Life sings sad songs

Daddy

Lucas is a little boy who is only twelve years old, he has a sister called Ellie who is only six, and he is constantly trying to impress his Dad, Harry. They have no mother, she died of cancer last year when Lucas was eleven. Lucas spends most of his time at home looking after his sister while their Dad goes and looks for work, at least that's what Lucas thinks. Really Harry is with his weird friends who smoke weed and "hang out" even though they're all in their forties. Lucas loves his dad but he's also scared that he'll mess up and Harry will leave him and never come back. He does everything his Dad tells him to and more but still it never seems enough, his Dad always has that sad look in his eyes, those sad eyes that are constantly distant as if he wasn't really on earth at all.

One Saturday morning Lucas jumps out of his bed, wakes his sister and begins to make the breakfast. He calls his Dad when the bacon is done, Harry drags himself into the room with bags under his eyes and an awful smell in the air. They eat their breakfast in silence. When they finished Harry quietly announces that he was leaving town for the day. The children say nothing they just give each other knowing looks. This is because last time Harry left town for the day it had been for a week, the time before that it had been for two weeks. The two children nod their heads without saying a word as their father slowly gets up from his seat and walks out the door with a bulging bag that looked way too big to be just "for the day". The siblings spend the rest of the day playing old board games and watching television.

Two weeks had passed and Lucas was starting to get nervous, he couldn't go to school because his sister got a cold and he had to stay home with her. Two weeks may seem like a long time to stay at home for a cold, Ellie was fine but Lucas insisted she stayed at home just in case. Really it was because he wanted them to be there if their Dad suddenly decided to come home. Harry did not come home on the second week.

Three weeks had passed and Harry still hadn't made it back. Usually if Harry spent more than a week away from home he would give Lucas and Ellie a call, but they didn't get any calls from him. They were getting calls from their school however, lots of them.Lucas ignored them all. He had started to get nightmares about what had happened to his Dad, he would wake up in the middle of the night after falling out of his bed onto the floor thinking he he could see shadows in his Dad's room across the way, but it was all in his head. Half way through the third week they heard a knock on the door. Lucas, thinking it was his Dad sprinted to the door and flung it open without looking to see who it was first. It wasn't their dad. It was a nice looking lady with a kind smile. When the lady asked could she come in Lucas just stuttered. She explained to them that she is a social care worker who was just worried why two smart children didn't show up for school for the past three weeks. Lucas couldn't keep his guard up anymore. He collapsed into a pool of tears blubbering that it was all his fault that his father left, that he wasn't a good enough son to his father. He could hear his baby sister screaming behind him. The social worker proceeded to comfort the distraught children while she called a few other people. Needless to say the children didn't see their father again for a very long time.

song: Daddy by Tom Odell