Between Two Worlds - Book 1

Chapter 3

I woke up late the next morning. I had a stomach ache from the mix of chocolate, popcorn and Chinese leftovers.

"Did you sleep well groundhog ?" my father asked me when I went down to the kitchen.

"I fell asleep late." I felt obliged to justify.

Mom's box of cookies was on the table and already well under way to be eat before noon. I had one for breakfast and sat on the couch next to The King who was snoring with his four irons in the air.

"Ellen asks you to thank your mother."

Perfidious liar, I thought, knowing that she always took my mother's intentions for affronts... She wasn't entirely wrong.

"My mother asks me to tell her that they are homemade."

"Ellen may not be a good cook," my father admitted, "but she has an unwavering patience."

I immediately understood that we were no longer talking about cooking.

"You feel better ?"

"As you can see, I'm on my feet." answered my father proudly, waving his legs.

"I wasn't talking about that. You, are you better ?"

A heavy silence fell between us before my father decided to answer.

"I do my best to regain the upper hand, but it's not always easy. It's not easy to no longer be good for anything and to live off your wife money."

I didn't say the bottom of my thought. The fact that he had always lived a little hooked on Ellen. How with his pitiful salary he could have paid the mansion fees and the bills.

"Now, Ellen and Blaine pay for everything. Blaine earning his father's money and filling our fridge. He even paid the hospital bill." he spat bitterly.

"He surely did it with a good heart." I tempered.

"Yes surely. He's not a bad boy. I'm sure he has no ulterior motive when he does that. But it's embarrassing Catherine. I'm just an old bedridden man."

"I see something positive in it. Blaine matures. He learns the value of money. Money he earns by working and you will agree, not an easy job. He sees the hardships of normal people's lives. Those who are not born heirs."

Dad seemed to think about my words for a moment.

"You may be right." he finally said.

"Of course, I'm always right." I replied, putting my hand on my chest as Ellen often did.

Dad barked a laugh as I continued to mimic Ellen's mannered demeanor.

"Stop, stop, it's a little bit hurting my back to laugh too much." he said, wiping his eyes.

I got up to make tea while asking where the whole family had gone.

"Ellen is shopping, Maisie is at a friend's who has remedial exams to revise and Blaine, I think he started at six o'clock this morning. He should be back around six o'clock tonight. So you're alone with your old father."

"Would my old father mind if I left him alone to go jogging ?"

"No, you're right to go now, it's probably going to rain this afternoon." he said checking his weather app.

It was hard to believe, the sky was blue and the sun was shining even though the temperatures were quite cool. I quickly changed and ran to the small park in Bellfield. I loved this place surrounded by trees and plants of all kinds. It had rained the night before and it smelled of wet grass. I walked past the tennis courts which were all busy. There were two grandmothers who kicked the ball with surprising vitality while their grandchildren played awkwardly on the court next door. A couple kept laughing every time the other missed the ball. Three other courts were occupied by teenagers strutting in front of their young female admirers who, seated on the edge of the court, fanned themselves with their magazines while batting their eyelashes.