I found these amongst the huge bunch of unpublished files scattered around my laptop. This was such a great night at my best friends house - hot meal, good wine, delicious desserts and great companySaci had just got her new toy - the old film Holga camera from ebay, so before dinner we were playing out front. I love the aztec knit piled over the top of her mismatched outfit, which coincidentally went well with our mismatched meal: Spicy vegetarian dumpling soup, followed by chilled chocolate dipped strawberries and almonds, and finished with hot self saucing caramel puddings, homemade ice cream and good old peppermint & english tea... and now I miss home....
There are people we grieve twice in a lifetime. Once for who they were. And once for who we were never allowed to know. My father is one of them. When I was a child, my mother told me he was a paedophile. She didn’t whisper it. She didn’t hesitate. She said it plainly, as fact. As warning. As control. When we misbehaved, she would drop us at the greyhound station and force us to spend sleepless weekends with him. I remember the noise of the station. The way my stomach would knot. The terror that would sit in my chest at night when the lights went out. I was absolutely terrified to sleep. He was a workaholic. Twelve-hour days. Long hours. Absence disguised as provision. He would leave cash on the bench, stockpiles of food in the fridge, and the television on - a wild luxury I couldn’t enjoy because fear had already moved in. At home with my mother, we weren’t allowed a TV at all. Looking back now, my father was unemotional, but never unkind. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t offer hims...