My Father's Mistress

• Atia Fatimah, Grade 12, Malek Fahd Islamic School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

My name is Suzanna Carter. And I am not okay.
Hi Suzanna.
How long have you been an alcoholic?
I’m not an alcoholic.
…
I always grunt and pass whenever the inevitable questions circulate to me. Body weighed down with unspeakable struggles and cloaked with despair.
Mum had set up camp at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, but this was my way of ‘therapy’ of detoxing the poison that had crept up the roots and through the vein of my being.
The droopy banner reading, ‘Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous,’ somehow dampened the clandestine atmosphere. I watch as the nervous first-timers clutch their sobriety chips with utmost pride, as if it somehow doubled as a lifeline. Newsflash: there were no lifelines. It was a test of faith and self-restraints.
***
“Dad you’re such a liar!” I yelled. I didn’t want him to be sorry, I wanted him to notr need to be sorry.
Mum had trapped herself in her room which was routine whenever my dad came home like this. ‘This’ was the state we had become all too accustomed to, a former shadow of himself; a drunken carcass.
The reply was an unchanging, solemn prophecy. “When you grow older, you’ll understand.” And that’s what frightened me the most.
I am not okay.
***
The afternoon sun couldn’t reach us under the old oak tree. We were untouchable today. Mum was laughing as dad fed her the chicken and cheese sandwich he had covertly made, the mayonnaise haphazardly painting my mum’s face but she laughed with unconditional happiness.
As we packed up, my dad turned to me pressing a small bottle cap shaped disc in my hand, inside a triangle, ‘four weeks’ was etched. I knew that this time, my heart break would be unsalvageable. I gingerly gave my dad his chip back, afraid that distancing himself from it would break the spell of today.
I stare, eyes wide, mouth agape at the small chip that fills me with so much pride. That’s my dad.
“I don’t need it, I can tell how far I’ve come every time I see you smile,” he says kissing the top of my head to comfort me.
My last picnic was three weeks ago,
***
He broke my mum. He broke our family. And as the chip falls into the pool of alcohol and tears I realise, he broke me too.
9% of adult men had an alcohol use disorder.
43.3% of alcoholics were hospitalised with cirrhosis.
My father had become just another statistic. He had fallen into is mistress’ arms too deeply.
I was never going to be okay.
***
As I stand up, I feel weightless, gravitating towards the door. My mind and spirit in two different places. I clutch onto my sobriety chip with utmost indignation.
This was my lifeline.
I dial my mum’s number, calling to let her know that we would still have our picnic this week, even if it was in the ICU ward.
I was going to be okay.