The Return Of Number 3

Number 3 has come back to live with us. Mother has asked him to. He is dying. He has cancer. Mother fusses around number 3. I don’t understand her behaviour as she had separated from him and had other boyfriends since he had been gone. But Mother loves a drama. Special nurses come to the house to see to Number 3 and special meals are delivered for him.
My sister and brother avoid Number 3. I help Mother with him, she expects me to. I heat up the special meals over a pan of boiling water, sometimes I give Number 3 rice pudding. He can’t eat very much and he is very thin, weak and frail. He looks like he is dying. As I feed the rice pudding into Number 3’s shrivelled mouth I realise that I am no longer afraid of him.
I think about going to meet my Father in London. Mother tells me that I must never tell Daddy about any trips I may take to see my Father. When I ask her why not, she tells me that it would break his heart to know. I ask her why? Mother replies that it just would ,adding that I should keep my mouth shut.
I know how to keep my mouth shut, to keep a secret.
After all no one knows my secret. That I pull my hair out by the roots.