16

After the meal – a barbecue lunch that the men had “slaved over a hot grill to prepare” – and the usual cake and toasts, I found myself desperate for a break from all of the people. I made my way upstairs to my room, took a seat on the bed and gazed around at my surroundings, taking in how different my life was now in comparison to the previous year. I took a deep shuddering breath, not having realised that I was so worked up, it was a struggle to keep myself from crying. I had never spent a birthday without my Mum before. No matter how much time passed and how many people I surrounded myself with that I loved, I still needed my Mum.

I came to find that birthdays just weren’t the same without her there, and every little aspect of the day was another painful reminder that she wasn’t around anymore. It was so strange to not have those little traditions that we had perfected over the years of it being just the two of us.

Memories were flooding back, memories from earlier birthdays where Mum would make me pancakes for breakfast and serenade me over the table, singing happy birthday to the tune of whatever song was my favourite at the time. I could never understand how she managed it; I would try to copy her when I was younger but I would always get too confused and fail miserably.

After breakfast she would give me one of my presents, and then every hour on the hour after that she would give me another present. I never got one big gift when I was a kid, but lots and lots of small ones; Mum said it was a way to extend the experience. After the party she would throw me or the simple dinner, I’d blow out the candles on the Green Day cake she would make me and then head to bed. She’d creep into my room and join me under the covers and we’d look through photos from the past year or just at the posters on my walls. And she would say how much I’d grown and I would smile and tease her about how much of an old softy she was, or tell her that she was actually shrinking. It was lame and cliché but that’s just how I liked it.

We would laugh at our own ridiculousness and then the room would grow quiet and I would ask the question that she expected but dreaded to hear.

“Where is my Dad?” I would ask quietly, always hoping that the answer would have changed since the previous year. “Why isn’t he here?”

“The only person who can answer that is your father sweetie,” She would reply, stroking my hair. “It will be okay; he’ll come for you when he’s ready.”

Again we would be silent for a few moments, until she would look over at the digital clock beside my bed to discover that it was time to give me my final present for the day. She would give me my present, kiss me on the forehead, wish me Happy Birthday one last time and head off to bed.

No matter how old I got, I still loved to share my birthdays with her. And now, there were people to make me pancakes and give me presents, but she wasn’t there to serenade me over breakfast, or throw me parties, or tell me how much I’d grown. She wasn’t even there to hug me and tell me that it was all going to be okay in the end.

A soft knock at the door broke me from the memories I was reliving. Sweeping the tears from my cheeks I called for the person to come in.

The door opened to reveal, as I suspected, Mike. A small smile covered his face and a box shaped gift was in his hands. He wore a knowing expression, as though he could guess exactly what I was thinking about and had come up to my room with the purpose of trying to make me feel better.

“Hi,” I said sniffling a little bit.

“I wanted to give you this away from everyone else. It’s kind of personal,” He said coming to sit next to me on the bed.

I looked at him curiously and began to peel the wrapping away. Eventually discarding the paper and the lid of the box, I found a small leather bound book. Again I chanced a glance at Mike, I was still unsure of what he was giving me.

Turning the first page of the book I saw a photograph of a young smiling couple sitting on a crummy old couch in a dirty room, the walls covered in graffiti. The photo was I realised, taken of my parents at Gilman Street when they were dating, all those years ago. I turned more pages of the book, finding more and more pages of my parents, Billie Joe and Tré in their youth. There was even a couple of my Mum as a very young teenager, surely taken before Mum and Dad even met.

Not believing what I was holding in my hands, I brought one hand to my mouth, trying to mask the shock as I felt the prickle in the corner of my eyes that signalled fresh tears. I looked up at Mike as my fingers brushed over a picture of my Mum when she was about 12, possible even younger.

“How did you get all of these?” I said. “I thought all of the photos were destroyed in the fire?”

“Well, my tendency to be a total packrat has come in handy for once in my life. When you’re mother and I separated she accidentally left some things at my place including a small album she had brought with her when she moved in. We didn’t even live together for that long but…yeah. And then I had some of my own of us lying around in the back of the cupboard and I even got some from Billie and Tré from when we were all bumming around at Gilman Street.”

Mike eventually trailed off, realising he was rambling. “Do you like it?”

As much as I wanted to reply, I found that I couldn’t. I had turned my attention back to the images on the pages in front of me, completely enraptured by a picture of Billie Joe and Mike standing next to each other, with my Mum on Mike’s back. Her arms were gripped around his neck tightly, her eyes alight with laugher; all three of them looked so happy.

I smiled to myself as I turned the page, shocked when I found pictures of when I entered the world. There was Mum, looking completely exhausted, sitting up in a hospital bed, holding a small baby in her arms. Next to that picture was one of Tré standing next to the bed, Billie Joe on the other side of Mum holding baby me at a slight angle towards the camera.

I turned to the final page of the album; there was just one photo in the centre. Mike was holding me, just a bundle of blankets with a little red head poking out. The picture was yellow with age and slightly crumpled, as though it had been kept in a pocket, or wallet, and pulled out to look at often.

“I’m giving you the most important picture I own,” Mike muttered. “I might have to pull out the camera and take a couple to replace it.”

Looking up at him through my tears, I had no idea what to say. Deciding that there was no way to put my feelings in that moment into words, I simply fell against him, feeling his arms wrap around me in a hug.

As I sat in his embrace, I thought back to that day in the old apartment, when I had first heard Mum and Mike arguing, and he stepped into my life for the first time. I had been so angry. And then when Mum was taken from me, that anger became stronger, mingled with grief and complete devastation.

I sat back up on my own again, looking at his face once more. For the past few months, I had tricked myself into thinking that I was moving on from what Mike had done, or hadn’t done, in my life. But I knew then that the resentment was still there and I needed to let it go.

When Mike, Dad, smiled at me, attempting to get me to smile in return, I knew I was finally ready to let go of all the shit I was feeling inside. Not that I wouldn’t continue to miss Mum every second of the day, but all the crap with my Dad needed to be forgotten. He was definitely trying, and I needed to stop punishing him.

I smiled to myself as I looked back down at the photo album, noticing what I hadn’t before; there were a few empty pages, waiting to be filled. I looked at Mike questioningly.

“I know it’s mostly pictures of your Mum in there,” he explained. “And you can leave it like that if you want, but I thought you needed somewhere to put some new photos.”

“That’s really cool Dad,” I grinned, jumping up to retrieve my camera from atop of my dresser.

Switching it on I gestured for him to pose with me, and I pulled a cheesy grin as the flash went off. Turning the camera to look at the digital display, I scolded him for the stupid face he was making in the picture.

“Nice,” I said dryly.

“Dude,” he said, attempting to appear offended. “That face is awesome and you know it.”

I rolled my eyes, moving to carefully place the camera and photo album onto my bed side table.

“Okay, dude,” I teased, grabbing his arm to drag him out of the room. “Let us go and rejoin the festivities.”

“Whoa,” he exclaimed, tugging his arm from my grasp. “Careful there, I am your father you know; I would hate to have to ground you.”

I laughed a little too enthusiastically for the actual situation, but it was a nice feeling, realising that I was happy and enjoying myself.

“I would love to see you try, dude.”

Fin.