Page 113 of Off-Limits

Dad had laughed he’d said, thinking she’d fallen asleep in the toilet, like she had in the past, but when he threw her over his shoulder like the many times before, he freaked out when he realised; she was cold.

After he placed her on the couch, he started screaming.

I’ll never forget the officers’ faces when they locked eyes with me while they took my dad’s statement, the melancholy and pity in them told me everything I’d already known. She was gone. I didn’t want to hear their apologies for not being able to save her. I just wanted to see her one last time and tell her I loved her, and I wish I’d spent more time on the phone with her when I called her for her birthday.

“Are you listening to me, Dottie?” my dad slurs, bringing me back to the moment.

“Sorry, dad, I spaced.”

“This is fucking important! She’s lying cold on that damn metal bench in the morgue. We have to put her to rest, baby.”

“I know, dad.”

Arrie squeezes my knee to let me know she’s here for me.

“Well, what are we going to do?”

“You heard the paramedics. There has to be an autopsy performed before they will release her… body…” My throat closes up.

“I thought I heard her, you know?”

“What?”

“I was in the shed after we had a fight. I thought I heard her whisper through the breeze, but I figured I was hearing things.” he hiccups, sculling his drink.

Goosebumps break out over my skin, knowing that he may have heard her calling out but didn’t rush in to check on her because they were fighting, turns the sadness to anger, but it quickly dissipates when I finally look from the floor to him.

He’s a mess, and maybe even in death my mother called for him. Perhaps the whisper in the night he heard, was nothing more than her calling his name for the last time, whispering her sad goodbye to the man she’d loved more than herself.

Fresh tears fall down my cheeks and I wipe them away angrily.

“We need to lay her to rest, Dottie.”

“I know, dad,” I say with a deep sigh.

“I don’t have any money.”

Arrie’s hand tightens on my knee.

“I thought you were getting your insurance money?”

“I am, but it won’t be released until the doctor sends off his findings,” he grumbles, taking another sip of his drink. “There wouldn’t be an issue if you’d just give me my fucking money. My mother should have left it to me.”

My spine straightens, and I feel Arrie bristle beside me.

“Can we talk about this tomorrow, dad, please?”

I see the exact moment his mood shifts, the bottle coming down hard on the coffee table.

“You want to talk about this tomorrow, while your mother is dead and cold down the street? You insensitive fucking bitch. We gave you everything! You had the best life, and this is the way you repay us? Repay me?!” he yells, and I’m catapulted back to a time when I had no control over my life.

Arrie’s grip keeps me grounded in the moment, and I shake off the dreaded memories trying to resurface. I pat Arrie’s hand and stand tall, straightening my back.

“You’re hurting, dad, but I won’t allow you to talk to me that way. Mum is dead. It’s not only you who has to deal with her gone; I do too. So don’t sit there on one of your headless fucking high horses and start preaching to me about a life you clearly have no recollection of. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I turn on my heels, my body shaking with adrenaline and anger, as I make my way to the front door. My father calls out apologies, before they turn into more angry insults, like they always do. I know he’s hurting, but fuck him, I’m hurting, too.

Arrie is puffing behind me, the only signal she is closer than I thought. I burst through the front door, wheezing, my throat closing up as a panic attack starts to take root.