Saturday, October 01, 2005

The Evil Stepmother 

I encountered my dad's partner today. We had to switch cars, so went over to his house. There she was. It's been so long since I've seen her, I hardly remember what she looks like. She still looks young, slim. He's always liked beauty, grandma told me.

I busied myself with the bags, trying to signal to my dad to hurry up and end this awkward business. Of course he didn't notice.

I pride myself on rationality, and I thought I'd be able to handle this coolly. Ancient history, you know. I know it would never have worked out between my parents. I know my dad was unhappy for a long, long time. I've defended him to my mother, her relatives, myself.

But I'm still my mother's daughter. He's lucky I didn't fucking say what I thought. Homewrecker. Whore. She had the temerity to look at me in the eye, and he even told me to "chao" her. I managed an ironic grimace. As if I could bring myself to be fucking polite to her. Fuck, I wish I'd eyeballed her, make her feel ashamed. She was an employee at the bakery, you know. Fucking climber. Her house is a smaller replica of our old house.

The conversation in the car afterwards was not comfortable. I'm usually in the position of having to defend him to mum, but fuck me if he's not going to feel a bit fucking guilty. He's rationalised it all out, of course, he said it was a choice between either divorcing my mother when I was a baby or adultery. FALSE. I told him, you should've ended one before you started another. He said, I should've done what your uncle did, wait til the kids were grown up. STRAW MAN. No, you needn't have been a fucking martyr, you could've just waited til the divorce was completed, for fuck's sake. You'd waited twelve years, what's a few months more? I said harsh words. I said, "she might not have been nice to you, but did she deserve adultery?". "To come home and sleep in her bed. Disgusting." "Sordid...just sordid." "Child of a mistake".

Fuck this shit, you know? It's been like, 8 years. Almost half a lifetime ago. I've been through this already. I've thrown shit at walls. I went through that month? year? fucking endless black period, where my mother was not my mother but just a depressed sack. Had just moved schools too. Fucking bleak. I went through that night no child should ever have to go through. She phoned him and told him to look after me. Draw your own fucking conclusions. I still remember exactly where we were, on the freeway in South Yarra near the river, looking at that giant neon sign. Numb.

Let him feel guilty, for once. I love him, he's a great dad, and a good man in most ways, but I will not let him rationalise this away, not while there are things that have been broken that can never be fixed. I no longer believe in marriage. Not even sure about love. Family is an abstract concept. Do you know, in the UMAT, there were stats about the likelihood of children of divorced parents getting divorced themselves. It's dire. I'm not sure what a normal, happy relationship is meant to look like.

Oh fuck this mire. I'm sick of everything.

# posted at 9:42 pm

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