in time // h.s.

iii. harry

Nine years old...

It wasn't long after that uplifting moment of friendship that my parents told me and my older sister, Gemma, that they were getting a divorce. My mum and dad sat us down and laid it down gently for us, didn't make it any less heartbreaking though. There was a lot of crying from both Gemma and I, even my parents shed a few tears.

Apparently, my parents just didn't connect anymore (well, that was what they told us). We went on to find out later that my dad had found another woman, someone he worked with. I don't think she was younger than my mum, as is the usual stereotype. I don't even think she was prettier, nicer or more intelligent. But then I wouldn't, would I? I've always thought of my mum as beautiful with her disheveled brunette hair that passed her shoulders and her green eyes that matched mine, her tall yet tiny frame making her seem delicate and breakable, but in actual fact, her bones were made of steel. Something I learned over the years. She was tough enough to take a few knocks from life.

The thing that hurt me most was that she had a kid of her own, this new woman. A son named Joseph who was a couple of years younger than me. Dad took him on as his own, and even though he stayed in my life and I saw him every now and then, I always felt as though he was a replacement for me.

Obviously, Gemma and I didn't know any of that information when it first happened, we just heard bits of gossip from my nan and aunts as time went by. They weren't meant to tell us, of course, but it slipped out occasionally. Little nuggets of information we managed to piece together.

The following day, him and his stuff were all gone before either my mum or I got home. When mum collected me from school that afternoon I asked if Matty could come over for dinner (Janet was busy doing something, I can't remember what), and not knowing the void that was waiting for us at home, she happily said yes, as usual. Matty was always welcome.

We knew that something was wrong as soon as we walked through the front door. It felt colder, or as though something was missing. The same feeling that might be aroused if you were to come home and find you'd been robbed. It was unsettling and different.

Mum sighed. "Boys, do you want to play out in the garden while I put dinner on?" She asked, managing to keep her voice strong and steady.

"Should I get changed out of my school stuff?" I asked. I was never allowed to play in my uniform, usually my t-shirt was in the wash as soon as I'd taken it off. Mum ran a tight ship.

"No, you're alright, love."

She wanted to stop me from going upstairs in case dad's getaway was apparent. Wardrobes left open with no clothes in, empty hangers splayed across the room or hung in the now half empty closet. She'd wanted to save me from that hurt, that embarrassment.

I knew, of course. They always say kids have a sixth sense about those sorts of things, and I certainly did.

I nodded and shuffled outside with Matty. Silently, we went down to the bottom of the garden, away from the house, and climbed up into my treehouse. Dad had assembled it as a present on my birthday. It was a four-foot-by-four-foot square of timber, completed with a flat roof and small window looking back at our home (mum had offered to put curtains in it at one point, but I thought that would take away the boy-ness of it all). Hanging from the roof, through a hole in its base and to the ground below, was a thick, knotted green rope. Perfect for me to scramble in and out of my new den. Dad had told me I was big enough at nine years old to have my own bit of space, although mum was always fretting about my safety, unable to cope with her little boy being capable of climbing up and down freely with confidence.

While we sat up there on that bleak afternoon, I turned and looked at Matty. I noticed that he was anxiously pulling his bottom lip through his teeth and it dawned on me that he knew too.

"My parents are getting divorced. I think my dad's gone," I said quietly. It felt odd to say it out loud. Hearing the words come from my mouth forced me to see the truth of the matter, allowing the sadness to creep in and grip firmly around my heart. I felt so... disappointed.

"Yeah..." Matty said, looking at me with concern.

We sat in silence for a while, side by side, looking up at my family home. Until that moment it had always been a place of safety, but it quickly and violently became a place of uncertainty. Of course, we'd all heard about parents getting divorced. I wasn't the first one in my year it had happened to. One girl in our class hadn't even met her dad, he'd buggered off before she was born. So, yes, we knew about it, and we feared it. Every time there was a squabble at the kitchen table or a disagreement in the car about bad directions, we'd feel the worry tiptoe in. For me, in that moment, the nightmare had turned into a reality. Millions of questions floated around my brain, if we'd have to move and leave Holmes Chapel, if I'd ever see him again and whether he still loved me.

I thought about that morning with my dad, I wondered whether he had done anything to suggest he was anxious about the fact he was leaving today, whether he showed me any more affection than normal or if he seemed sorry to leave me. As far as I could tell there was nothing. No looks or strange utterings to decipher. Just the normal morning routine, breakfast while he read the newspaper, a kiss on my forehead and then off he went to work.

"You'll be okay," Matty eventually said with a nod.

"Yeah..."

"You'll always have me."

"Thank you," I managed before bursting into tears, no longer able to keep the sadness in.

Matty put his arm around me and firmly held me, silently becoming my anchor of support as I crumbled.

We sat like that for the next thirty minutes.

Nothing more was said.

We never talked of my tears once I'd finished, but that afternoon had altered things between us. We'd been exposed to something our fragile young minds weren't ready for, a grief that, in an ideal world, we should have been protected from. My dad had left. He'd done nothing to try and save me from the pain of his leaving. In fact, Matty, at just nine years old, did more to comfort me than my own dad had. How pitiful. It was the vulnerability that the situation provoked in us both which caused a firmer alliance to be built between us. From that moment Matty had turned from my best friend to my rock, and I worshipped him for it.