J is for Josie

It was a Friday. I remember that. Actually it's not really surprising, it was always a Friday, the day my stepfather worked late and I got home from college early. It gave me time. Which wasn't really important that first time though it was later. And on that first occasion not much happened. Though it did later. That first Friday I'd got home a bit early as usual, got my homework sorted, made myself some tea and started on things for Dad. And I was sat thinking.

About Dad of course. Not my real Dad, but the man I'd always known as 'Dad'. The man who had, five months before my birth, consoled my Mum after her new husband had been killed in action. And who had, exactly a month prior to my birth, married her. So Mark was the only father I'd known. And I'd stuck with him after Mum had left. I was worried about how he was getting on without Mum. It was difficult for him, obviously.

Mum had left us about six weeks earlier. She just left. Just walked out. Just like that. And after all Dad had done to try to improve things for her. We'd just moved house, only about 30 miles, but it made travelling much easier for him, he'd moved much nearer to his work. Which smashed his travelling time and gave him much more time for the family every day, the very late nights home from work would stop. And it was a much nicer house in a much nicer area anyway. And it cut my travelling time to college too.

But we hadn't known about Mum's affair, that she'd been seeing this other man quite often while Dad and I were both out. And the move took her further away from HIM. So she decided, well, they decided, to do something about it. She just left. One day Dad actually got home before me and found the house empty and a note. He showed it to me. He was crying. Apparently she and this other man, Terry, had decided to go away together and had done just that on the spur of the moment.

It hit Dad hard, for a couple of weeks he just kept phoning friends where we used to live, trying to find her, to persuade her to come back and so on.