The Housemaid by Denzil Sarah A

Author:Denzil, Sarah A. [Denzil, Sarah A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Crime, Contemporary
Amazon: B0913G3THT
Goodreads: 57569943
Publisher: Sarah A. Denzil
Published: 2021-05-25T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

I’d brought them with me in my bag. I allowed my fingers to grope inside and touch the edges as I sat at the back of the bus. The letters from my mother to my dad. Pages that I knew off by heart that talked about me and what I’d meant to her and why she did what she did. They were a comfort blanket to me. They were dog-eared and worn thin from my fingers and thumbs as I read and reread them. I’m not sure why I’d slipped them into my bag that day. I was scared of what I might find Mrs Huxley doing or the potential confrontation that could occur, and before I knew it, they were in my bag with me.

Sometimes I think about running away from it all. From my baby.

My father, David, had given me the letters when I went to find him for the first time. He lived in a run-down terraced house between Leeds and York. Even though I saw he’d cleaned for my arrival, the place was still grimy. Mould mottled the grouting between the kitchen tiles, and limescale edged the circumference of the taps. The mug he gave me was chipped, and the tea tasted watery.

“You look like her,” he’d said, pale, watery eyes bloodshot and difficult to scrutinise. “Just like her. It’s remarkable.”

And then he’d told me about how young they were when she found out she was pregnant and the difficult conversations they’d had. He hadn’t been in a good place, not that he’d ever been in a good place, but it’d been especially bad when I reared my ugly presence into their lives. He’d taken recreational drugs that developed into an all-consuming addiction, not unlike my own story. He’d spent much of his life homeless, never able to keep a job for more than a week or two. By the time I met him, he’d been in prison twice and since then, found God and a decent charity to get him back on his feet. By then, caffeine remained his last addiction.

He worked in the coffee shop at the local church, cooked food at a pub on the weekends, and in between went from washing windows to mowing lawns to cleaning wheelie bins and guttering. His pressure washer was his pride and joy.

I felt the tiniest bit jealous that I’d been replaced by a pressure washer.

He had no other children, which meant I didn’t have to worry about half brothers and sisters. From what I gathered, there wasn’t a significant other in his life when I met him, though he did talk about an ex. He’d shown me photographs of my mother when she was young, dressed in oversized jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with band names like the Offspring and Blink-182. Her eyes were lined with thick black eyeliner.

“I haven’t spoken to her since you were born,” he’d said. “Every time I answered the phone, I thought it might be her. It makes no sense because she doesn’t know my number or where I live now, but I always thought I’d hear her voice.

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