“Are you for real?” I asked.
They were the only words that seemed to be able to pour out of my mouth. Frozen, I stood, barely able to move an inch of my body looking at the woman who claimed to be my mother. The mystery that nobody was able to solve for 10 years, stood in my doorway.
“Are you truly serious?” I repeated.
I needed no answer. I knew.
Her eyes were the exact shade of blue as mine, the kind my father would describe as like sunlight on water, before he changed. Foggy memories flickered at the edges of my mind: a small hand reaching for mine, laughter carried by the wind. The images were blurred and incomplete, like old photographs left too long in the sun, but the sight of those familiar blue eyes made them stir for the first time in years. I knew it was her. For the first time in 10 years it felt like I was complete, the person I’d been hoping, wishing, praying to return to my side was here. Yet I couldn’t move. Fear rooted me to the spot, she shouldn’t be here, not with dad here.
10 years ago, on April 16th 2005. It was my fifth birthday and I had been promised the glittery pink bike I saw in a shop window 2 weeks earlier. Excitement thrummed through me. Only it was wrong, the kitchen wasn’t filled with the smell of my traditional birthday pancakes, the sofa didn’t have my mum and dad waiting excitedly for me, instead the sickly smell of stale coffee and damp handkerchiefs hung in the air. Instead of my mother sitting on the sofa waiting for me to chaotically unwrap the presents she’d spent hours wrapping, there were two policemen sitting on my sofa waiting to unravel my whole world.
After the disappearance, dad became distant. He stopped being a father and more just the person I shared a house with. By the age of 10 I knew how to cook, clean and look after the house all on my own. By the age of 10 my father had turned to the drink and he was no longer even the person who I shared a home with. He was a stranger who couldn’t handle the truth. For 5 years I have lived in constant fear of the man who was once my father and I wasn’t stupid. I knew .Everybody knew.
Harsh footsteps padded above me. His slumber had ended and he was about to come face to face with the person he thought he killed 10 years ago.
“You can’t be here, “I whispered, “he’s dangerous and you know it.”
The shattered glass behind me broke my paralysis.
From the stairs, a heavy shadow loomed. The smell of cheap whiskey rolled down, but as his eyes locked onto the woman in the doorway, looking small. Sirens wailed in the distance.
The walls of my prison were finally falling.