Escape

It’s early morning and I’m half asleep when I meet Dad on the stairs.

He raises his finger to his lips to signal that I shouldn’t speak.

Then he whispers:
‘When are we getting out of this place?’

‘Dad, where do you think we are’, I ask?

‘I don’t know’, he says.

‘Don’t worry, Dad, we’re at home’, I respond.

‘Oh’, he says, looking around in surprise and still not quite comprehending where home is.

Then, he laughs, and old Dad is back.

‘Of course we are, he says’, shaking his head in astonishment that he could have thought otherwise.

Sometimes, he asks me if he needs to go to school; he frequently tells me that his schoolmasters will wonder why he’s late … Dad’s never late … unlike his elder daughter!

Then, there are those days he tells me that he will see Peter later; that’s my Uncle Peter who he’s forgotten moved to Australia years ago – and is now, sadly, no longer with us – and he talks about seeing his parents and my Aunty Jen and in his head he’s at home with them.

And, there are mornings, like this one, where he quickly becomes himself again, and I’m his daughter, and he’s in the house where he has lived all his married life with Mum.