6
ST. ANNABEL
I have always wished I could explain the relationship I had with my father to someone, but from the conversations I have with others around me, I realise no one ever would understand.
Do you know what it's like to simultaneously crave the approval of someone while also deeply resenting them for making you unable to freely live in your own skin? It was a nightmare. It is my life.
As a child I followed him everywhere, people used to call me his little shadow.
It didn’t matter where he was in the house, I would've found him and stuck to him like glue. My mother always complained, saying you would’ve thought he gave birth to me instead of her.
We look so alike, albeit I didn’t get his eyes, everything else about me is him. I wanted to be him.
Then I grew up and it was the last thing I ever wanted.
When it became more important for me to actually follow in his footsteps than to exist as my own person.
When “daddy” became “father” and when “mummy” became “mother”, it was a shift that happened slowly but I had detached myself from both.
I love them, my parents, even on the days that I hate them.
They are my parents after all, I can’t have another.
I taught myself how to suck it up and just do what they wanted.
What I didn’t realise was that by doing that, I was tearing myself apart. I was beginning to unravel.
The panic attacks started when I was thirteen. Nobody knew about them, not even Arden, since I never told him. I used to cry myself to sleep on many nights and it was why I begged for a single room at boarding school, framing it as not wanting to be distracted.
My father always made it a case to keep up with everything I did so as to not embarrass him.
He always said that if you are going to start something, you finish it great.
He doesn’t need to approve of it, it is how it ends that matters.
Beyond the crippling disappointment in myself, I know that is what had launched my panic attack earlier: my father won’t come to watch me play anyone other than Odette.
And I know I failed him. Yet, when I saw Harley, those eyes, I realised at once he is the one who failed me first.
The idea that I’m not his oldest child should have set me free and despite it, I can’t help but feel this tug of upset, that after everything I really am not enough.
The clock on the wall inches towards ten o’clock.
I pinch my eyes closed, taking deep breaths to go back to meet the girl who shared half my DNA, there in my living room, trying to ignore the sharp pain in my chest. Delicately carrying the mugs in hand, I headed back in, mustering up my best smile again.
I get to the rim of my entrance, watching Harley inspect the art on my walls, some of them I had collected from auctions or bought from exhibits–a hobby of mine. The one in particular that she was gently caressing was the Lyra constellation.
My father loves the stars. It's the only thing I ever see him inherently animated about. He even has a mini observatory at home with his telescopes, there were days when he would show me different stars or the moon. Lyra was particularly important because it is one of three constellations involved in the Summer Triangle. After all, he had named his company after it and it is why mine and Stassie’s middle names were Cygna and Aquilla, respectively.
“I only have strawberry at the moment, it’s my favourite so I keep it stocked more than the others,” I say, walking inside, startling Harley from her trance. She mumbles a thank you in response, but her demeanour has shifted. I stand there wondering what I might have said or done wrong.
Her gaze still lingers on the drawing, so I fill in, “I picked that up at a museum in Vienna, it’s the Ly–”
“Lyra constellation. Yeah, I know,” she says, bluntly.
Awkwardness permeates the air as neither one of us knows what to say to the other. The silence almost stretches too thin until she breaks it. “If it’s okay with you, I would like to rest, it’s been a long day,” Harley says.
“I’ll show you your room,” I tell her with a strained smile, “It’s on the first floor, opposite mine.”
After we say our goodbyes, I flop back onto my bed wanting this incessantly long Monday to end.
Not even a couple minutes later, I hear my phone ring and I pick it up without even looking at the caller ID. I growl out, “Who the bloody hell is this?”
“Is this how we greet people now?” Arden tsks . “No manners.”
My eyes widen from the shock and I sit up straight. “Did you make a mistake and call the wrong person?” I ask.
“No.”
“So you are calling me , on purpose?”
“We’ve established that.”
“We don’t call each other.”
I can feel his eye-roll from the other end of the line. He says, “We are now. I heard about what happened today.”
I sigh and lie back down, “Hmm, which part? The humiliating fall or the debilitating panic attack that came afterwards?”
“Both. Madeleine told me about the latter.”
“Of course, my misery is already news for the day,” I say with a sigh, snuggling under my duvet.
“That’s because, good or bad, what happens in your life is the most entertaining thing for these people. There’s no substance to any of them,” he tells me.
I look to the ceiling, still feeling solemn and hollow, “Some days I wish that it wasn’t. Rich, do you think I would survive not being the person I am today? If I was just a normal girl nobody knew?”
He goes quiet for a second, then answers, “Maybe. Maybe not. Where is this coming from?”
“He has another daughter,” I laugh, but it’s not a very jovial one. It sounds more like a cry. “She’s older than me too, by seven months. Seven.”
“Saint…” he trails off, stunned into silence. I almost smile because I haven’t heard him call me that in years.
“She’s in my house. Sleeping in one of my rooms. And she hates me. I can tell from the way she looks at me that she hates me, she has his eyes.”
“No one can hate you,” he says, softly.
“Not even you?”
He doesn’t answer. He did, once. He might still do.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I whisper. “I wanted to speak to someone today, all day, and just lay down all of my problems onto their shoulders. And do you know the first person I thought of? You.”
It’s out there and I know I can’t take it back, so I continue, “I know I shouldn’t say it, but there are days when I wish I had a time machine to rewrite every wrong in my life because the first thing I would fix would be you and I.”
I let the words hang in the air as my eyes grow heavy and prove increasingly difficult to keep open. A yawn escapes me before I can stop it.
“Sleep” is all he says in response. The gravelly tone sends shivers down my spine. I don’t want this to end, but I don’t have the energy.
So I sleep like he asks me to. I would do anything he asks.
???
The next morning, I woke up earlier than my usual ten am to try to cook for my guest. The problem is, I didn’t know how to make toast without even burning it and Cathy, my chef, comes on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Cooking is just something I am not good at, I rarely ever had time to learn because I was constantly either at ballet or studying.
Mother doesn’t cook that often either, we have chefs, but whenever she tried to teach me the basics, I could never sit still in one place long enough to learn.
My friends and I spent a considerable amount of time house hopping.
Dan's house was our favourite because his parents are the kindest but also, looking back, his mother makes great food.
When I got my own place and hired a chef of my own, there was no need to learn. I am allowed one shortcoming.
Still, I tie my thick blonde hair into a ponytail and head into the kitchen to attempt a meal. Or perhaps I can feed her a bowl of Frosties and call it a day? No. I can do this. I scour the internet and find a tutorial that includes pancakes. You can never go wrong with pancakes.
Except, as quickly as I start, I remember exactly why I avoided my extremely beautiful marble kitchen. Cutting a frozen block of butter is harder than it looked.
“What are you doing?” Harley asks, startling me as she leans against the entrance. I hadn’t even heard her walk up. She is in a faded pink tank top and shorts, her hair wrapped in a bonnet of the same colour.
“Making pancakes,” I reply with a lopsided smile.
She frowns at the disaster in the making before stepping further into the kitchen. She took the knife out of my hands. “Step aside before you hurt yourself.”
I marvel at how she cuts through the butter with ease as she asks, “Where are your eggs?”
“In the fridge,” I say in a tone that implies that should’ve been obvious.
“Then why are you making pancakes with no eggs?”
“I hadn’t gotten to that step in the instructions,” I pout.
She glares, but it didn’t feel malicious, more fed up than anything. “Stop breathing down my neck and go sit down,” she says, when I still stood there peering over her shoulder to watch her.
“Sorrysorrysorry,” I repeat before going to sit on the stool on the other side of the countertops, the pillowy chairs were extremely comfortable.
In mere minutes, she looks significantly more at home than I ever did. “Where did you learn to do all this?”
She doesn't answer for a second, “Myself.” She doesn’t elaborate and I don’t want to push.
When she finishes, she makes us both a plate, hands me mine and shortly walks out with hers. A twinge of sadness pricks at me, hoping we will eat together, but I cast it aside and instead yell, “Thank you!”
I eat, wash the dishes, then go upstairs. I see her sitting on the balcony with her plate on the floor, smoking a cigarette.
She hears my scuffle from behind and makes no indication that she cares. “Thank you for the food,” I say again.
“I heard you the first time,” she bluntly replies, fervently staring straight ahead.