Understand

Chapter 11:

"Kate! Please just stop talking! I'm busy!"
My mum was on the phone and I was trying to get her attention. The bloody dinner was burning!
"But mum the din-"
"Shut up! So yeah, then I saw him outside the pub with another woman... I swear he doesn't even care no more Hazel!"

She let out a huge cry, so I just rolled my eyes and stormed out of the living room. My mum is usually on the phone blabbing on to people about our 'little family problem.' Guess I'll just do the dinner then. Can't be too hard.

I walked into the kitchen, waving my arms around frantically trying my best to get rid of the smoke. I opened the oven and removed the burnt chips and chicken nuggets. I got out a fork and tried to stab a chicken nugget. Hard as a rock. Fuck this. I picked up my mobile and dialled the number for our local Chinese.

"Golden Dragon - please may I take your order?"
"Hey Sam!"
"Haha not you again Kate!"
"Yep it's me, the one and only."

We're always having take-aways in my family, and Chinese was our favourite.

"So what do you want? Just the usual?"
"Yeah please, and chuck in an egg-stra portion of egg fried rice!"
I started to crack up because I just made the joke of the century. I heard Sam sigh.
"Haha so funny Kate, not like I haven't heard that one before..." I could almost see him rolling his eyes just by the sarcastic tone I his voice.
"I'm just so original."
"Sure. Ok should I say about 15 minutes for delivery?"
"Sounds cool. Cheers Sam."
"No worries. See you in 15 minutes, ok?"
"Yep cheers." I hung up.

***

"DINNER'S READY!!"
I set the table up and dished everyone's meal out. We all had our usual.
Mum: Singapore noodles, egg fried rice and spring rolls
Austin: egg fried rice and chicken balls
Me: egg fried rice and little bit of mums Singapore noodles.

Austin sprinted into the dining room.
"Yay!! Thank you Kate." He gave me huge grin, picked up his plate and began to leave the dining room.
"Nope, Austin, get back."
He froze and swung round to look at me, "What why?"
"We're eating at the table."
"Um no?"
"Austin. Sit. Down." I glared at him. I've been told I can quite the demanding person when I want to be.
"Fine." He let out a huge sigh and plunged himself into one of our dinning room chairs.

"Why'd you want us to eat the table, Kate?" He asked me with a mouthful of egg fried rice.
"So we can eat as a family, Austin. Also we haven't sat at the table for ages, so I thought it would be nice."

When I said 'as a family' his eyes darted up from his plate and he glared into my eyes.
"Family? But there's no mummy or daddy? So that is not our family..."
I looked at him.
"Austin, c'mon, just eat your food."

Even though what he said kinda hurt me, and I'm sure it hurt him too, he was right. We weren't as a family for yet another dinner. It was only me and Austin. Mum was on her phone, like usual (she's 'just too busy' to spend anytime with her children), and for my dad... Well, God knows where he is.

"So, how was school?" I asked Austin, in attempt to try and start a conversation.
"It was ok." He answered quite bluntly without even looking up from his plate.
"You sure?"
"Yeah..." He paused, "Well no not really."
"What happened?"
He put his fork down and finished his mouthful of food.
"Well today at break time, we were playing 'it' on the playground. And we were all playing nicely, but then John came up to me an-"
"John? Isn't he one of your friends?" I interrupted.
"He was one of my friends." For a 5 year old he had quite an attitude on him, "Anyway, he came up to me and pushed me. I asked him why he pushed me but then he did it again, and I fell over and hurt my hands." He showed me the palms of both his hands: grazed and red. It didn't look awful but it certainly looked like it hurt.

"Ouch! So what happened next?"
"I got up and he laughed at me. I pushed him back but he punched me, and then there was a big fight! It was a proper fight too, Kate. We kept punching and kicking each other. I was actually kinda scared..."
I paused to look at him. His blue eyes were beginning to glisten because of the tears he refused to show.

"Oh Austin." I looked at him and shook my head - Austin doesn't always get into fights, but it's not unusual for him to.
"But Kate, he said something mean to me..."
I looked at him in curiosity, "what did he say to you?"
"He told me that daddy doesn't love me. That's why he isn't at home."

I could see tears in his eyes to filling up much more. How the fuck did that kid, John, know about our dad? Actually, it was most probably mum telling people. Urgh she can be so stupid...

"Oh Austin, you know that's not true?"
"But it made me feel sad." He put his face on the table to try and hide his tears.
"Daddy loves you so so much Austin. And daddy not being at home doesn't mean he doesn't love you, it just means him and mummy need some time apart."
He looked back up at me, despair covering his face.
"Kate, I just want things to be normal again."
"So do I Austin. So do I..."