the complete unexpectancy.

one

        It's news. Not recent news, but a forgotten reoccuring story. I began reading the documents at twelve. Before then my curious mind had thought about my parents a lot, 'how did they meet' and 'what was she like'. Simple questions right? Well the complex honesty had never come from family members. It came from my own self pursuance.

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        I lived in my Father's house at twelve. During the summer, my Father worked on his vehicles, doing mechanics. I invited the neighbors over to jump on the trampoline and toss a volleyball around. This particular time, my Father and I sat at the kitchen table enjoying dinner for two, during late July.

"Have you fed the dogs yet?" He asked. I traced my memory.

"Yeah."

        A daily conversation continued. I set my plate on the counter, and called our cat upstairs to my room. I walked towards the computer desk, and got comfortable in the swivel chair. My pass-time was going on the internet.

'Hm, what should I search?'. I glanced down at the keyboard, 'wouldn't it be interesting to see if there's a photo of me on the Internet?'.

         I typed my own name: Bronwyn Leanne Thompson. Just a few photos of other people showed up on the monitor.

'What about Dad?'

        I typed his name in: Daren Klinald Thompson. The first website titled www.courtjustice.net caught my eye... I evaluated whether or not I should've clicked the link; I did.

      The first sentance of the document was what intensely set my mood. "The accused, Daren Klinald Thompson, is charged with manslaughter and, in a second count, aggravated assault, in the death on January 4, 2002 of Shirley Leanna Thompson". The truth, straightforward. That's as blunt as it gets... I had received pieces of the truth from my step Mom, and my foster parents, but not in such an honest manner. I knew from a young, young age that my Mother was gone; she "went up to heaven"...

        But there, at twelve, I held in my sight word that shifted my emotions. The more I focused on one phrase, I decoded my Father and his past. The reenactment of the night before my Mother's death wasn't a familiar routine I recalled him doing. It seemed as if I barely knew him after twelve years. Every single thought toward him was revealing a sinister truth which was being proven here. Reading those words begun a mind of my own. Realizing what little I had known shocked me in a way that could change me, and it did. These court papers were put online, for what reason I'm not sure, but I managed to get access to them. It was twenty pages of valid evidence and dialect.

        As I sat at the desk, I had this reoccuring feeling, but it was increased more than ever. I entirely felt this distance in my heart, part of my existence is missing. All of my life, since two years old, I had an expansive piece of me there; there at the place where I'd never been. 'But it's not fair, I'm from her, she's only just gotten to know me.': were my feelings summed up by seven years old. A whole two years of my life? I deserved more time didn't I? Other people spend so much time with their Mothers... I can't. It's this incomplete relationship that a Father cannot fill. He's tried, and I've seen it. The way he would  brush my hair behind my ear when I ran up to him at the park. During Christmas season my Father gave me gifts like a new doll, or a bike. One year he bought me a watch set, it was meaningful to me; he had driven a long amout of hours to see my Brother, Sister, and my step Mom. Back then I had been too young to constantly wonder about my Mother the way I did in later years. Then once I built up courage to ask about my Mother, my step Mom explained to me "you'll find out when you're older, okay?". Well it was different. I found out by myself. What a way to discover. An unintened accident is what it was. It wasn't like I had been searching for a discovery like this. But I did felt like it was a secret I had to keep, I mean, I found a real-life novel about my parents...

        So when the police officers in the document interviewed my Father I scanned carefully.

"Q: 'Thompson you related that you had been drinking at your place with nephews and a couple of their friends starting at about 1:00 p.m. on January 2, 2002? And you recalled going into town 3 times that day, and that Mrs. Thompson accompanied you on at least the last of those trips? So at close to 1:00 a.m., along with your young daughter Bronwyn, you did not notice Mrs. Thompson involved in any disagreement with others present at his house that day?'"

        I knew my Father used to drink, but all of that was a new truth I had to read-over to understand. I was tense by the time I read about how that January day went. I wished I could remember, that way we could maybe find truth in what happened because as the interview continued, my Father kept telling the officer that he didn't remember what happend to my Mother...

        I had been reading for about half an hour, even reading the laws that applied to the court file, and I began reminiscing on a memory of my Mother. Though I was two years old when it happened, I vaguely remember one of the last times I was in the presence of my Mother. We were walking through the building of my Mother and Father's workplace, she held me on her waist, and I was whining. I was able to speak, and recall saying something along the lines of 'I want to go watch the movie' but it probably came out as 'over there' because I was two and my vocabulary wasn't yet developed. I pointed into a room with one of those old black tv stands, it held a huge tv with a large back to it, and around were children older than me about 5 years of age, sitting in small classroom chairs. She said "Do you want to go watch the movie with the kids?" I remember feeling undescisive, we took a few steps into the room and left towards the hallway. The years I've had without my Mother, I thought about that time and the memory.

       

》to be continued.
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