Sunday Life: The truth about my dad that was my shameful secret
Before she left Alice Springs and everything turned sour between us, Mum had given me the most beautiful bunch of native flowers for my birthday. Now, months after she’s gone, the flowers still sit drying in a vase on my dining table. They are fragile, brittle, but still beautiful – even if it’s a beauty only I can see. I can’t bring myself to throw them out because they keep a little bit of her with me.
Mum immediately set about inducting me into a world of strict rules to protect “the secret”. This was a world where my mother reigned supreme because she’d been pretending the truth didn’t exist for so long. No one knew about Dad – Mum never slipped up and I had to be the same. No one could ever know my father was a murderer. Not in a year, or 10 years. Mum always impressed on me that this was truly a secret I’d have to take to my grave – a big ask for a six-year-old.
On the first school day after I found out I was a murderer’s daughter, I ran down the steps from the classroom to see Mum standing in the playground with her hands behind her back. Her face was searching for mine in a stampede of small bodies clothed in bright yellow uniforms.I saw her before she saw me, and I ran to her, delighted; she was rarely in the playground to meet me. With one arm, she scooped me up on her hip, and then she swung her other arm around to show me what was behind her back.
“Good. I knew I could trust you. That’s why I got you these flowers. Always remember, Rennie, no matter what, it’s just you and me against the world.” I smiled up at her. I liked it when she said this. It meant her friends and boyfriends and anyone else were unimportant to her compared to me at that moment. Mum trusted me more than anyone else, like I was a grown-up. No other kindergarten kids’ mums brought them flowers to school or trusted them with big secrets.
I watched Mum closely as she moved through her life, as she experienced one relationship after another, remarried, had my sisters, and finally appeared happy. But behind her smiles Mum and I both knew the truth still rattled around in her bones. Her despair was never far from the surface and more secrets always seeped out of her whenever we were alone.
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