Free Our Father Who Are Out There...Somewhere by AJ Taft

love for ever, David.’”
     
    Lily puts her hands over her ears. “Too much information.”
    Jo pulls a face. “I wonder what he does, your dad? I mean he clearly earns a fortune.”
    Lily reaches for a letter. “I don’t know. But if he was that rich when he was married to my mum, it’s no wonder she was pissed off.”
    “And why hasn’t he paid any to you? I mean when your mum got divorced she should have got half, shouldn’t she?”
    “I don’t even know if they got divorced.”
    Jo opens another envelope. “What about this?
     
    ‘You are the woman of my dreams.
    Thank you so much for last night.
    I will remember it forever.’”
     
    Lily isn’t listening. Her eyes scan the letter in her hand. “God, this one’s from my mum:
     
    ‘I love you so much I can hardly breathe.
    I yearn to be with you.’”
     
    Lily drops the letter like it’s contagious. “Yeah well, that’s what killed her. I don’t know if I can read any more of these.” She spots an envelope addressed to her mother in a different, loopy handwriting. Lily squats on her haunches, elbows over her knees, rocking slightly as she opens it. “This one’s from my Gran:
     
    ‘Dear Pamela. I’m sorry about today. I thought I’d try writing instead, in the hope that maybe you’ll try to understand, what I’m saying isn’t a criticism of you. I’m trying to help. I can’t bear to think of you in this state when I’m gone. I’m not blaming you. I will never forgive that man for what he’s done. After all I did for him; he’s broken my heart too. And I haven’t the time to recover. But you do. You have to carry on, Pamela, if only for Lily’s sake. You’re still young. Please don’t let life pass you by. It doesn’t last forever. I don’t want to fight. Please don’t let it end like this. Mum.’”
     
    Lily sits back with a thump on the floor. The silence broken only by the faint hiss of the gas fire. “God, he really screwed my family didn’t he?” She looks at the postmark on the envelope. “1972, that’s the year she died.”
    Jo lets the letter she’s holding fall onto the mattress. “It’s so sad. No one recovered.”
    Lily’s eyes are bright. “It’s like he stole everyone from me. He didn’t just leave me, he took everyone with him. He left me nothing. Where are all his relatives? Not one of them kept in touch with me. Where are my grandparents? Why didn’t they send me the odd birthday card? Cousins, aunts, uncles; I had no one.” Lily draws breath and allows her anger to rise like fire. “I have no one. Who am I going to spend Christmas with? I’ll end up with bloody Bert next door.”
    “You can come to ours,” says Jo.
    Lily remembers Jo’s spluttering indignation when she had come back to Leeds after spending three days with her family last Christmas. It had taken her almost a week to stop regaling tales of how her brother had nicked her Billy Bragg album, and how her father had insisted on them going to church on Christmas Eve, despite the fact he wasn’t religious, because his young wife wanted them to sing carols. Jo had had some great argument with… was it an aunt or a cousin, about politics or racism or something. She had come back to Leeds a ball of anger and frustration.
    Jo stands up. “At least we’re friends. I know it’s not exactly family.”
    Lily pours them another drink. She stands up to hand Jo the mug. They dwarf the dingy room, with its nicotine striped wallpaper.
    “Do you know what I want? I want him to get some idea of consequence. That he can’t do what he did and it not to have any consequence.” Lily’s words are slurred. “When I was eight years old, I came home from school to find my mum lying on the kitchen floor with her head in the oven. Afterwards, this doctor pressed a bottle of tablets into my hand and said, ‘make sure your mummy takes two every morning when she gets up and two before she goes to bed.’ And I was too embarrassed to tell him my