*The Daughter*
PART II
These went on for a while and Mei thought that things finally settled down when she was about 10. Her parents were finally getting a divorce, custody of the three children were all given to her father. In a normal divorce, normally the mother gets the children, especially when the father clocks a mean 16hours work per day. In Mei’s case, it was slightly complicated. Mei has come to learnt that all those frantic attempts to file for a divorce were so her mother could continue to be with another guy. It was only logically she didn’t want a bunch of kids tagging along with her.
At 10, divorce was still a rather big English word to Mei, she first learn the word through watching a Channel8 drama serials – she learned English by reading the subtitles so she knew the word long before she could pronounce it. At 10, she hardly knew anyone in her neighbourhood school that has experienced what she did. At 10, she felt really lonely and “despised” to be the odd one out. She started to withdraw from her group of friends but only one whom was closest to her.
She would leave the house earlier in the morning to meet Ling at her home en route to school, and then together, they will go to school. And after school ended, she will loiter at her place till about evening time... she had no choice but to go home because it was not nice to impose on people’s dinner and family time, and also this is the only time someone would be coming home already – this means that she will not be alone in house.
Mei and her brothers had to hide from their father whenever they went out to meet their mother… it was like police and thief game, the thief gets interrogated whenever he returns home. Some time when Mei was 11, her mother asked to meet her at a place around Rochor Canal road; she has never ventured so far beyond on her own. She only knew to take the bus number her mother instructed her to, and counted the number of stops to alight. It was a “messy” place there.
Mei’s mother was staying at a rental room above a shop house, with an Uncle. She told Mei the room number and she walked along the corridor searching for it. Along the corridor, there were women, scantily dressed standing at the “door” which was replaced with just a curtain. The place reeks of cigarettes and stale beer. She then realised what kind of rental room those were.
She was initially saddened to see her mother resort to this state. The pity only lasted a while when her mother asked her to fetch something for her in the wardrobe. Mei had come across a drawer full of different assortment of condoms, many condoms – she had seen enough, she felt disgusted. To bear the information that her own mother was making out with another man, other than her father, was too much for the girl all of 11years – she left hastily. She wandered around Rochor Canal road for a long time, not sure of where to go to, or how to go to anywhere.
When Mei got home, somehow her father knew where she went. Although she was never physically not emotionally close to her Santa Claus father, she ran into her father’s arms and cried loudly as if she was in pain. That evening, the silence between the father and the daughter was broken. For hours, he sat down cross legged, leaning against the wall, Mei sat on his lap. He rocked to n fro gentling, with his strong arms and big fat fingers, he held her tightly and patted her to sleep... Although Mei was already 11 when this happened, she felt like she was only one- a helpless one...
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