I'm sat on the sofa carefully sipping a coffee around me busted lip and watching the kids playing on the floor. Leah keeps saying "daddy look at me" every time she does something silly. She wants my whole attention. She and Lucas like having me to themselves. They are probably the only people in the world who have ever truly loved me but that will change when they get old enough to know better.
I can't help but play out in me head what our lives will be like ten or fifteen years from now. Amy will be with some great guy. Someone real posh and successful who treats her the way she has always deserved. She and the kids will live in a proper house and they will have all the things I could never give them: great clothes, computers, bikes, maybe a car when they are old enough.
Their lives will be full of so much possibility. They will know things, good things. Not the things I know, like how to take a punch or how to nick stuff. They will go on holiday and visit places I will never see like Spain and Australia and New York. They will go to university and read all kind of books. People won't look down on them.
Me, I'll be working in some bar or restaurant doing the same thing I'm doing now and probably living in the same flat. I might be with someone, but I probably won't be. My relationships always end badly, with someone bleeding and in pain.
Amy will still want me in their lives, I know she will, but I have a hard time picturing me place in their future. With every year, we'll have less and less in common and they will come to be embarrassed by me: their dad who went to prison, can't hardly read and can't seem to hold down a job for more than a year or two. I imagine Leah at 15 telling her mates that I'm not her real dad anyway. I see Lucas at 10 refusing to let me help with his homework 'cause I won't really understand will I? They'll find excuses to avoid visiting me in my grotty flat. They'll be too busy with school, or sport or their mates. Amy will invite me to their birthday parties and other special occasions but they will secretly hope I can't make it. And because I'll miss them, I won't be able to stay away so I will have to pretend not to see how uncomfortable they are with me around.
I worry the most about how they will feel about me when they find out what I did to their mum. Amy says we should tell them as soon as they are old enough to understand so we can explain that I've changed and show them how she has forgiven me. She says that's better than hearing about it from someone else. I know she's right and it's still years away but it makes me want to throw up just thinking about it. I don't want to see that disappointment in their eyes. I don't want them to hate me the way I hate Terry.
For now, though, they don't know enough to be ashamed of me. They don't know the world outside this flat sees me as a loser. They still love me.
Leah is dancing now to the music off the tele. She's spinning round and round like a little top. She falls down beside her brother. Laughing and out of breath she says once more: "daddy look at me" and it makes me smile, busted lip and all.