Chapter 13
"Custody? You want to awake custody of her? Oh mum don't do this, don't put us all through that again." begged Steve as he sat in the flat. He had come to see if he might be able to try and get some sort of peace for his sister. Clearly not. But of course, even though he didn't want his sister to have to go through what she had been when she had been four all over again, part of him told himself his mum what right in what she was doing. His father couldn't be trusted with his daughter.
"Don't you see why I am doing this? I am doing this for Katie, and for you, she is going to be so much better off with me surely, you can see that?" asked Liz as she sat having her coffee with her son.
"No, because every time you and dad fight I can see my baby sisters heart brake just a bit more," he protested, frustrated by his own indifference over the matter of where his sister should live and with whom. "Mum I cant let this happen all over again, it destroyed her last time." It had been him who had had to sooth her back to sleep when his dad had been in prison and she had woken screaming for him. No matter what he was not going to let her get in to that state again.
"But I want her here, where I know she is safe." she said to him.
"And dad wants her with him. And what's more this routine is working for her. Mum, she loves you but she and dad have been together ever since she was born. She adorers him, mum please let her be." he begged her, only to notice she had tears in her eyes.
"And what? She doesn't love me like she loves me?" Liz pondered in her own distress.
"No, but she is just such a daddy's girl, and you know that. She is never going to want to be apart from him really."
"So what I risk some thing happening to her again. Her being hurt again? What if she had tried to walk back alone? Any thing could have happened to her Steve. No I won't let her get hurt. I love her."
-
Christmas was strange that year.
With no Liz in the house when Katie woke up and with Andy away, Steve and Jim were the only ones watching her opening her presents.
Her mother came round later in the day, and Katie wished she had been there when she had got up but she was beginning to get used to it at last. Life had changed. She had to get used to it.
New Year was the first time when Katie finally stayed up till mid night with her father.
"Happy new year!" she said as she hugged him smiling, as they watched the hand strike twelve on there clock. People out side begun to pour in to the street.
"Happy new year and birthday wee lass." he said as he hugged her back.
It was the quietest new year he had ever had in his life because he had always out with Elizabeth but now, he was just home with some tinny and his daughter but he was happy with that. She was his every thing. And he knew this might be the last one had her with him for. If he and Liz really did go to court.
"Six, how can my baby girl be six already." he asked.
"I am not a baby any more dad!" she said giggling to him.
"Not to yourself, but I promise you are to me and always will be."
When he looked at her some times he still saw that weak little scrap of life in the incubator who had had to work so hard to keep going. Who had needed his protection…she was always going to have it.
As far as he was concerned she was always going to need it.
"Right its mid night, so It is time for you princess."
"Before I get in cant I have just one present dad?"
"No you can not!" he laughed. "You have to have a sleep kid. Then, your going to have a best sleep ever."
-
That January Katie swore turned in to one of the coldest she had ever had.
Not only because the weather was freezing but because she found it rather lonely. With her mother fighting the custody battle, and her fathers mind always on some thing else, what ever it was she did not know, she found it rather hard.
Jim was of course thinking about the wedding which was coming up so soon. With Fiona, the women he felt so passionately for going to go and be another mans wife.
He couldn't stand it.
And so he begun to try and contact her more and more before the day of the wedding but nothing worked. And the more he focused on his passion the more he again forgot his daughter.
"Dad?" asked Katie one morning.
"Can I go and stay with mummy for the night?" she requested.
At least when she was with her mummy she got a bit of attention and they had fun still, unlike when she was with her father.
The worse thing for her was the way he reacted to the question.
She remembered a time when he would have done anything to have her close but then he simple nodded in agreement, and it hurt the little girl. Why didn't he say no? He was meant to say no. They had had such a good new year. And now he was pushing her so far away she could barely retouch him.
-
"But mum he is so off with me all the time. Did I do some thing?" asked Katie.
"No baby. But your dad I guess it would seem has a lot on his mind at the moment." said Liz as she hugged her.
"I know he does…but I miss how close we used to be! He hasn't even been giving me a story before bed mum!" she complained, and Liz realized how hurt she was. It was written in her face, and visible in her eyes.
"Sweet. Just be patience."
As far as Katie knew there was nothing to be patience for.
Slopping off to bed as her mother told her too she felt utterly miserable. She felt as if she had done some thing still.
Deirdre looked at Liz, who was looking pensive.
"So do you think I might just have a point to trying to get custody now?" The mother of the McDonald children asked.
She swore some days she wished she had never even met Jim.
He had taken her eldest son away from her. He and there youngest boy were forever at loggerheads, and now to add to the list he wasn't being the father he had used to be to Katie.
"There your family. I guess you have to do what is right for them." He had always been so patience and trying with her. She had never thought she would see a day when he rejected his wee lass. It was so wrong what he was doing to her. And now she thought it was her fault. It so wasn't.
"Yeah I do. You'd do the same if it was your Tracy. And Katie is still so young…new. She shouldn't have to go through being second best to what ever is on his mind!"
Deirdre had to say she agreed with her friend on this occasional.
For a few more weeks Jim's behavior remanded a mystery to his ex wife and his daughter until finally they got some answers on the days of Fiona and Alan's wedding.
He tried to stop it. He was in love with her. And Liz felt her heart break when the news came to her.
She had never wanted to hear Jim was in love with another. It was easier when he was not. As long as they had been split, nearly two years now, she wasn't ready to hear that.
But she ha nearly no time to mend her heart for worry of his. With the rejection he had to face from Fiona had a strong effect. He pushed every one away.
Even his most precious daughter, whom he had always been so close too. And it killed Katherine, whom became ill from worry for him.
"I just don't know why he is so off with me Steve, I can't understand what I did." she tried to explain as tears cane to her eyes.
Steve for his part no longer has any regard for his dad.
Jim had bloody well known of his own love for Fiona and yet he had gone ahead.
His sister was hurting again though, and that was his main worry. She was six! She shouldn't be going through all this.
Hugging her tightly, he kissed her.
"It isn't you. You've done nothing wrong Katherine."
When he had been young he had heard the phrase saying people might be victims of there times and circumstance. He hadn't understood till he had had his sister who was most certainly a victim of hers.
-
"Jim please come out and talk too me!" said Liz.
He opened the door but he was not going to leave number eleven where the curtains had been drawn ever since he had made a fool of himself.
"You have got to stop this, your going to self destruct." She said to him desperately.
"And so what if I do?"
She shook her head.
"You know what, your not half the man I married Jim. Your not. Look at you. This the man who fought me when I tried to abort his twins. The man fought so hard in the army to hold down a job and be a good husband and daddy. Well you are not the first any more, and you clearly don't care about being the second. But it's me who tucks Katie in at night now. Me who has to hear her cry in to her pillow because she wants her daddy!" she shook her head. "Why are you doing this to her? I don't need you but she does! And she loves you so much" she pleaded.
It was then he looked up and she saw he had tears in his eyes.
"When are you going to stop her tears?" She begged. She couldn't stand to see her baby so sad.
"I can't go out. I am a laughing stock."
"Not to her and she is the only lady you have to love and she will never reject you. She loves you."
Katie was thrilled. Here she was at the park with her daddy and he was in a good mood. For the time being it seemed what Liz had said to him had had a effect.
He thought, for saying it she had to be mad. She was fighting for custody and yet she still tried to recoil him with his daughter. She must care, really care. Not for him, but for the little one.
As much as he did…
He knew he was not the best dad in the world even though he tried to be. He knew he had made about a ton of mistakes lately where his daughter was concerned.
However, when the end of the day came, Liz was right. Katie was the only women he had to really love and care for.
As he sat on the bench and watched her play he could help but think of how things had been when she had been a baby.
When he had had his wonderful wife by his side. How had he ever let her go?
He had had it all. And like the ruddy fool he was, he just let it go.
Why had he thought it been so bad if his wife had had a job She had always had his tea waiting for him when he got in. And he reminisced about the days when Katherine was a baby in her play pen and the first thing he did when he got home was pick her up an d cuddle her and tell her how much he had missed her when he had been at work. He couldn't remember the last time he had held her and reassured her like that now though.
What was he turning in too?
Katie was the only good thing in his life left. And he like the fool he was had nearly lost her.
"Daddy?" she called to him softly.
"Yeah sweet heart," he said as she came over to him.
"Are you ok?" she wondered out loud.
"Of course I Am." he nodded, as lifted her on to his lap.
"It's just that - you and mummy aren't getting on again, and she says when I am in bed and she thinks I can't hear her -" Katie trailed off.
"What does she said?" he asked.
"That your drinking too much and that your go funny." she explained as best she could. She didn't like to hear her mother talking like that.
"Well I guess that was a bit of the truth so it was Katherine, but daddy's back to his old self now. I am not going to be stupid again baby."
"then can I come home again?" she asked.
He wanted with all his heart to say yes and to take her home in that moment. But even he was not that stupid to think Liz was going to be happy with that now.
With the custody case going through he had to be sensible. He had to keep Elizabeth sweet.
"Not yet sweetie, dad has a few things he has to work out so he does. But I bet this weekend mummy will let you come over for pizza and a video yeah? How does that sounds?" he asked.
She nodded. "Good."
It seemed things again were turning about for him.
He knew he had lost Fiona and he was never going to get her back not that he had ever really had her. But he did have his daughter and Liz didn't seem to be so annoyed at him when he had dropped his daughter home even agreeing that he could have her for pizzas and a video with out any hesitation.
When he got back to number eleven the first thing her felt like doing was celebrating the success of the day and so he took a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard under the sink and started to pour himself a glass.
All he had to do now was sort things out with Steve. Maybe he'd go up and see him on the building yard now. What harm would it do?
-
In a state of shock, Steve sat in the hospital. He didn't believe what had just happened.
Why had his dad come to him then? He had been so drunk. Of course his own bitterness and resentment towards his dad had got in the way over Fiona and the two had begun fighting and now he was in a coma
His dad in a coma.
When they had begun fighting he had just been so mad. And then he had seen his father fall from the scaffold. It was all such a blur.
His mother was going to be so upset. What if they lost Jim? Katie would never get over the loss of her father.
It was then that Liz ran in.
"Love, are you ok?" was the first thing she checked.
"Yeah I am. But dad isn't." he told her and she nodded. He had only given her the basics on the phone.
She shook his head.
"He'd been drinking hadn't he?" she asked.
Slowly, Steve nodded.
What an idiot was her ex husband. God knows he needed a good kick up the back side one of these days. Hopefully she would be the one to give it to him.
"How bad is he?" she said to him sharply, angry with Jim. He was such a fool…
"Mum he is in coma. They don't know whether or not he is going to be ok yet." he said to her.
Her faced paled.
He nodded.
"You mean that he might not get better – he may not wake up?" she said.
Walking out of the hospital ward she felt tears sting her eyes.
He was her sweet heart, no matter what he had done over the years and the thought of life with out him completely was unbearable. They had been in and out of each others life for over twenty years. They had so much history. Every major event of her life had him in it. The thought he may go away for good terrified her, possibly more than it would Katherine.
-
The next day when Katie got up she found her mother was gone.
"I am going to be taking you in today ok?" said Deirdre as she got her breakfast.
Katherine was, for now, fine that. If her mum had had some thing to do that was fine. It was no big deal.
That morning was just like any other except it was with her aunt instead. In fact she had quite a good time with Deirdre; it was nice to have a change from her mum.
Deirdre just as Liz had requested said nothing to Katie of the accident.
As long as she could keep her daughter calm and in the dark the better as far as liz was concerned.
But if he did die then she knew she was going to have to tell the girl and that would break her heart.
No, there was nothing for it. He had to get better. He just had too.