Page 63 of The Tapes
I can’t stop thinking of Mum and the way she talked about herself. Is that me? I had the idea of letting myself into the office, so I did. I saw the wallet, so I took it.
Alcohol made me feel incredible, so I kept drinking it, even though I knew it was going to cost me my husband and possibly my daughter.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply – and it’s the truth.
‘Oh, Mum…’ The disappointment burns and I can’t meet my daughter’s eye.
‘I suppose… I’ve been thinking a lot about the future and maybe the past.’ I’m rambling now, but maybe Faith needs to know all this – so she can understand why I took the wallet. ‘Remember when Granddad came over a few months back andput up that shelf? It’s not a big thing but I guess I don’t know who to go to if I have a problem now. Not just shelves but anything. Liam maybe. Your dad – but he has his own family. I guess it’s just been a hard time.’ I look up, making sure my daughter is looking at me. ‘But I’m not drinking. I promise.’
For a few seconds, Faith doesn’t move but then slowly, very slowly, she nods. She believes me.
‘I still don’t understand why you took the wallet…?’
I breathe. ‘Maybe I don’t either. But I’d had a conversation with Owen the day before he died. I told you about the tapes I found at Dad’s.’
‘Your mum’s podcasts?’
I smile. She can’t really comprehend the physical tapes – calling them a podcast is more familiar to her. ‘Something like that. Owen works at the studios in town in his free time. I gave him one of Mum’s tapes and he was going to see if he could clear up some of the audio for me. Then, the next day, they were saying he’d killed himself. I was really confused by it all. I suppose I saw the wallet and thought… well, I don’t know what I thought.’
It’s the truth, more or less. I can’t explain why I took it. By the time I overheard Mark saying ‘they can’t prove anything – just tell them I was with you’, I already had it.
Faith picks up the wallet, then puts it down.
‘Do you think he killed himself?’
I can’t tell the truth, because no seventeen-year-old wants to get involved with their parent’s conspiracy theories.
‘I don’t know,’ I say, which is the truth – even though there’s a second truth that I don’t think Owen killed himself and I’m terrified I got him killed.
‘I’ll give the wallet to the police,’ I add. ‘Or his mum, something like that. I’ll make sure it gets back to who it should –but I only found it last night, then it was Dad’s funeral today. It’s all got away from me.’
Faith nudges the wallet across the table, seemingly accepting the explanation. All kids think their parents are nuts but Faith has more reason than most.
‘… I keep reading the same bit about impulse control. It says you want something, so you take it, even though you don’t necessarily need it, or even want it.’
Is it hereditary? Have I cursed her? Or is this something about me that I’m choosing to blame on genetics because that’s easier? I wish I knew.
‘How was the wake?’ she asks.
‘Timothy tried to eat all the cakes and Tomothy went home with a stomach ache.’
Faith breaks immediately. ‘I almost called him that when his mum was there,’ she says. ‘We need to stop calling him Tomothy.’
My daughter and I share a wonderful, perfect moment of synergy knowing that we absolutelydoneed to stop using the name Tomothy, while also knowing it’ll be our inside joke forever.
‘Bridget told me to tell you that your reading was brilliant,’ I add. ‘I thought so too.’
‘I’m not used to reading from the Bible.’
‘Nobody would’ve ever guessed. You were word perfect.’
Faith swells and the guilt starts to creep through me that I’ve changed the subject in a way that doesn’t feel fair.
‘We had to do a soliloquy for tutorial the other day,’ she says. ‘I used the Bible reading for that.’
We’re at an impasse, which I’d know even if Faith didn’t pick up her phone. ‘Can I go upstairs?’ she asks.
‘You never have to ask.’
