Chapter 6 #3
I place the letters I’ve read back in the envelope, and take a deep breath before I delve into the next.
I have no idea why my mum would have kept this one, or why it would have ended up with the others.
In fact I don’t even know how she got hold of it, because for sure at the age of sixteen I wasn’t visiting Doris in the Post Office to send off my letter to the North Pole.
Doris in the Post Office viewed me as a child of Satan by that stage, because she’d caught me trying a cigarette behind the bus stop.
I attempted to eat it so she wouldn’t notice and ended up burning my lips.
The paper I’ve written on is obviously torn from an old school book, and it’s all creased, like it’s been thrown in the garbage in a ball.
Did she rescue this from my waste paper basket?
I guess she must have. Mothers are resilient and clever creatures, and never to be under-estimated.
I wasn’t talking to her, so she was forced to carry out snoop attacks.
My handwriting is a mess, with splodges and scrawls and words scribbled out.
Even the scribbles look angry. If sheets of paper could give off energy, this one would definitely be in a bad mood.
I see that a few of the scribbles are covering up swear words – even as a blazingly furious teenager, it seems I was too embarrassed to write the ‘f’ word in full, and instead I’ve scratched them out and replaced letters with asterisks.
I might have hated the world the night I wrote it, but I was still a bit worried about using bad language.
It’s cute in its own way – or at least it would be if I didn’t remember exactly how bad I felt.
Dear Santa,
You massive big arse of a man! You don’t even exist, do you?
It’s all made up. It’s all a lie. Because parents are liars.
They use you to control us. If we’re not good, we don’t get presents.
It is complete bullshit. It makes me so mad to look back over all the years I wasted believing in you.
You can f*ck right off with your elves and your reindeer and your stupid list. Nothing is true and nobody cares what kids want anyway.
Nobody listens to us. Prove me wrong, you big red b*stard – here is my Christmas list! I WANT:
1. A bloody puppy – why did I never get a puppy?
2. For Ethan Wallis to not exist
3. For America not to exist
4. For me and Liam to be okay again
5. To stay with my dad
I bet I don’t get any of those, you lying scumbag,
From Ellie de Vere
I stare at the angry writing and the little stains that I suspect were caused by tears.
Ironically, I did get a puppy. Ethan gave me a card that included a photo of a litter of Golden Retriever pups, telling me that one of them was mine.
Ethan was – in fact still is – a deeply kind man, and he knew how hard it all was for me.
I tried to stay mad with him, and I was very conflicted.
I mean, how could I be happy about leaving my dad?
Was it okay to even still want a puppy? Big questions when you’re sixteen and think you know everything, despite the daily reminders that you know nothing at all.
The puppy turned out to be a little lady called Sunshine, and she was the one saving grace of those first few years in the States.
I didn’t make friends easily at my new school, mainly because I didn’t want to be there.
I was prickly and different, and defensive about being different, and it took me a long time to settle in.
For a while Sunshine was the only light in my world.
I still fill up a little when I think about her, even though she lived a long and happy life.
I place that final letter in the envelope, wipe away the tears that have snuck up on me, and sip my gin.
Precious artefacts, like my dad said – but also reminders of so much that I had forgotten.
Your own past sometimes slips away from you, and the memories are bittersweet.
Thinking about home, thinking about Liam, thinking about the younger me.
Where did all that fight go, I wonder? All that spirit?
I put the letters away and call my mum. She’s five hours behind us in Florida. I swig a quick gulp of gin, but she answers immediately and catches me spluttering.
‘Ellie? Is that you? Are you choking?’
‘No! Sorry, Mum! You answered so fast…’
‘Yes, well, I was about to start my ninetieth game of bocce this week and was desperate for an excuse to disappear. How are you, darling? How is he?’
‘I’m good, and he seems okay,’ I reply, deciding against telling her about Sandra just now. ‘I just wanted to say I love you. And thank you for always buying a Christmas present for Liam when we were little.’
She laughs lightly. ‘You’re very welcome. Liam’s family were marvellous, but I did always like getting him something that was just for him, you know? That he didn’t have to share. Where is all of this coming from? Are you drinking? Hitting your dad’s whisky bottle?’
Damn. How do mums do that?
‘No! It’s gin, actually. Dad found all of my old Christmas lists. They were sweet, and so were you. I’m sorry I was such a cow when I was sixteen. Did you get that last one out of the garbage?’
There’s a pause, and I hear the sound of her pouring a glass of something in the background.
‘I think you threw it at my head actually, when I asked you if you wanted any toast… and yes, you were a bit of a moo, weren’t you?
’ she replies. ‘But I totally got it, I really did. I know it’s impossible to imagine when you’re that age, but I was a teenage girl myself once, back in the Ice Age.
I remembered what it felt like, having no power over your own life, and the way my own mum never seemed to understand me.
I must confess I was a bit of a cow too, and I had nowhere near as many reasons to be as you did.
Your whole life was getting messed with just because of grown-ups and their bullshit. ’
My mum rarely swears, she is a classy lady, and my eyebrows shoot up on my face at hearing her utter that word. ‘Mum! I’m shocked… but yes. I suppose so. I didn’t even understand it, you know? Why it was happening?’
I leave that door open, waiting to see if she will walk through it.
She has never talked to me about that time, and why she left my father.
In turn, he has also maintained silence – although it was much easier for him because he lived on the other side of the world.
I’d begged my mum to let me stay there with him, and when she insisted that was not going to happen, I hated her for it.
I hated her quite vocally and loudly too.
I shudder a little at the thought, and understand now as an adult that she was also going through an upheaval.
But like most kids, especially teenagers, I was selfish and really didn’t care.
‘Mum? Are you still there?’ I ask, wondering for a moment if she’s hung up on me.
‘Yes. I’m sorry it was… Well, I’m sorry. Let’s leave it at that shall we? No use raking over the past is there, sweetheart? It all worked out well in the end.’
My dad said those exact same words in his letter. I suppose they comfort themselves with that line, find consolation in the fact that even though my life was turned upside down, it all ‘worked out well in the end’.
‘It did, Mum, yes,’ I say. ‘Anyway. I just wanted to check in. I’m off for a stroll around the village now.’
‘Oooh, do send me pictures – I believe there’s a self-service till at the garage shop now!’