Free When Daddy Comes Home by Toni Maguire

what had led up to her husband’s absence was a closed book. Ruth was determined that not only would there be no mention of the truth, but that the past was completely rewritten and her part in it whitewashed out. She had never stood by, wilfully blind and silent, as her husband abused their daughter over a period of years. It simply hadn’t happened.
    For Antoinette it seemed that the last two and a half years had vanished. Once again she had become a girl with very limited control over her life. Now that her parents were reunited as a couple, they had become powerful again whileshe was locked outside their magic circle, floundering on her own and completely at their mercy.
    The lodge no longer felt like the home that Antoinette and her mother had created. Joe’s presence had invaded it: overflowing ashtrays were left by the side of the wing armchair for his daughter to empty; newspapers, open on the sport pages, were tossed to one side while his cup stained with the residue of his numerous cups of tea, made for him by either Antoinette or her mother, sat on the coffee table. There was now a shaving mug in the kitchen and a grubby towel that Antoinette could not bear to touch lay on the draining board.
    Just as two and a half years ago Ruth’s happiness had been dictated by her husband’s moods, so it was now. Her happy smile gradually faded, to be replaced by either frowns of discontent or the expression of the long-time sufferer that Ruth believed herself to be. Antoinette hardly ever heard her humming the tunes of her favourite songs now. Why couldn’t her mother see it, she wondered. Had she forgotten the simple pleasures of the quiet, harmonious life that they had shared before he had come back? Why would she wish to be back in his control, the whole house governed by his moods and the aura of grim power that surrounded him? It seemed impossible to Antoinette that anyone would want to choose this existence over the one that they had enjoyed together before her father’s release.
    It wasn’t as though there had been any material gain, either. Although her husband got a job as a civilian mechanic working for the army, and was given hours of overtime, somehow his contribution to the housekeeping did not appear to make Ruth’s finances easier. In fact, with one more mouth to feedand the forty-cigarettes-a-day habit that Joe had, money seemed even scarcer.
    Four weeks after he returned home, he announced that he had to work at the weekend. ‘Leave early and back late,’ he had said with his jovial smile.
    ‘Oh Paddy,’ she had protested, using her nickname for him, ‘not on a Saturday. You know I’ve the weekend free.’
    The coffee shop where Ruth was the manageress catered to the professionals who worked a five-day week and without their custom the owner had decided to close after lunchtime on Saturdays, a decision popular with both Ruth and her daughter.
    Seeing the suspicious look that his wife was giving him, Joe’s good-humoured expression changed to one of irritation.
    ‘Well, we need the money, don’t we? Sure, and aren’t you the one who’s always saying you want to move into a larger house in Belfast?’
    Antoinette saw her mother’s face take on the resigned expression that had become familiar over the last few weeks as she replied, ‘Yes, dear.’
    ‘Well, then, what’re you complaining for? It’s time and a half at the weekend. Maybe if that big daughter of yours contributed more instead of spending it all on those clothes and that damn stuff she puts on her face, I wouldn’t need to work so hard.’
    Antoinette waited for her mother to contradict his accusation. She had contributed to the running of the house ever since she had been able to. But Ruth said nothing.
    Although she knew that Ruth had always yearned for a house similar to the one she had grown up in, a gracious Georgian three-storey building, it was the first time Antoinette had heard that plan voiced. It seemed to her that