Delirium

Julie, the eldest of two, was the apple of her father’s eye…. was being the essential word! As she lay in bed with the flu, her temperature soaring, she was delirious and began to replay the times in her life when her father had been there for her.

She was transported to the night he was driven off the road by a boy racer, his garda emblazed motorbike forced into a ditch where he was just inches away from death. She heard the phone ring and got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. When her mother answered it and told her what had happened, she insisted on going with her to the incident site. Being thirteen years old, and in secondary school, her parents had started to give her more responsibility, so her mother reluctantly agreed. Firstly, Julie, under her mother’s orders, asked their neighbour, Colette, to take Tommy, her younger brother, who was too young to spend the night beside his injured father in A&E.

When they came close to where her father nearly met his maker, the traffic was heavy. It was a narrow road, yet there were cars on the embankment to the ditch which caused mayhem to those who were eager to get home to their loved ones after a hard days work. Finally, when they inched their way to her father, Julie gasped and put her hand on her heart. Her father was standing amongst the owners of the parked cars, nursing his arm. She yearned to run to him out of relief that he was alive, and more to the point, upright.

Julie was instructed to stay in the car whilst her mother, a woman devoted to her family, went to help her injured father into the car. Her father, being the proud man that he was, refused to let anyone phone an ambulance. On the thirty-minute journey to Beaumont hospital, Julie, who was situated in the back of the car, behind the driver’s seat, cried. They were silent tears, but tears nonetheless. Her mother caught her eye in the rearview mirror and signalled her to stop.

The next thing Julie felt, was a cold compress on her forehead. She opened her eyes and saw those of her mother looking back at her. Her mother helped her into a more upright position and made her drink some fluids. Then she fed her her favourite leek and potato soup, one spoonful at a time, but Julie had no appetite. She could feel the thickened hot liquid in her mouth, but she couldn’t taste it. After a few spoonsful, Julie decided she had enough, and gently swatted her mother’s hand away. She consumed more fluids and was given two paracetamols to try to bring her temperature down.

Slowly, her eyes closed and she was with her father once again. This time she was much, much, younger. She was sitting on a tiny little red bike seat that was on the bar of her father’s bicycle, her feet on two metal foot rests that were welded to the frame, her hands on the handle bars. She was encompassed by her father who was peddling away as she observed the different shades of green of the passing foliage.

Julie wasn’t a small kid, in fact, she was on the upper end of the size pool, yet her father insisted on cycling through the winding back roads to the next village, five miles away. It was the height of summer and she smiled the duration of the journey, as she felt the safeness that only her father could bring out in her. Julie didn’t know how long it took them to get there, but when they did, her father lifted her down off the bike and they walked hand in hand to the only shop in the small village, where her father purchased two 99’s. The refreshing taste of the vanilla ice cream hit the back of her throat, cooling her down. Her father led her towards a little wall to the side of the shop, where they sat, eating their prize, talking and laughing. About what, she couldn’t make out, as another cold compress led her to open her eyes once again.

The bright light that was emitted through the open window, told Julie that it was a new day. Her temperature was still high, so her mother shoved two more paracetamol into her mouth, closely followed by a straw that jutted into a glass of ice cold still water. She smiled at her mother before the curtains of her eyes closed again.

She was on the old pull-out couch in the playroom of their house, her father sitting opposite her, tears dripping down her alabaster cheeks. She was calm and collected, her father looking nervous and frightened. She spoke. ‘You have gone every Friday for the past five weeks, only to return on a Monday full of remorse, what do you have to say about that?’ Her father, who was a man unafraid to show emotion, began to cry. Julie handed him a tissue and they blew their noses in unison. ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ she asked, all the while keeping calm. Her father didn’t answer. His mouth tried to form words but nothing came out. ‘You must decide,’ Julie said, ‘her or us!’ Her father, still speechless, blew his nose again. ‘Look, whatever you decide you aren’t going to lose me! I can’t speak for Tommy, but its unfair of you to expect me to hold this family together! I’m only seventeen, and to have my brother sit on the bottom step of the stairs crying out for his daddy, when I have my mother passed out on the kitchen floor, vomiting up the red wine she consumed at the party she was at on Saturday night, isn’t fair.’ She paused for her father to say something, but he remained mute. ‘Do you know how embarrassing it was being woken up by the doorbell, only to answer the door to three of the neighbours who carried my mother home after she got blotto at that party? I, your daughter, was expected to know what to do! I just did the only thing I could think of and led her into the kitchen, ordering Tommy not to enter, only for her to pass out, hitting her head on the tiles and vomit red wine, that came out of her like a geyser! You know I’ve been sick the past couple of years! You have no idea what its like having your younger brother cry out for his daddy, and me, not even able to call you out of anger because I thought you had left us for good!’ Her father bowed his head. ‘I can’t do this anymore! So I ask you again, her or us?’ Julie knew the answer to the question before she had asked it, but she needed him to say it.

‘Julie, Julie,’ she heard her mother call out. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that her mother had a thermometer and two more paracetamol in her hands. She took the tablets with grace, and even drank the whole glass of water through the straw her mother gently placed into her mouth. She was beginning to feel better, even feeding herself the soup. After about an hour of the room spinning and her body aching, she shut her eyes once again.

She was transported to the garden, where she sat, her head on her fathers shoulder, crying. Her father had just told her that he didn’t want to see her anymore due to covid. It was 2020, and his excuse was that he was working in the airport at the time, and claimed that he didn’t want to be responsible for giving her the potentially fatal condition. He praised her off of him and her mother, who was in the kitchen, listening out for any bullying on her fathers part, arrived in the door jamb. Her father left through the side door and left the sensitive Julie in the garden, sobbing.

Her mother, the only real person in this world Julie could count on, went over to her and smothered her in an embrace. ‘I don’t know what he’s playing at,’ her mother began, ‘his actions are Ludacris. Do you want to spend your time wallowing in his self-pity over a man who verbally, emotionally, and psychologically abuses you? You’re better off without him! All he ever does is upset you anyway!’ And with that, Julie sobbed, her head buried in her mother’s shoulder.

‘Good morning sunshine!’ Julie heard the voice of her mother and she smiled. Her temperature finally back to normal, she opened her eyes and tears rolled down her alabaster cheeks, the same way they did twenty years ago, when she asked her father to choose between his family and his slut. ‘Why are you crying?’ her mother asked her and sat on the bed next to her, a bowl of cherios in her hand. ‘I’m just grateful that I have you and Tommy!’ Julie answered. She thought back and counted the number of times she had physically seen her father since he left her on the patio in the back garden in 2020. She came up with the number, one she could count with one hand and still have two fingers left over. She sat up in the bed and ate her breakfast, feeling hard done by because the man she knew as a child had morphed into a monster.

‘Mom,’ Julie said. ‘Yes love,’ her mother answered. ‘Is it normal to love somebody in a different way than you used to?’ Her mother looked at her with a furrowed brow and stuck the thermometer in her ear for fear that she still had a temperature. ‘Who are you talking about Julie?’ her mother asked in a soft voice and wiped away the tears on her right cheek with her thumb. ‘Dad!’ Julie answered. ‘I love him, but it’s a different type of love to when I was younger. I will always love him because he is my father, but I don’t love him to the same extent as you or Tommy!’

Julie’s mother bowed her head and inhaled deeply. ‘Its totally normal!’ she began to explain. ‘You have seen the man three times in as many years. Yes, you talk on the phone once a week, but he always finds a way to upset you! It would be abnormal if you still loved the old him, the genuine him, the him I fell in love with all those years ago. He was a great father to you when you were young, but he hardly paid any attention to Tommy. I confronted him about that when Tommy was five years old, and he said that they had nothing in common. I tried to explain to him that him being the father, made him responsible for finding something they could bond over…but he never did! Tommy hasn’t spoken or seen your father in years, they didn’t have the bond that you had, yet he only makes you feel bad about yourself these days. He has changed, so of course your love for him has changed as well. He was a fabulous father to you, but he has his other family now and is happy with them. That should tell you about him in abundance!’

‘Is it normal that I’m jealous of a kid that isn’t even his, and how he brings him to and from school every day?’ Julie wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘Doesn’t that answer your earlier question? He never brought you and Tommy to school! Maybe you don’t remember, but when you were doing homework with him, he made you cry if you made a mistake or couldn’t come up with a correct answer! He was very hard on you when you were playing with the neighbour kids. He used to go out and warn you to stop shouting with your friends as you played. Then you took an eversion to going out to play and he gave out about that too. No matter what, he was strict and, no matter what you did, he was never happy! I’m sorry, but the man I married changed over the years, he was regimental and uncompassionate towards the both of you!’ Julie pulled a tissue out of the box that lay beside her bed and handed it to her mother. ‘If I had known that he would turn into the monster that he has become, I never would have married him. But he gave me two of the greatest gifts anyone could ever receive, you and Tommy!’ Julie hugged her mom as they sobbed together, the empty bowl upending on the duvet.

And with that, Julie felt blessed to have at least one parent, a parent who filled the role of mother and father. She whispered, ‘I love you!’ into her mother’s ear, realising that even though she had good memories with her father, she had even better ones with her mother!