Familiar stranger

She was tall, she was slim, she was blond and she looked a lot like my mum. Mother had died 2 years earlier. A bout of pneumonia, they say, but we think it was her broken heart. May be that's what we like to think as it came suddenly. 52 years old, 3 children all still at home and then a husband who deserted her many years ago.

Dad was an enigma, a memory you are not sure was real; did we dream him. No, that can't be right. we are living proof there was a dad, but he was not there to teach us to swim, fix the fridge or ready us a bed time story. What I do know is that he was really real. We had photos of him dotted around the house, a little blurry and taken with one of those instamax cameras, every shot was out of shot, bits of him were missing, the view was skew-wiff and he looked tired and sad. May be answe to why he left were in those photos. When I was young, I would stare at them - his clothes, bell bottoms, an open shirt and hair parted to one side, greased down with Brylcreem. He was a man of his time, cigarette in one hand and tumber in the other, staring at the camera, but detached. I used to look fortraces of myself in his face. Who did I look like, mum or dad ? People said I did not look like anyone, not my 2 brothers, not my dad or mum or autie. I never did find an answer in thoseold snaps, just more questions.

One day, mother caught me good and proper. i couldnto quite see one particular photo soI stood on the kitchen high stool, on tippy toes and reached as high as I could, thumb and forefinger at the ready. I grabbed the photo and then my footing slipped and the photo, frame and I all landed on the floor. That day, the glass in the frame smashed and so did my spirit. My mother heard the commotion and rushed in. 'I told you, he is gone, gone. stop looking at that old photo. That was another life, and he is never coming back. Wake up, child, wake up. It's just us, just the 4 of us, always has been and always will be'. She picked up the photo and scrunched it in her hand. She annihilated him and it and me, but she did not know. I felt alone and afraid. That photo had been my companion; when I needed a dad, needed to talk, I would stare at him. Now he was gone and no she was gone too. All these memories in my head, spinning round. I loved my mother but she could be a hard woman. May be she drove him away, that's what I liked to think. I guess I will never know the reason he left but my heart was as empty as the shelf he had lain upon. I remembered all of this today, my mother's funeral day.

It was sunny outside. That made up for the sombre mood in the house. Everything was quiet, the silence was quiet and we were lost.We had no dad and now we had no mum. This stranger who was in our loving room, who was she. 'We are glad to know you' we said, 'Welcome to our home. How did you know our mother ?' she looked up, cup of tea in her hand, saucer in the other. ' You mean you don't know ? After all tis time, she never told you ?' we had no idea. ' Well, no. Are you a relative perhaps ?' Well, I had to say something and she did look like mother, a little younger.' Well, I am Sarah. I am your father's second wife. We married after he left you and your mum. We had been childhood sweethearts and met by accident a few years ago...' I could not hear the rest. Her voice echoed in my head, the words jumbled and confusing my own thoughts.. a second wife, Sarah, my dad, my dead mother. I felt numb and my head felt heavy, the words weighing it down, words that tumbled out of her mouth so readily but felt like arrows in my heart, piercing my love of my father. So, he had not died. My mother had not died because he had died. he had left her for a woman who was now here, in our home, on our sofa, drinking our tea. What would my mother make of it all ? ' So, where is dad, how is he doing ? Does he live near here..' she looke dup, soft, round face, youth on her side, ringlets falling by her temples. He mouth was pink and plump, lips ready to answer. But then there was a knock at the door. A man stood there, he looked familiar. He was broad, tall, grey and slightly hunched over. ' That will be your father' she said. Easy words. My father. Just like that as if he had never left, he was there in the flesh, staring through the glass. The last time he was there had been many years ago. Had the door changed colour, had he changed, did he remember us as young or as adults, had our paths ever crossed even by accident. I wanted to ask but just sat there. My younger brother lept off the sofa and rushed to pull the handle. I was frozen. I was 12 again.My heart beat fast. Stop beating, I thought. I could count the beats.