did you get up to today?” I asked to change the subject.

  A smile spread across her lips. “Zeke and I went to our first hang gliding lesson.”

  “Did you jump yet?”

  “Not yet. It was kind of like an orientation day. We did all those getting to know you exercises and went through an introduction of what to expect over the next couple of weeks. They said we get to use the simulators tomorrow.”

  “There’s simulators?”

  “Yeah. It’s crazy technical.”

  “Sounds it.”

  “It’s not too late for you to come along, you know.”

  “I know,” I said with a smile, knowing full well that it was too late. Even if I wanted to join them, I wasn’t one of the rich kids of Hargrave Cove anymore. I wouldn’t be able to pay the enrolment fee. “I’m fine keeping my feet firmly on the ground. You can just tell me all about it.”

  “I’ll come and see you tomorrow when class is over.”

  “Sure.” I smiled. “I’d better get some sleep.”

  “Hope you feel better in the morning.”

  With a nod of my head, I moved away from the window, closing it before I returned to my bed and tried once again to sleep.

  When I finally did drift off, it was filled with unsettling dreams that had little to do with money but everything to do with feeling abandoned. My subconscious was a sadist.

  ***

  “What are you up to today?” Luke asked as we walked up the beach after spending the early morning in the water. Surfing was becoming somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me. The only person who knew anything about it was Luke, and that suited me just fine. He was the one person I felt that I could talk to without any sort of pressure involved. We simply got along, and we could talk or we could sit on our boards quietly. He
was easy company and didn’t seem to mind having me around.

  I stopped at the front of his car and leaned on my board as he went to the back of his car to change. All I could see was his head over the lid of the boot once it was open, and I wondered if he’d notice if I took a step to the side so I could get a better view.

  “I was planning on taking a trip into the city. I’ve got some stuff I need to do in there.”

  “Oh yeah? You scoping it out for Uni next year?” He squinted in the sun as he looked up at me then slammed the boot shut, pulling his shirt down as he walked back around the car. I got a quick glance at his abs before his white t-shirt met the waistband of his cargo shorts, and I had to hide my smile. His abs were the best part of my morning.

  “Not really. I was kind of thinking of dropping in to see my dad.”

  Opening the door of his car, he nodded. “Well, I might see you in there. I’m taking the rugrat into the aquarium today.” He reached up and checked that his board was securely tied to his roof racks. “You could tag along with us if you have time.” He ran his hand over his damp hair and shifted on his feet. “No pressure though.”

  “Oh, um…I’d really like that, but…”

  He waved his hand in the air as if to push the moment to the side. “Don’t worry about it, it was just a random thought.”

  “No. I’d love to come. It’s just that I need to do a couple of things in there, and I don’t have a phone. If you give me a time to meet you, I can make sure I’m there.”

  He grinned, looking at me incredulously. “You don’t have a phone?”

  “No. I actually don’t believe in them. The world was just fine before mobile phones came along.”

  “Seriously? You don’t own a phone?”

  I began to laugh as I shook my head. “I never wanted one.”

  With a chuckle, he gripped the back of his neck and raised his brow. “Well, I’ll be…Black and white movies, and you dress like it’s the fifties, and now no phone. Dawn Tucker, you’re the most old fashioned eighteen-year-old I’ve ever known.”

  Laughing, I shrugged. “I’m not crazy, if that’s what you’re wondering. And I’m not old fashioned about everything.”

  Leaning on the top of his open door, he looked at me in a way that spoke of great interest, as if he wanted to figure me out. “Well, I look forward to finding out.” He stood up straight again and put one foot in his car. “How about you meet us out front around eleven – does that give you enough time?”

  If I caught the early train, it would give me two hours to see my father and visit a pawnbroker. I was running seriously low on cash and with my mother seemingly incapable of doing anything that had to do with being an adult, I knew that if I didn’t do something, pretty soon, there’d be no money at all. I was going to sell my jewellery.

  “Yeah. That will be fine. See you then.”

  ***

  What does it mean when your own father declines to see you? I guess it means exactly what you already knew – he doesn’t love you, he never wanted kids, he’d just pretended to like you…

  I wondered how a man who, in my fondest memories, was the perfect gentlemen, the perfect father, the perfect husband. What had happened to him? Had I imagined it all? Had I been holding onto a false ideal? I couldn’t understand how he could go from cuddles in the kitchen and surfing on the weekends to absolutely nothing. Was it me? Did I do something wrong? Did my mother do something to turn him away? How did he switch it all off? How did it all just end in the blink of an eye?

  All my life, I’d tried to be strong. I’d tried to be smart and interesting. I’d lived in hope that when I grew up, he’d see me and tell me I was the most beautiful, the most clever, the most refined young lady he’d ever met. I’d hoped that once I grew, he’d welcome me with open arms and proud eyes and tell me that it wasn’t me, it was my mother that he’d left, I was simply collateral damage…It was so stupid. It was a fairy tale that would never come true, and after everything that had happened, I couldn’t believe that I’d seriously held a hope in my heart that he still cared.

  The kids at school were right, I was a loser; even my own father didn’t want me.

  I’d waited in the reception of his work for over an hour, and in the end, the receptionist told me that he’d gone into a meeting and wouldn’t be available for the rest of the day. I knew she was lying for him. I’d heard his voice travelling down the hall as he joked with some other guy over god knows what. I couldn’t make out the words. I could only hear the laughter.

  I needed to let him go. I didn’t realise until that moment that I’d been holding on to him. But, I needed to let it go – the fairy tale, the hope – to move forward, I needed it to be gone.

  “Do you think I could leave him a note?” I’d asked to the receptionist. She’d given me a pen and a pad of paper along with a smile laced with pity. I ignored the pity and took the notepad, scrawling a quick note that simply said, Dad, I dropped by to see you but you were too busy. Story of my life, I suppose…I want you to know that I’ll be OK. I know you aren’t worried now, but one day, you’ll be an old man and you’ll wonder what happened to me. When that time comes, I want you to know that I forgive you. Whatever your reasons, I forgive you for walking away, and I forgive you for not being there, and I forgive you for taking away my future. I’ll make my future on my own, and I’ll be fine because I’m letting you go now, just like you let me go that day on the beach. Have a wonderful life. Mine is just beginning. Dawn.

  Folding the letter in half, I thanked the receptionist and left the offices feeling about a hundred times lighter. I don’t know what I’d expected going there. I guess I just hoped that if I spoke to him and explained what his withdrawal of support meant – if I could promise not to overspend and get a job for extras – if he’d just pay for my schooling – maybe he’d understand. Maybe he’d still help. Maybe he’d be the father I’d always hoped he would be.

  At least I got my answer, I suppose. I knew now that there was no help except for the help I could give myself. There was a strange freedom in realising that, and after I went to the pawnbroker and got a measly five hundred and twenty seven dollars for eighteen years worth of jewellery, I also stopped into a vintage inspired clothing store and arranged to bring in my collection of rockabilly fashion and footwear. Five hundred dollars wasn’t going to last very long, and I needed money to live more then I needed to be fashionable.

  Tucking the card of the clothing store into my purse, I checked my watch and realised I only had fifteen minutes to make it to the aquarium to meet Luke and his son.

  “Oh shit,” I said to myself, knowing that even if I ran it would take me twenty minutes to get to Darling Harbour on foot. Feeling that I had no choice, I sacrificed some of my cash and paid for a taxi to get me through the city streets.

  Fifteen minutes later, the driver dropped me off at Cockle Bay Wharf and I had to walk the rest of the way. I hoped Luke wasn’t a stickler for time as I rushed through the crowd gathering for a harbour cruise and kept my eyes peeled for his beach styled hair.

  I found him standing in front of a giant wall mural discussing the different marine animals with Sam.

  “Luke,” I called out as I arrived in a fluster. I really hated being late and felt awful for making him and his son wait in the heat. He turned to me and smiled, and in my relief that he wasn’t annoyed with my lateness, I gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek. He stiffened slightly, and I realised what I’d done while silently cursing Shea for her constant hugs and kisses with friends. It had obviously rubbed off on me. I released him and tried to act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “I’m so sorry I’m late. Have you been here long?”

  “Ah…” Luke looked lost for a moment.

  It was his son who spoke up, holding up the fingers on his right hand. “Only five hours.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Five hours?”

  Luke cleared his throat. “He means minutes. We just got here. Y
ou ah…you look nice.” He glanced at the halter neck dress I was wearing. It was sea blue with little birds holding red flowers in their mouths all over it. I’d teamed it with a pair of black heels and had my hair done up in a French bun and my make up was my usual red lips and black lined eyes.

  I held out my dress, inspecting it as if I’d never seen it before. “Thanks. I had that meeting with my dad, so I had to look nice.”

  “I like your red lips,” Sam put in, and I smiled and thanked him.

  “How did that go?” Luke asked.

  With a shrug of my shoulders, I tried to keep my features even. “It didn’t. He was too busy.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” In his eyes was a kindness instead of pity. It made me feel as though he understood without me having to explain what was going on.

  In response, I smiled then took a breath and looked at Sam. “Who’s ready to go and see some sharks?”

  “Me!” he yelled.

  “Then let’s go in. My treat,” I said with a smile.

  “Please,” Luke added, touching my arm before I opened my purse. “I asked you here. It’s my treat.”

  Then our eyes met, and I blushed.

  ***

  “I should have worn flats.” I sat down on the edge of a wooden bench as Sam ran to play with some other kids in the nearby Tumbalong Park. He’d gone through the aquarium, talking about all the things he saw as if he were a wildlife documentary then, with his newly acquired toy shark in his hand, continued to burn his energy on the play equipment.

  “Take them off for a bit.” Luke sat beside me then gestured for me to lift my foot to his lap.

  “Seriously? They’re probably all stinky.”

  “I’m told I give a good foot rub. It’s fine.”

  “OK,” I conceded, lifting my foot and placing it on his thigh. “But if you feel lightheaded from the fumes let me know. I don’t want you to pass out.”