Eavesdropping

• Amy Brown, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2008

I wish I had never done it. I had my ear pressed against the wall in the hall. My mother and father were arguing. Again. This time it was about me. It seemed to be about who would take me. Take me where? I was really puzzled. Are they going on a holiday? I stayed where I was and listened carefully to what they had to say next. "If you take him I won't get to see him very often," my father was saying.

"But if you take him I will barely get to see him," my mother said. I could tell by her voice that she had been crying.

That was it. I couldn't listen anymore. I ran upstairs, into my room and slammed the door. I got out my favourite book and started to read. Slowly I forgot about what I had heard. That was, until I heard a knock on my door.

"Joseph honey, come downstairs for dinner. Your father and I need to talk to you." I heard my mother's soft voice on the other side of the door.

I slowly emerged from my darkened bedroom. I walked downstairs behind my mother without saying a word. I sat down in my seat and realised my dinner had been served. I started to eat. My mother sat down beside me and looked up at me.

"Joseph, your father and I know that you were listening to our conversation behind that wall." She gestured towards the wall in the hall.

'This is it,' I thought. 'Now I am in big trouble'.

"Don't worry, you were going to find out anyway. Your father and I, as you already know, have been arguing a lot lately. It has gone too far. In April we are splitting up," my mother said.

I was glad my dad had gone to the toilet. He would have made a lot of smart comments. I didn't say anything.

It all turned out well. I went to live with my mother in a cottage in Maine and my dad, well, I get to see him a lot too. Two weeks with him, four weeks with mum.