pop out at me. Her usually lipsticked lips were drawn tight and thin by the blonde bun on top of her head. I was ten times more afraid of Mom without her face made up. ‘Get to the kitchen, now! Your father has something to say.’
I stayed put. There was no way I was going to walk through that doorway with Mom standing there. She marched over and grabbed me by the ear, pinching as hard as she could, lifting me to my feet. ‘Are you deaf?’
‘No, Mommy.’
‘Then goddamn do as I say.’
‘Yes, Mommy.’ I remember wondering what on earth Dad wanted to ‘talk’ to us about. I just couldn’t think. Dad never talked to us about anything, not unless he was furious, then ‘talk’ involved discipline, mostly a wallop on the backside. There were two ways I felt about being disciplined by Dad. Firstly, I felt sad because I had really let him down—he would tell me so—and, secondly, I felt great, because I could tell that Dad hated doing it, and he usually patted me on the back when I cried. To me, that meant he really loved me, so I made sure I cried a lot! But that didn’t mean I welcomed facing an angry Dad at any time.
He was sitting at the kitchen table looking a little nervous, and the boys were there too. Clearing his throat, he spoke in an unusually somber tone. ‘We’ve got something important to share with you two.’ Indicating Simon and myself, he went on. ‘Kate, Mom is not your real mum. Your mum died when you were a baby, just weeks old. She’d come over from Scotland with me to start a new life in Africa, but she fell ill very suddenly; there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. Your grandfather, her dad, still lives in Aberdeen, as far as I know; there’s no other family for me to tell you about.’
Just like that, everything made sense to me. That’s why Mom doesn’t love me! My heart was just about to burst with happiness; I wanted to shout hooray! I wanted to jump up and kiss Dad and say ‘thank you’, but I knew that would be inappropriate. But he was obviously waiting for some sort of response, and my mind hastily calculated exactly what Mom would want to hear.
‘I’m glad my mommy died so that Mom could be my mommy.’ Lie! I hated saying it; Dad flinched, aghast, and pulled his chair back from the table as if removing himself from the revulsion of me. I wished I hadn’t used those words—desperately wished I could take them back—but Mom seemed pleased, giving Dad a ‘look’ that was good for me. My mind was reeling. ‘Mommy is not my mum! My mum is dead! No wonder Mom doesn’t love me! I don't have to care any more; I don't belong to her, I have my own mother.’ My mind was short circuiting on the answer to its greatest puzzle: ‘Why doesn’t Mom love me?’
Mom scraped her chair closer to Simon’s, drawing him into her shoulder, combing her fingers through his blond hair and kissing the top of his head. ‘You had a very special Daddy, Simon; you and Steven would have adored him, and he would have adored you. He died when you were two weeks old, a terrible mine accident, the most awful day of my life. But, my sweetie, he left you and Simon for me to love, just as I loved him. You both take after him in so many ways. Ian is your father here on earth, but you will always have your real Daddy in heaven.’
Dad stared at Mom as though she had turned into an alien, then he flushed deeply, all the way under his hair. Steven, the big bully, tears in his eyes and cheeks red, cried out, ‘It isn’t fair! I do not want to change my name, ever! I’ve got my own name, my Dad’s name, and you can’t make me do it!’
‘Well, you have your mother to thank for this turn of events, boy; don’t look at me like that, you ungrateful so-and-so!’ Dad snarled like a dog rearing back and ready to pounce, to tear us all to pieces.
‘Come now, my angels; I’m here. I’ll always be here. Everything will be okay, you’ll see.’ Mom chopped Dad to bits with her eyes, slice, slice, and slice—gone!
‘Change names?’ The words slid out of my mouth in astonishment. Mom explained that they were telling us (Simon and me) about ‘these things’ because it was the day before we were due to start at our new schools, and Dad was going to adopt the boys and give them our surname, so we’d have the same name from then on. I hadn’t known until now that the boys had another name. None of it really made any sense to me, but what did sink in was that we didn’t belong to each other. The thought made me so glad, because it meant that I didn't have to love them and they didn’t have to love me, after all.
Dad rose, tossing his chair under the table and leaving the rest of us sitting there, our cheese sandwich dinners untouched. He left the room like he didn’t belong to anyone and didn’t want to either, a storm refusing to make landfall. My heart contracted painfully for him, for the two of us—I had so many things blazing through my mind, questions only he could answer. I didn’t dare try to arrest his retreat while Mom was around, and I probably wouldn’t have dared to talk to him anyway, because he would have been so very disappointed in me for what I’d said.
Seemingly guessing my thoughts, Mom turned to me with: ‘Don't’ go getting any ideas now; he doesn’t give a damn about you. I’m the only one you have, and you should be bloody grateful I tolerate you the way I do. Any other mother would have packed you off to an asylum years ago.’
For once I didn’t care what she said, because even though I knew nothing about my mum, I felt keenly that she would never have said anything like that. ‘Mums care for their kids, like Mom cares for the boys,’ I reasoned with myself, ‘so it doesn't matter that she loves them and not me; she’s not my mother, she’s their mother.’
Mom opened a large black photo album with beautiful black and white photos of a wedding in it. I was amazed to see Mom not thin at all, but round and soft and smiley in a wedding dress, leaning into a tall man with hair cut short, a mustache over his lips, beaming into the camera. ‘Oh! Now, he was handsome, and wonderful! You boys take after him in every way. He never used a harsh word on me, not once; he adored me, everyone said so. He could have married anyone, boys, but he chose me. We were the best looking couple. People were so jealous of us, I could tell. We would have been very rich if your father was still alive. Malcolm was a true man, boys, and don’t you forget it. Ian isn’t a patch on him—such a wimp; just look at what he produced!’
Three pairs of eyes landed on me as if I were a virus. ‘Thank God: finally I can tell everyone that she’s not my sister! Stinky, rotten Scottish orphan; didn’t I tell you before that you’re not our sister, idiot? What’s the big surprise?’
He had told me before—often—about not being his sister, but I’d thought he was just being a mean bully. That’s how he always was, as mean as possible to me.
I didn’t get to know what my mum looked like; there were no photos of her, no mention even. I could hardly sleep at night for weeks after my Dad’s revelation, imagining my Mum, how she would have loved me, wondering how she’d died. I reckoned Mom had killed her; I convinced myself that she had. Having my very own mother—Mum, not Mom—was a wonderful anchor for my soul; I belonged to a person who would have loved me no matter what. Mine was a very secret happiness because Mom could never know how thrilled I was that she wasn’t related to me, nor how much I instantly loved my unknown dead mother. Mum became my special creation, the perfect mother. Having a dead mum was like owning a goldmine I could never enter—everything I could ever want was potentially mine, just not quite.
From then on, time spent sitting quietly, trying to be invisible, waiting for whatever was going to happen next was also time spent creating my perfect mum, living a perfect life with her, my real life.
Chapter Five
