She's Broken

Chapter 17

Chapter 17 - not proofread, sorry.

                My dad sipped at the coffee, looking over the cup at my mum, a cold expression on her face.

                “Do you still speak to him?” she asked, pressing her own cup down on the table. Dad nodded, pursing his lips and glancing at me before answering.

                “He’s my son. Yes, I go in and see him every week,” he answered. “Have you spoken to him since?” Mum froze a little and then sighed, running her hand down her face. I decided to stay out of the discussion, keeping to myself on the side of the table.

                Dad had finally plucked up the courage to come and take me out for some food, but that also meant seeing Mum first. If there was any part of me that thought she might let him go with minimal problems was completely ruled out when he knocked on the door. She pretty much forced him to sit down for a coffee and for my benefit, talk things out in front of me to show me that there wasn’t going to be any tension between the two of them.

                “I thought about it for a while,” she admitted and then looked at me, studying my blank face before looking back at my dad. “Then I saw how Kat was dealing and he didn’t deserve my remorse,” she said, her eyes lowering into her cup.

                “He talks about you a lot,” Dad said and Mum narrowed her eyes.

                “Don’t try to make me feel guilty, this is hard enough,” she hissed, pushing the chair back against the tile floor. I winced at the sound, rolling my lip into my mouth. Dad stared down at the table before seemingly remembering that I was there.

                “C’mon, kiddo,” he said, his voice weary as he got to his feet and put the cup on the draining board. Although he’d cleaned up, everything he did still seemed like it was a drag. Hard work for him.

                Giving my mum one last wistful look, I followed him out, trudging down the steps. He looked over his shoulder at me, smiling, before taking to the grass towards his car. If you could even call it a car. Dad’s passion had always been restoring old cars and the car in our driveway looked like it was being used for spare parts.

                “What is that?” I asked, pulling on the handle, only for the door to groan open with as much enthusiasm as a kid going to the dentist.

                “It’s an old Cadillac,” Dad informed me, sitting down behind the wheel. I followed suit, lowering myself onto the dusty leather sear, feeling the give way under my weight.

                The drive to the cafe was filled with an awkward and stony silence. When I was younger, Dad and I used to visit the cafe with Finn every Wednesday for breakfast before school, when Dad was on his way to work. It was the only day that he didn’t have nightshift, making him the eligible parent to drive us to school. That was before Finn got his licence, anyway, and tormented me in the mornings, as well.

                “Do you want a bacon butty?” Dad asked, parking with a clunk into the parking space outside. I shrugged, pushing the door open. He stayed in the car for a moment, collecting himself, before getting out and leaning on top of the car. It was strange that the car didn’t collapse under him, but then, I learned the hard way that broken things are often strongest.