Do You Remember the First Time?

girl, not a tart at all.
    ‘Look, Steph, I don’t think—’ he was saying.
    I summoned everything I had ever learned from EastEnders and burst through the door.
    My dad’s face was a comic picture of shock, as if he’d just won an Oscar or something.
    ‘Flora Jane!’
    ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s me. Your daughter.’ I turned to the woman. ‘Hi.’
    But I could tell by her face she already knew exactly who I was. She was burning up and staring at the ground.
    ‘Um, Flora, what are you doing here?’ said my dad, clearing his throat. He was clearly hoping to carry this off as an innocent Saturday business meeting. Maybe he thought I just didn’t have so much insight into the future.
    He wanted me to say, ‘Mum forgot to tell you to get bananas yesterday, and I didn’t know you were working.’ He wanted me to say that so much.
    ‘You can’t do this,’ I said desperately. ‘You can’t do this to Mum. Or me. You can’t. You’ll ruin everything. Can’t you see?’
    ‘But, I—’
    ‘I mean, after everything Mum does for you … for this, this …’
    I’d been meaning to say tart, or slag, or whatever word I felt like about this woman who was condemning my mother to a life of clinging, desperate misery, daily fretting, terrifying loneliness; and her daughter, the same way, jumping about, never able to make up her mind; to settle, to be happy and make someone else happy.
    But then I looked at her and the heavily applied makeup, and I just saw an unhappy-looking woman. Who had missed the boat and knew it. Who had (I knew this later) been married to a horrible man; divorced and alone, conscious of her clock ticking out and her looks nearly gone completely. Could I really blame her for grabbing her last chance? Her kind, jovial, fundamentally decent last chance, and damn the consequences, because this was her life, the only one she had, and she just couldn’t bear to face it alone, unwitnessed, unattended and going out slowly like an untended fire? But he was ours first.
    ‘Dad,’ I begged. ‘Please.’
    ‘Look, Flora, you have to believe me,’ my dad said, wild-eyed. ‘I came here to break if off, honest.’
    Stephanie looked shocked
    ‘That is a coincidence,’ I said, my heart beating wildly.
    ‘Ever since you … started going off the rails a bit … I’ve been speaking more to your mother, and I realise, you do need me, you both need me. More than anything.’
    I looked at his face. He was choking on each word as if he was spitting out glass.
    ‘I’m so sorry, Flora,’ he said.
    He was crumpling up like a little boy. Does no one ever grow up?
    ‘I don’t blame you, Dad,’ I choked.
    But as I said it, I realised that I did blame him. I always had, for far longer than I should. I’d taken that summer and made it into the story of my whole life. I couldn’t commit because Daddy had left. I couldn’t get over Clelland because I was all alone. I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do because I had to look after my mother. I had taken their commonplace everyday tragedy and turned it into my great Grand Guignol; my defining cause; my explanations for my own unhappiness. One normal, average, weak man who happened to be my dad, and one lonely, average girl, who just wanted to be loved, here in the shoddy setting of a local office, pink pinboard detailing rotas and instruction dates; tawdry carpets and a smell that didn’t seem as non-smoking as it ought to have done. So small, after all.
    Oddly, I suddenly felt strong. This wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my problem. It was just one of those things that happened. And it had happened to me, and I’d let it screw up my whole life. I’d used it as an excuse to stick with men I didn’t love;to refuse to grow up. I pitied my first-time-round self again. And resolved: whatever happened, whether I was here for good, whether I got to go home; whatever happened, I was going to be alright, and I wasn’t going to end up like this.
    ‘Bastard,’ muttered Stephanie under her breath, looking between us. I was moving towards my dad, and I realised I wanted a hug, very badly.
    ‘What?’ said my dad.
    She swallowed hard. ‘You never meant to leave them, did you? You were lying all this time, weren’t you?’
    ‘I wasn’t lying, Steph, I promise.’ He looked absolutely wretched. ‘But my family needs me.’
    ‘My family needs me,’ she mimicked, staring hatefully at me. ‘Right. And plain old Stephanie will be just fine. Of course.