Amy looked was less grumpy when she came back from school. She sat on a kitchen chair, swinging her legs and chattering about her new chemistry class and a friend she had made. I nodded and smiled, hoping she wouldn't notice how distracted I was. I made dinner for the second night in a row. Grace was still weak and groggy, and said she didn't want anything. I didn't feel kind enough to push her into eating. It didn't seem fair to make Amy cook when she'd been at school and I hadn't. In the end, though, Dad never showed up for dinner. Amy and I took our plates into the barely used parlour and ate watching our ancient TV.
We had three and a half channels to choose from here in Arncliffe. Reception was poor not good for terrestrial TV. As the ancient vicarage was a listed building, Dad was supposed to ask permission to get a satellite dish. Of course, he hadn’t bothered. On a good day you could get channel five and decent reception on channel four too, or so Dad had said back when Grace and Amy whined about moving. I’d only managed to tune the set into BBC Cymru, hardly a bonus since I didn’t speak Welsh. Today was a ‘snow-day’ judging from channel four. Amongst our limited choices, we found a program by David Attenborough, who was on one of his BBC sponsored nature jaunts. It was blissfully normal.
We still hadn't seen Dad by bed time but the plate of food I'd left in the oven to keep warm was gone. Apparently parental duties no longer stretched to every night. I shrugged. He was rarely completely present when he did eat with us. On balance it was more relaxing without him.
I Belong to the Earth (Unveiled Book 1) Page 27