Content Warning: Mentions of animal cruelty (accusations) sexual assault, abuse and drug use. Please take care if you decide to read.
I rarely feel able to write anything. I articulate so much in my head, but opening my laptop or even my phone makes my head pound.
Still, if I don’t capture this now, I might never—and I think it matters.
I’ve pondered visiting my dad’s “mistress” a few times. Coincidentally, I drive close to her house on the way back from therapy. I probably would have gone if my self-confidence had been stronger. Somehow, though, I restrained my impulsivity.
Yesterday, I rang her.
I’ve seen her a few times over the years. She’s always been welcoming and kind, though I sense she enjoys being seen as the morally right person. She likes her parenting ability ego stroking.
My two half-sisters are close to her. They spend long periods back at home. The eldest is a crack and heroin addict—funny, likeable, and someone I feel for. She has ADHD like me, and like our dad. The youngest has severe epilepsy. Neither has ever had employment.
I was taught to think we were better than them, until his funeral when my mother grouped me together with them and said i was as “bad”. I was taught to thank my lucky stars I had her and that I’d not had him in my life.
I don’t think I’m better than them. I know I’m not. They have a close and loyal family network which is much more than we ever had and certainly more so than we do now.
My dad died of a heroin overdose in 2019. I knew little about him, and what I do know wasn’t good. But he did send me a birthday and Christmas card every year when I was a kid.
My mother always said she ended their marriage because he got another woman pregnant. I’ve wondered if he actually felt relief—if he gladly escaped. Either way, it ended, and he spent many years with his new family and two daughters before that relationship too fell apart.
My mother told me horror stories about him: controlling, coercive, violent, bullying. What shaped my view most was her claim that he was cruel to animals. She said their dog was terrified of him yet protective of me. That he stole a duck from a pond, killed and cooked it. That he drowned his new partner’s dog in the river. It all seemed specific enough to be true, but I never asked how she knew.
Later, in the final years of my relationship with her, she told me he had raped her—oddly, just a month after I confided in her about my own sexual assault.
That’s why I rang his “mistress” yesterday. Because although I know he wasn’t a pillar of society, I’ve only ever had my mother’s opinion of him.
She confirmed what I suspected: he hadn’t killed their dog. She laughed in shock when I mentioned the rape allegation, saying it didn’t fit the man she knew. She spoke in detail about the pets they had, about what an animal lover he was.
She confirmed what I had worked out myself: he wasn’t the best dad or partner, but he wasn’t all bad either. He wasn’t rotten to the core, as my mother had me believe. She used to insult me with my likeness to him when ever I put a verbal toe out of line, stood up for my self or dismissed her vicious and provocative words.
This leaves me with more information to process, what I hope is the truth and the closest I’ll get to it.
My dad was flawed, broken, and destructive, —but not the monster I was taught he was.
All in all.
I’m glad I called her.
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