Part14-where I find a stranger on my doorstep....

Well, I've made it to another Friday, thank goodness! Another tough week down-many, many more to go.

Apart from now being the subject of office gossip (more on that later), I also feel like a total train wreck! I haven't slept properly in weeks and I still cry quite often. Most nights when I get home from work I bung some frozen crap or other in the microwave and then cry for the rest of the night. Sometimes I can stop long enough to catch an episode of Coronation Street or Come Dine With Me, but generally it's just a permanent flow of constant weeping. You'd think Mark had died, not just left me!

Anyway, last night was a bit different. My dad came over.

It was so surprising! He NEVER visits. He especially never visits without mum. Although we were pretty close when I was younger, things changed when I became a teenager and it wasn't cool to hang out with your dad. Plus, I suppose I blamed him in some way for me ending up with the mother from hell! (Surely if he'd managed to mix his gene's with some other, better, woman, I'd have still been born me? After all, I am NOTHING like my mother so I must be predominantly his gene pool)!

So anyway, there I was snivelling away alone having just polished off a box of micro chips and a pot of Ambrosia custard (I do hope Gillian McKeith isn't reading this!), when the doorbell rang.
I contemplated not answering but I sort of thought it might be Cass, coming to say sorry or something, so I wiped my wet eyes best I could and opened up.
There was my dad, standing on my doorstep, a big fake smile on his face.

He said he'd come because he was worried about me: Couldn't bare to think of me on my own and heart-broken. I didn't know what to say to him to begin with so I made him a mug of tea.

Then we sat and watched Corrie together in a not-particularly-awkward silence and I didn't cry at all.
When it was over dad turned to me and said:

'She doesn't mean to be the way she is you know'. And I knew he meant my mother.

'How do you put up with her'? I asked. Were we bonding now? How weird?

He looked so forlorn as he shrugged and said:

'She wasn't always like that. She used to be the woman I loved. And anyway, wasn't it worth it to have gotten a wonderful daughter like you'.

I remained silent and said nothing about my gene theory.

'Try not to be too hard on Mark, or too upset about what's happened love'. He said then, and took me by surprise. 'Sometimes things are just over, and it's best for everyone in the long run to call it a day. In a way, he's been very brave'.

I wanted to scream at him and ask him how brave it was to marry someone and then, less than three years later, break your marriage vows. But I didn't. His words had stung me and I knew there was truth in them to some extent.

My poor dad, I thought. He wishes he'd been brave enough to leave mum.

'I probably shouldn't say this, but, it's never too late you know'?

He nodded, understanding my meaning, and suddenly part of me felt I'd had a lucky escape with Mark. I'd hate to think that staying with me might have made him as unhappy as my dad is with mum. Mind you, at least dad didn't go out and find himself a floozy called Kate!

So dad went, and I was left thinking about what he'd said, and I realised something that I hadn't allowed myself to think before: Mark could have lied and cheated on me forever.
But he hadn't. He'd chosen to tell me to my face that he no longer loved me so that I could move on and live my life. I suppose I should be grateful to him to some extent.

Then again, maybe he wasn't thinking of me at all and just wanted to be with 'Kate' so badly he was prepared to hurt the only person that stood in his way.

Maybe I'll never know. But I like the first theory better...

The office has been hellish today thanks to Pam and her big mouth! This is the sort of rubbish I've been listening to all day:

'I heard your husband's left you Ruby-you must be devastated'

' I heard your fella's been doing it with a girl nearly half your age, but you mustn't feel humiliated'!

'Ruby, is it true you were involved in that wife-swapping situation with Pamela, her husband and their best friends'?

Thank God I'm going out for drinks with Lola tonight! Hopefully that'll take my mind off my spiralling-out-of-control-life few a few hours, at least...