Page 81 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“Does Dad know?”
“Yeah, Dad and Cynthia. They’ve never seen this box, though.”
I swallow. “Okay.”
She brushes her cheek, clears her throat, flicks the small lock open and takes everything out.
It just looks like random bits of paper and some pictures.
She holds them out for me, I take them, almost drop them with how shaky my hands are.
I flip the first picture over. It’s dark but It’s of someone, someone’s back littered with welts and bruises. In the corner, the date is scribbled in white sharpie. 4th May, 1994.
I tell myself it isn’t what I intentionally thought it was and put it down beside me, picking up the other.
This one is a picture of a girl outside what looks like a school with a boy beside her, his arm over her shoulder. The girl looks like my mum but it can’t be—surely not. Her skirt is rolled up to the high heavens, her hair is pulled into a messy bun, her hand is up in a backwards peace sign with pen littered all over it. And I know for a fact that boy isn’t my dad because he looks like someone who probably isn’t doing the best for himself right now. The date on this one is 22nd November, 1999.
Another picture, of the side of someone’s face with a bruised cheek and a black eye. 3rd August, 1993.
One of a pair of hands pulling back some hair, matted and covered in blood. 25th December, 1996.
The boy is back in this one but I still can’t get a proper look at him because it looks like they’re at a party. It’s too darkand blurry to see but the girl is resting on his knee in a neon pink mini dress and stilettos while the boy behind has his arm around her waist, wearing jeans and a polo. But where her dress is so short, I can see the bruises marking the inside of her thigh. 5th April, 2001.
“Jesus,” I breathe out. “I can’t look at anymore.”
My mum takes the pictures from me, stares at them herself with tears running down her cheeks.
“You see that boy,” she points to the school picture. “He’s the only boy I’ve ever loved.”
I whip my head around, mouth open.
“Is that Dad?”
She shakes her head, teeth sinking into her bottom lip.
“Are you having an affair?” I ask quietly.
She wipes another tear, laughs. “No.”
I shake my head, trying to understand. “What happened to him, then? Is he my real dad?”
Her jaw twitches, she looks at me. “He died, Phoebe.”
My heart sinks. “How?”
“Drugs.”
I’m crying so hard that my head is pounding. I grab her hands and squeeze them. “What about the other pictures? Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she shakes her head. “That,” she nods at the photos on her lap. “Is how I grew up. On a council estate in Essex with a family who couldn’t love me the way I love you even if they were paid to. They didn’t work and my idea of a fancy dinner was a jacket potato with real butter.”
“Jesus,” I sob, scrambling to my knees to hug her. “Why have you never told us this before?”
She shakes her head against my chest, wraps her arms around me and holds me as if I’m the boy in the pictures.
“It’s not your burden to carry. It’s all behind me now.”
And then she looks up at me. “But you understand now, don’t you? Why I was like that?” She begs. “You get it, don’t you, Phoebs?”
