Paradise: Birds Fly at Sunrise

Chapter 10 -

Chapter 10:

The sun burned red through my eyelids when I woke on Sunday morning, still where I had fallen asleep on the balcony from watching the sunrise. I clambered back through the window, leaving it open to tempt a breeze into the stuffy bedroom, and headed downstairs, following an unmistakable waft of bacon.

            My dad was in the kitchen over the frying pan, still in his pyjamas. He smiled at me over his shoulder.

“Morning, Flower.”

“Morning, Dad.”

I took the seat across from Steph, who sat reading some trashy magazine and poured the three of us some juice.

“Where’s Freddie?” I asked, passing Steph a glass.

“You really think he’d be up at this time on a Sunday?” she said. Normally I’d agree, but if there’s one thing Freddie can’t resist, it’s bacon, and if I could smell it from the third floor, he certainly could from the second. I shrugged.

            Dad sat next to me and placed large bacon barm in front of each of us. I hesitated for a moment before eating; something was wrong.

“Hold on,” I said, “I have fried, delicious-smelling meat in front of me. Why am I not being clawed and meowed at?”

Dad frowned. “Oh yes. Where’s Pharaoh?”

I  glanced around the kitchen for a hint of ginger, but there were no signs of him. I called his name and made the clicking, kissing sound with my mouth that it is for some reason instinct to make when near cats. Still nothing.

“Weird,” said Steph, who was obviously much more interested by her breakfast. It really irritated me. She didn’t have to like Pharaoh, but I loved that cat to bits. She could at least pretend to care. Maybe it wouldn’t have bugged me so much, but it wasn’t like Pharaoh not to be here in a morning and I was worried about him. Plus, it was just so typical of Steph.

            The thing is, she and my dad got together about three years ago, three years after my mum died. I get that my dad needed someone his own age to talk to. I get that it’s good for him to have someone to care for and to care for him in return. But I did not like Steph when he first told me about her. Probably because it felt like she was replacing my mother, no matter how many times they told me that wasn’t the case, and then because I’d gotten really close to my dad, and with her in the picture, she took him away from me a little. Maybe that was selfish, but that’s how it felt.

            Strangely enough, I only began to accept Steph because of a conversation – or maybe more of a fight - I had with Freddie. He felt a lot like I did, only stronger. He hated me and my Dad. He hated that he had had to move to a tiny town from the big city and leave all his friends and his life.

            It was about a month after they moved in, the first time Freddie and I had been left alone in the house together. I came into the living room and asked if I could watch something on the TV. He started ranting at me about how it was his house too now, and how I couldn’t take everything away from him.

“You think you can just take over my life completely? And I’ll be fine with that? You’re an idiot. I hate this! I hate all of this!” He’d gotten worked up so quickly. It went right from a snide comment to him almost screaming at me. All I’d done was ask for the remote and he’d started yelling.

“Oh, and it’s so easy for me?” I’d started getting heated too. I guess there’d been a lot of anger built up in both of us. The crazy thing was, neither of us was angry at each other, or even at our parents; we were just angry at something different and scary and new.