Free Stolen Girl by Katie Taylor Page B

slapping her on the bum when she washed up at the kitchen sink, too. It was as though something had shifted overnight.
    We survived like this for the next month or so. My parents still went for the odd night out but they never went together anymore. Mum would go out with friends to the pub or she’d pop in to see them on the way home from work, but she never went out with Dad. When she was at home, she always looked so distracted. Before, she’d notice everything but not anymore. Now it was as if she was just going through the motions of family life, playing her ‘role’ of mother and wife but her heartwasn’t in it, it was obvious. Whenever she cooked it was as if she was standing in our kitchen but her mind was a thousand miles away.
    One day as I approached home on my way back from school, I could hear shouting. I was startled when I spotted Mum and Dad standing in the front of their bedroom window – it was wide open and they were screaming at one another. Dad’s voice was so loud it carried down the street – everyone could hear him. I cringed when I noticed a few of our neighbours had already come outside to get a better look.
    Mum and Dad were struggling with something. Mum was trying to pull something out of Dad’s hands but I couldn’t make out what it was. She was pleading with him as if she was pleading for her life.
    ‘Don’t, Steve. Please…’ she begged. Her voice was pitiful.
    Something flashed as it fell out of the open window. I held my breath. For a moment, I thought one of them had slipped and fallen but then it landed with a flutter and I realised it was a bundle of clothes – Mum’s clothes. I gasped. Mum’s best dresses were tangled together in a mess; one even looked as if it’d been torn at the side. More followed. Soon dresses, shirts, trousers, even her underwear was billowing around on the front lawn.
    Oh my God,
I thought,
Dad has gone mad!
    A few of the local kids pulled up on their bikes to get a better look. They started pointing and laughing at something and then I saw it – a pair of mum’s knickers caught in a bush underneath the front window.
    Thud!
    More stuff fell to the ground: make-up, a hairdryer, even a few of Mum’s ornaments, which she kept on the bedside table.Then I noticed Dad hanging out of the bedroom window, throwing Mum’s stuff out as wide into the air as he could. His eyes were wild with fury.
    ‘Please, Steve…the neighbours!’ Mum screamed.
    My heart lurched. I wanted to die right there and then. More front doors opened and now people were standing in their gardens watching the show – the one featuring Dad having some kind of meltdown. I was terrified. I’d never seen him this angry before. Normally when he lost his temper Mum would calm him down, but not now – he wasn’t listening. Then it struck me: maybe he’d listen to me?
    I ran in through the front door and bounded up the stairs, two at a time, until I reached the landing. Dad was still manically pulling things off hangers inside the wardrobe. The wooden drawers had already been yanked opened and cleaned out. He’d emptied each and every one of them.
    ‘Not that – please! Steve, please, think of the kids…’ Mum pleaded.
    ‘I don’t care,’ Dad was shouting. ‘You’ve made your bed and now you’ll have to lie in it.’
    ‘Dad!’ I screamed from the bedroom doorway. ‘Please stop!’
    The sound of my voice made my father freeze to the spot. He turned to look at me, his eyes wild with anger. But it wasn’t aimed at me, this was about Mum – this was something she’d done.
    ‘It’s not me, Katie, it’s your mother. Ask her, go on, ask her what she’s been doing!’ Dad shouted, pointing over at Mum. His voice was hoarse, bitter and angry – something he never was. He spat the words out as if they were venom in his mouth. It frightened me because I’d never heard him sound like this before.
    Tears brimmed in my eyes; they were tearing each other apart. Whatever it