Mum and Dad came for lunch today.
Dad isn’t my biological father. Mum married him when I was six years old. I call Dad Dad because to all intents and purposes he is my dad.
Mum and my biological father, Phil, split up when I was about one year old, and I have no memory of Phil ever taking me anywhere or buying me anything, even when I was a cute little girl. Not a birthday card or Christmas card. Luckily, I turned out great, but it does always make me wonder about people you read about who bemoan that their lives have been badly affected by being abandoned by a parent, even when they’ve nevertheless had an upbringing no better or worse than most of us. How we react to things must be programmed into our genes. To me it’s no big deal. I could make it one if I wanted to, but my thought is, when you’re standing on a bridge, it’s preferable to just let the water flow under it than to try to dam it, then have it inevitably rush over and sweep you away.
When I was about six Phil moved down south and remarried, a wild woman called Loretta. They had two kids, Trevor and Gary. Phil died a few of years ago, and since then Gary contacts me whenever he’s in a jam. I don’t hear from Trevor. They’re both badly drug and alcohol affected, quite feral, Trevor is the worst, but they get by. I asked Gary once if he misses Dad, and he said yes, especially when he needs money, which is where I sometimes come in.
Anyway, as I was saying, before I got side-tracked, Mum and Dad came for lunch today. They were only forty minutes late, which was good form for them. And parents have a way of winding you up, don’t they? I had made a roast with all the trimmings, but Dad insisted on splattering tomato sauce all over his meal. When he couldn’t find the sauce immediately, he accused me of not having any, rather than doing the obvious thing and asking me where it was, which was in the fridge. He does things like that. It’s so annoying.
Dad, who is starting to look rather gaunt, can’t smell anything anymore, not even tomato sauce, which isn’t a good sign dementia-wise. I told him not being able to smell things (we can still smell him OK) is called anosmia. Mum said she thought that would have been something to do with dyslexics who can’t sleep at night. Quite funny, really.
Still, they always seem perfectly happy with each other, which proves that miracles can still happen.