Day 11: Family

I love my parents more than anyone else in the whole world. I think it’s something to do with being an only child.

It also helps that I’m eerily similar to them. Far beyond what genetics could have done. I have my dad’s sense of humour, taste in television and books and desire to collect trivial information that will never be of any use outside a pub quiz.

And I have my mum’s temperament. We get upset and worked up and angry over exactly the same things. I can understand completely what it is my dad said that made her start crying. Which drives him crazy as it feels like him against us.

Since my troublesome teenage years (which really weren’t that bad despite what my dad says) we’ve only had one massive family argument. It was on my dad’s birthday a couple of years ago. I can’t even remember what set it off but no one was talking to each other for days on end. Actually, now that I think about it, it might have been when my dad wouldn’t show my mum how to whistle with a piece of grass. But it escalated and escalated until my dad was shouting that I was spoilt brat and my mum was too indulgent.

Of course, it calmed down after a while and now we’re back to normal. But I can’t be the only one who hasn’t forgotten about. We pretend it didn’t happen and it’s almost as though it didn’t. Selective amnesia.

But now I make an extra effort not to appear spoiled. I insist on paying rent, take my mum out for coffee, try and persuade my dad to let me do the washing up. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop wondering if in the back of his mind that’s what he’s really thinking.

Day 11 of the 30 Day Writing Challenge.