A Fractured Fairytale

Chapter 5-People change

Dad’s glass glistened, empty under the dim living room light. The ‘clink’ when the glass met with the china mat was the only sound in the eerie silence we had been plunged into. I lay on my stomach, my legs in the air as I stared at my father’s incompetence as he attempted to send me a crooked smile. He had always been incapable of hiding his emotions, unlike mum does. Did. Dad couldn’t get his head around mum’s death and searching for answers at the bottom of the beer glass certainly was not the way around the obstacle course. Belle slouched in front of me, sleepily, it was almost time for her nap, nevertheless dad didn’t seem to be bothered with that. Catching me avoid his eyeline, dad raised his eyebrows, “You could at least try to get back to normality Elsie!” His voice was deeper than usual and shadows hung under his dark eyes. “I didn’t know she was going to die.” He couldn’t even bring himself to say mum’s name. “Nobody knew apart from her, she always did tend to keep things to herself.”

I felt my stomach twist into tight knots at his words. I knew. “Daddy, are you drunk?” I questioned, bowing my head to keep the tears in my eyes hidden. I moved tentatively around dad when he was like this because to be truthful I was scared of him back then. I shouldn’t have been though because it was the alcohol making him the way he was. It wasn’t really him.

“Really! Am I drunk?” dad said sarcastically, “You can’t even define the word the word ‘drunk’ so I would be careful if I were you.”

A sharp chill ran along my spine. Dad had never spoken to me in that way before. Dad was too busy drowning his sorrows to take any notice of his daughters. I clapped my hand over my mouth to stop me blurting something out to my dad that I would later regret. I promised myself that I would never drink no matter how much pain arrived on my doorstep. My dad is a good man, but when his body is full of alcohol there are no words to describe him.

I turned away from my father, with Belle in my arms. I knew that if he wasn’t going to be a responsible parent I would have to be. When he asked where I was going I felt like screaming “Away from you!” because if he was going to throw vague sarcastic answers at me, I was going to do the same. It was kind of like a game and I am sure two could play that game.

I made my way up the stairs, knowing that Belle couldn’t speak much yet, but at least she would listen unlike dad. Dad always told me that I should make more friends and stop spending time alone. He said it as if there was a fragrance of friendship in the air, putting you under a trance until you befriended another person. Mum understood though that it wasn’t simple, not for me anyway.

Cradling Belle in my arms I walked up the stairs. I could never be mum but at least I was there to step in whilst dad wasn’t himself. I just wanted to help.

I only had a small body and with Belle gaining weight by the day it was a struggle. When I reached the ninth step my foot twisted, slipping from beneath me, hurtling me backwards, pain shooting through my entire body all in a heartbeat. My balance was lost within a split second and my pulse halted as I fell backwards, frozen in mid-air for an instant. Since my arms were tangled round Belle, they failed to brace me and we fell with a painful slam. The noise was loud enough to wake the dead, which was followed by the roaring wail of my sister as a searing pain spread across my side. My head collided with the wooden flooring, clouding my vision and like a black marker pen on white paper, black bruises formed all over my body. For a few seconds I was unable to breathe, too stunned to even cry. Belle’s cry on the other hand almost burst my eardrums causing guilty to find its way into me. Luckily Belle was absolutely fine; after all she did have me as a landing and no t even a scratch appeared on her pale skin. It turns out that her cry was out of shock.

I saw dad drop everything and run towards us, there were two of him at first as my brain took time to process the information and then the two men merged into one. Dad still cared? As he grabbed Belle quickly, mum’s voice echoed in my mind, “your dad is a good man.”