Family Short Story – Father
Photo credit: rachjose from morguefile.com
My mother died a few months after I was born. She had been living alone for the past year, that is what I was told much later. The neighbours never really interfered after the first few times that she rebuffed them in polite but cold tones. But even they could not stay away when an infant had been wailing for hours. I was on the bed, wet and hungry. She was on the floor, dead.
The town was awash with rumours. They had not known there was a child. They looked for next of kin. Finally they traced her husband, my father, from an address she had given the landlord. He came and took me away. He could not refuse, it would have set tongues wagging. I grew up in his house.
Ever since I was old enough to understand what love was, I realized he did not love me. The servants said “Hush, child! of course he does, he is your father!” I once asked a friend if her father did what mine did to me. She said a no, and her mother never let her come and play with me after that.
As far as I can remember I have always been caught between two men. Oh wait, I haven’t told you about him. The other. He was Father’s best friend. An old maid of ours told me once, in surreptitious tones, that he had been engaged to my mother once. He used to come home at least twice a week to discuss business. Unlike Father, he was always very kind to me. He asked me what I was learning in school, and how many friends I had. All this conversation would take place when he would be picking up his hat and overcoat from the hall before leaving- a few stolen minutes, a few days a week. Sometimes I’d catch him looking at me out of the corner of his eye, with a sad half smile on his face. I smiled at him and he always smiled back.
The years passed by, the bi-weekly visits a settled routine in our household. I was fifteen, in my final year of high school. He was in his forties. One day when Father was out the doorbell rang, and I was pleasantly surprised to find him, the nice gentleman who was my father’s friend, my mother’s ex-fiance. He came in, expressing regret that Father was out, and we sat in the parlour to wait for him.
We talked, some, of literature,and music, and what I wanted to do. Then he came closer and kissed me. He tasted of wine, and said he loved me. He said he was my father, not the man I’d been calling that name for fifteen years. He said he loved me. Perhaps that was enough.
He still comes twice a week. On other days, well, there is Father.
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