My stepfather, Sid, often talked about his sacrifices. He said it was about the three of us, carefully including Myles. But it wasn\u2019t. It was about Eleanor and me. We were his entry passes to our mother\u2019s orbit. She came as a package: long legs, blonde hair, and two kids, which was ideal for an insurance salesman. It gave him a ready-made family, including a trophy wife and two kids\u2014the perfect image. But he resented us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We rented a two-bedroom terrace, where the mice skittered across the pans when someone turned on the kitchen light, and a broken window remained unaddressed for the entire time we lived there. Five doors down was a house where men visited at irregular hours. I had an idea of what went on behind those shuttered windows, and I\u2019m pretty sure Sid did too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Then Myles, my brother, came along, and he became the new centre of our family universe. Sid chased his dreams and revenue streams, and eventually, success came his way. We moved to a larger house, where the backyard overlooked a playground full of smartly dressed mothers and serious-faced fathers. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I loved Myles, and he cried when I left for university, even though I promised to come back, but Sid gave me a look that said, \u201cYou\u2019re not coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My sister left too. She looked like Mum by then, and it seems this did not go unnoticed by Sid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After graduating, I started at a solicitors\u2019 firm and got a house with my girlfriend, Emma. Then one evening, a knock came at our door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s your brother,\u201d Emma said, \u201cand he\u2019s hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I ran to the door to find Myles, blood caked on his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Dad. He hit Mum,\u201d he cried. \u201cShe followed him to the hooker\u2019s house by our old place. He snapped and hit her. I jumped in front of him, and he punched me in the face as I bundled her back in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhere\u2019s mum?\u201d I demanded. Myles told me she\u2019d gone to Eleanor\u2019s to stay, but there wasn\u2019t enough room for him, so he got a train over to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By this time, anger had settled deeply in my chest, and I picked up my car keys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emma looked worried. \u201cWhere are you going?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to see if Mum is okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I arrived, even from four floors down, I could hear Sid shouting, which is when I made my mistake and picked up my wheel wrench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s why I am writing this diary entry in my cell. It only took one blow. I admitted my guilt and got gaoled. I lost my job, and, judging by the look in Emma\u2019s eyes when she visited, she won\u2019t be back. Mum said my room is ready for me when I get out, but I\u2019ll have to start my life again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, sometimes, sacrifices must be made when you do the right thing, and that\u2019s what I did. So, I don\u2019t have any regrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My stepfather, Sid, often talked about his sacrifices. He said it was about the three of us, carefully including Myles. But it wasn\u2019t. It was about Eleanor and me. We were his entry passes to our mother\u2019s orbit. She came as a package: long legs, blonde hair, and two kids, which was ideal for an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1490,1626],"tags":[302,192,680,8,20,445,13,110,12,1632,103,14,1631,172,253],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1490","category-sacrifice","tag-back","tag-came","tag-got","tag-he","tag-his","tag-house","tag-me","tag-mum","tag-my","tag-myles","tag-our","tag-she","tag-sid","tag-when","tag-where"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-CR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2410,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions\/2410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}