My father left when I was three, so when I was growing up, it was always just mum and me. The two of us were very close; sometimes I felt like mum was more of an older sister than anything else and she made a lot of sacrifices to be the best single parent she could be, giving up promising career promotions, material treats for herself and dating.
The biggest thing my mum gave up was finding another husband and I certainly didn’t encourage her. I wanted it to be just the two of us forever!
So you can imagine how threatened I felt when Mike entered the scene. Mike moved in next door, newly divorced and from interstate. The sparks between him and mum started to fly almost immediately. I would watch sullenly as Mike came around to ask for advice about the city; where the best restaurants were and which day was garbage collection day. At 15, just starting to be interested in boys myself, I could see where it was all going.
Sure enough, within a couple of weeks Mike was asking Mum to go and eat at those restaurants he’d been inquiring about and I knew I had to put a stop to it. I hadn’t had a father for 15 years and I didn’t need one now! And I certainly didn’t want it to be Mike who, with his tall, dark and handsome looks and kind and generous personality, seemed way too good to be true. I was determined to show my mum that he was only going to break her heart.
I started off small. On the nights of her dates I would suddenly get sick so that the date would need to be cancelled. I figured Mike would only be so patient before he moved on to someone who didn’t have a troublesome daughter for baggage. That worked for a while, but it was only a matter of time before Mum wised up to my deceit. Even worse, Mike actually seemed to understand! Apparently he had children too, who lived with their mother interstate, and he understood that it was hard to see your parent dating again.
When I found out that Mum and Mike started seeing each other over lunch instead, when I wasn’t around, I was furious. But by then it was already too late. Within a few short months of Mike entering our lives, my worst fears were realised: he and my mum were engaged! I knew I had to up the ante if I was ever going to hope to sabotage their relationship!
I pretended to be really nice to my future stepfather as I planned my course of action. The only thing I could think of doing was to put a wedge between them. They were both pretty stressed out about the wedding so I knew that was going to be my target. I had to disrupt the wedding somehow, but I had to do it so it looked like Mike’s fault.
It wasn’t too long before the perfect opportunity came up. Being a wiz with computers, Mum decided that Mike should just make up the invitations on the home PC to save money. They worked on them for hours, changing fonts and coming up with fancy lyrics to invite their friends and family.
“I’ll print them off tomorrow and post them,” Mike promised, when they were finally perfect. I watched them secretly from my chair in front of the television. I knew just what I had to do!
“Goodnight!” I announced cheerfully, letting them both know I was going to bed. I had to be above suspicion. I lay in bed for an hour, waiting for all the lights in the house to be switched off, then another half an hour to make sure all were sleeping. Then I got up and went to the computer. I opened the invitation file and in 30 seconds, I had changed the date of the wedding — to two weeks later! I had no idea if Mike would check the invitation again before he printed them, but I was willing to bet he wouldn’t. They’d already spent so much time on them.
As the weeks went by, I waited to see if my plan would work. RSVPs began pouring in, but nobody seemed to realise that everybody’s wires were being crossed! I couldn’t wait until they did, and for the fight to begin! But it never did: nobody ever caught on! I began to get nervous as I realised the wedding was, in fact, going to go ahead — and it would be ruined!
I’ll never forget Mum’s face when she realised, the night before the wedding, that all the guests who were supposed to be coming to the rehearsal dinner, were not coming at all! But far from blaming Mike, she blamed herself — for not proofreading the invitations properly! And Mike blamed himself too!
With a very small group of the family and the close friends who were in the know because they’d been invited verbally, Mum and Mike got married anyway. I spent the day overwhelmed by the guilt that, for nothing, I had ruined her special day.
Picture posed by model.
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