A.S.H

'Secrecy'

"ALICE DANIEL STONE, GET OUT OF YOUR DAMN BED AND DOWNSTAIRS RIGHT NOW!" Whoever said women are weak, are obviously mindless fools, with absolute no sense; if there's one thing I know better than to do, it's go against my Mum, especially in the morning, because that woman can be the strongest, scariest woman alive, the moment she gets her hands on the nearest weapon- and by weapon, I mean a shoe.

"I'm coming!" I screamed back, to calm her nerves, and stumbled out of bed, still half-blind from the abrupt awakening. The moment I walked out of the door of my room, a shock of pain seeped up my leg, forcing me to jolt with a pained yelp. The worst thing that could possibly happen, happened - I managed to stub my toe (my baby toe) at the door frame, and now my toe was practically numb. You'd think that I'd be immune to feeling pain on my baby toe, with the amount of times it's been stubbed, but for some reason, that never happens to be the case. 

It always hurts.

I hurried in the bathroom, not wanting to waste any time on releasing Mum's morning ticking temper bomb, and thankfully, I managed to do just that. "Hey Mum." I announced, and gave her a quick peck on the cheek, as she monitered the eggs being fried. "Morning." Her reply was, and I hope it stayed that way, because if she asked what time I woke up- "What time d'you wake up?" 

I gave a chuckle to hide my nerves, "In time for breakfast, which by the way, smells great, and looks even better." If she was trying to hide her eye roll, she failed miserably, "It's the same breakfast you have on most days, silly. Lay the table please, the eggs are almost done." 

I did as she said, and we both ate in a comfortable silence, enjoying the delight of breakfast. "So," Mum started, "your birthday is just round the corner," She sounded a little hesistant, as she spoke, so I prompted her to continue whatever she wanted to say, "You Dad..." Ah, the reason for her hesitance- Mum hardly ever talked about him, but when she did, it would be like the calm before the storm. Not that she'd get angry, she'd start off with that dreamy look in her eyes, content as she spoke, but then it would be as though someone flipped a switch. 

She'd become closed off for a while, muttering things to herself, saying things that I could barely understand, but I hated it. I hated seeing her so distraught about him, so any time she'd bring him up, I'd try to stir the conversation in another direction. "It's fine Mum, you don't have to say anything about him." I'm not sure if my Dad was a part of me, or not. Mum never said he died, or that he left, or if he married another woman, or if they divorced- my point is, I don't know what happened to him. As far as I can remember, one day he was there, and the next day he wasn't.

There was no goodbye; the night before he 'disappeared', he was so normal. The laid back, carefree attitude was present, he read me my bedtime story, as he sat with Mum, their hands intertwined. He kissed me goodnight, as any other time he would, and laughed with Mum as they exited my room. The next morning, it was like he'd never stepped foot in the house. Pictures were gone, his clothes were gone, his perfumes were gone, his shoes were gone, but his watch? His favourite watch? 

He'd left that. I'm not sure if it was on purpose or not, but I'd like to believe it was. I'd like to believe that he'd left it for me, since I had always loved to fiddle with it, yet it didn't change the fact that he was just erased from my life over one night. Mum didn't cry, or at least I never saw her cry. Not once. That led me to assume he'd left by his own choice, but it never made sense to me. 

"No, I do have to say this," Mum took a quick breath, "as you already probably remember, your Dad never talked about his work," I didn't really remember whether or not he did talk about work, but I nodded so that she would continue, "well, your father was a scientist- a brilliant one- and now that you're almost of age, you have the choice of continuing his legacy." She sniffled a bit, but I was just straight up puzzled, "What choice?" She gave a small laugh through her soft cries, "Your father used to work at a very...disclosed place. He worked extremely hard to get there, since they only hire a limited number of people, but he was able to become a scientist there, and he loved it. I know you love your science, so I wanted to let you know that you might be able to work there as well, if you wanted to. Since you are going to be twenty, that's the age his workplace hires their newest members; twenty is the minimum age."