On a brightly lit stage, with a green backdrop, stood the cast. They bowed to the applauding audience with beaming cherub faces. All of them looked out into a room that was filled with parents, siblings and their teachers.
They felt elated, laughed and smiled, as they waved to loved ones before the curtain dropped.
I was eight at the time and rushed backstage with my friends and fellow performers, most of whom were the same age, and we all chatted away in excitement as our teacher congratulated us. The very air felt as if it was filled with euphoria and I couldn't stop smiling as we stored our costumes and quickly got changed.
I clearly remember my parents faces when I went to see them. My father looked so happy and proud, my mother gave me a massive hug and said how fantastic I had been.
"Best Angel Gabriel EVER." she had enthused as she squeezed me to her chest and kissed my cheeks. I had never felt happier in my life.
On the way home, even my brother, Andrew had said he had thought the play was good and that I had done well. This was epic from him, as he was two years older than me and prone to being sulky and rarely leaving his room.
It was that day that I became hooked on acting and the day I decided that I wanted to be an actor.
***
For the next four years I took part in every school play and signed up for extra acting classes. Very sure that I was going to be the next Reese Witherspoon or Dakota Fanning, both of whom, I looked a bit like.
I even got a part in an advert when I was fourteen. Proudly declaring that Colgate toothpaste was why my smile was so bright.
My father was amazing throughout that period of my life as he drove me to all my auditions, paid for extra classes and bought me all the various things I thought I needed.
Things changed when I was fifteen. I was studying late one night and heard my parents arguing downstairs, being nosy, I snuck to the top of the stairs and listened in.
"We are BROKE Daniel. You can't keep spending this much on her and taking days off work." My mother hissed out. Her voice partially raised in that shout within a whisper as they tried not to get loud enough to wake me or my brother.
I listened intently as my father tried to reassure my mother that he had everything under control.
My mother hit back with hard facts and I heard the rustle and shuffling of paper, the unpaid bills were her evidence, and she told my dad that even if she got a second job, there was a danger of losing the house.
I was shocked by her statement and the facts she had lain out. I recall walking back to my room with tears in my eyes and sitting on the edge of my bed. Feeling a massive guilt wash over me as I realized that I was the centre of the argument. That all my extra classes in dance and acting had caused this rift between my mum and dad.
That night, I couldn't sleep and lay awake with my eyes on the ceiling as I tried to work things out in my head, it became clear to me that I had to give up the extra classes and maybe get a job to help out.
***
My mother was very pleased when I gave up the extra classes. My father was confused and a bit upset, but he never said anything directly when I told them I had decided to give it up. Both were surprised when I got a part time job and began to work the weekends.
Over the next two years, I worked in the local pub as a waitress and saved every penny I could, I stopped accepting money from my parents and learnt to be independent. Much to my mother's joy and my father's further confusion. Though they accepted it and I think put it down to me being a teenager who had had a sudden change.
Our family began to fracture despite my efforts, something inside me changed when I realised that my parents couldn't manage, I knew I had to step up my efforts to help.
In a way, I became the responsible one out of my brother and I, as I worked most weekends and used my money to pay for food shopping, plus a few other little things that my father didn't realise I was paying for.
It wasn't much really, just enough to make things a bit easier. My dad thought mum was bringing in a bit more and she thought it was him. Between babysitting, the waitressing and helping out my uncle at his garage, I could usually afford to put a little away for emergencies too.
Andrew finished high school and went to University when I was seventeen. By then, I was peeking at the household bills and would send off a payment for at least one of them each month. But sadly, my parents were already hardly talking to each other.
Things escalated quickly over that year. With Andrew's Uni fee's hitting the family budget hard. Dad took to working more and mum was too. Yet even with that and my own contributions, we couldn't make ends meet. Andrew was oblivious to it all and would keep asking for money and mum would send it, even though we couldn't afford it.
One night, just before my eighteenth birthday, my dad came home drunk. Not just tipsy, absolutely off his trolly, drunk.
I had just got home from a babysitting job and mum was working late, yet again, and for the fourth time that week. So, it was up to me to deal with daddy and his vomit stained shirt and get him to bed.
He kept saying he was sorry as I managed to get him upstairs and into the shower.
"I'm so sorry pumpkin." He moaned sadly, as I dumped his clothes into the laundry basket, and watched him lean against the bathroom tiles. Water cascading over him as he stood there in a half daze.
"It's okay daddy. You will feel better in the morning." I replied gently as I got my blouse and jeans wet to help him out from the cubical.
"No, No. Nothing's going to be okay." He mumbled as I grabbed a towel with one hand and held him with the other, propping him up against the wall. He seemed delirious and I doubted he knew what he was saying.
"Don't be silly daddy. You just need some sleep." I reassured in a calm voice as I dried him off.
He nodded as if in agreement and I finished drying him off. Then helped him into his bed and covered him with a sheet. It was a hot night and there was no need for a blanket.
Once I was sure he was comfortable. I brushed back his floppy and damp hair, kissed his forehead the way he used to kiss mine at night and then turned off the bedside light.
"Don't leave me Kathy." He murmured, as I reached the door, his voice broken in a way that tore at my heart.
Katherine was my mums name and I assumed he was confused. But there was also something so sad, lonely and broken about the way he said it. I couldn't just leave.
Unable to leave him, I took off my damp blouse and jeans before slipping under the sheet and cuddling up to him from behind.
"I'm here daddy." I whispered gently and heard him sigh.
It wasn't long before he drifted off to sleep and began to snore softly.
I lay there with worried thoughts running through my head as I looked at the back of his head. My Father had never seemed so vulnerable and sad before.
I decided I had to do something and talk to mum when she got home. I knew they weren't getting on very well but was sure that she would know how to fix things. They just needed to talk things out properly, or so I thought.
I waited and waited and tried to stay awake. But I was tired too, I had had a long week at school and been working in the evenings. Exhausted, I fell asleep around three in the morning.
The alarm woke me at six and dad hardly stirred. Muzzily, I rubbed my eyes and then slipped from under the sheet and my fathers' arm. He must have turned around in his sleep and I had awoken with his arm around my waist.
Still half asleep, I padded to the bathroom and slipped off the bra and panties I had slept in. The shower woke me fully and it hit me that mum hadn't come home last night.
Concerned, I finished up quickly and went to my room to grab my phone.
Mum answered on the sixth ring and I breathed an initial sigh of relief.
"Hello?" she said and then everything spun when I heard another voice.
"Leave it baby." I heard a man say and the world seemed to end right then.
"Abby? What's wrong?" my mum asked.
I couldn't form any words and hung up. Too distraught and angry in a way I had never felt before. I felt incredibly betrayed and hurt. Tears sprang to my eyes and I wept as I stood staring at my phone and trembled. My body uncontrollably shaking as my numb brain kept hearing that male voice.
My phone buzzed and I hit decline every time it did. Unable to speak to my mum and desperately trying to get my bearings.
The phone dropped from my fingers and I walked out of my room and back to my parents' room. I stood in the doorway and gazed at my sleeping father and wondered how she could do this to him, to me, to our family.
***
Mum never came home after that. I guess she knew I would never be able to forgive her. I found out that daddy had known for quite some time, he hadn't been able to tell me or my brother, he had tried to deal with it with hope. A foolish hope that my mum would come back to him. Come to her senses.
For some reason that I still don't understand, Andrew sided with mum and started to go to her new home when he wasn't at Uni. It left me to clean up the mess and deal with my father.
