Liv's Story

Liv couldn’t really remember her mother ever being well. From the time she was little, it seemed she was always being told ‘Keep quiet, your mother has a headache’ or ‘be especially good today, your mum has had a bad night’.

Sometimes she used to sit on Mum’s bed and they would read stories and sing songs. If she got too noisy or annoying, her mum would say she needed to rest again now and would Liv please go outside and play for a while.

Liv remembered her fifth birthday. She was a big girl now – old enough to be a school girl. Being a grown up (well almost) meant she would be much more able to look after Mum. She learnt how to make cups of tea, fill her hot water bottles, and brush her hair. Maybe if she looked after her really well, Mum would get strong and healthy.

There had been times when Mum had been well enough to be up and about. Liv remembered a time when they had gone to the beach –her Mum and her Dad – all three of them together. They had built huge sandcastles, played in the water, climbed on the rocks and bought chocolate ice creams. She had wished that day would go on forever.

When Liv was 11, Mum got pregnant. Liv was delighted at the idea of there being a baby in the house.Mum didn’t share her excitement, and was really sick for most of her pregnancy. The birth was difficult too, and the next day Mum looked really awful, but the baby was beautiful and Liv helped to choose the name. They decided to call him Will.

Though there were times when Mum seemed to enjoy the baby, she found him really tiring and was pleased to hand him over to Liv when she got home from school. Liv became an expert in bathing and feeding him, changing his nappies, and coming up with all sorts of entertainments for him. She also took over a lot of the household chores to relieve Mum of the burden.

At high-school, this became more difficult. There was so much else to do, like homework and hanging out with friends. Now that she was at high-school, Liv wanted to spend much more time doing things like choosing outfits, snapchatting friends her choices and getting ready to go out.

Liv spent hours in front of the mirror dressing and undressing, examining herself at every angle, with and without clothes on. It had been a struggle to get used to her adult body. At first it had been embarrassing. Liv had started to develop way before the others in her class. Kids used to ping her bra and made jokes about her dating the male student teachers. Thinking she was the only one with her period was awful. She was sure everyone would know. Tampons were hard to get used to and pads, she felt, were too obvious, especially during P.E. It had been a real surprise and relief when she discovered most of her friends felt exactly the same.

Nowadays though, she liked her body, though periods were still a bit of a pain. It was fun to explore and touch her ‘new body’, especially her genitals. Now she chose clothes to show off rather than hide her body, especially ones that Kylie Jenner wore.

Often though, when she came out of her room, she would realise she had been needed to help, and wished she hadn’t been so involved with herself. Going out was difficult too, especially if she was invited to stay overnight or go away for the weekend. Everyone told her to go and enjoy herself but she always felt a bit guilty about leaving Mum and Dad to manage on their own.

When Will was two, however, Liv had to help out a lot more because Mum got really sick and had to go back to hospital. Will went to a child-care centre, where Liv collected him from after-school each day, and they both went to visit Mum. Liv tried to keep her spirits up by taking her flowers, telling her jokes and the latest stories about old Buggerlugs, her science teacher. Will demonstrated the new words he had learned and showed Mum his new favourite game on the iPad.

Dad was really busy at work too, and when Liv got home she would often try to get dinner organised. Will would ‘help’ by washing the potatoes or getting out all of the pots and pans ready for Liv to use.

Dad would often be tired and a bit grumpy when he got home from work, but he would play with Will and read him stories while Liv finished her homework. Then she would put Will to bed while Dad did the dishes. It was hard work, but she knew it was appreciated.

Mum was grateful and when Liv and Dad relaxed together on the couch each night after Will was in bed, he would call her ‘Princess’ and tell her it was the best bacon and egg pie he had ever tasted. He would often put his arm around her, and he rubbed her aching back and shoulders, or gently stroked her face.

It was good to snuggle up beside him as she felt reassured by his strong arm. They were both tired and strained and really needed each other now.

One night as Liv leaned against her dad, she felt his hand move onto her breast. This felt quite different and she sat very still.

For the next few nights she felt quite uneasy as she felt Dad’s hand move up and down her body. She wasn’t really sure what to do or say. She just thought she must be imagining it, or that because Dad was so tired, he didn’t realise what he was doing. When she had played with herself, it had been exciting and she was getting similar feelings now. Besides, if she pulled away, he couldn’t help but realise where his hand was.

A few days later, it was a very hot day. Liv was wearing her shorts and she and Dad were sitting on the couch watching Netflix and relaxing with a coke. Dad had one hand on her knee. She froze as his hand started to move up her leg and feel around underneath her shorts. Could she really be imagining this? Dad’s eyes were still on the TV, but he had to know where his hand was this time. Didn’t he?

Eventually she got up and said she’d have another coke. Dad said he’d have some too, as if nothing had happened.

The next night Liv sat in a chair away from the couch. Her Dad said he was lonely over there by himself on the couch and seemed hurt when she was reluctant to come closer.

She kept her distance all week. He seldom looked at her or spoke to her. She started to feel really bad and the next night, wearing jeans and a long sweatshirt, went back to her old place on the couch.

This time though, when she felt his hand near her crotch, she pulled away. Her Dad held onto her hand told her they needed to stick together now and comfort each other. It was hard for a man when he didn’t have a woman. She had always been his little woman, but now as he fondled her adult breasts, she was really a woman.

During the next few days, Liv felt really irritable. She was impatient with Will. He cried a lot which made her feel really bad. She often found herself staring out of the window at school, having no idea what the teacher was talking about, or realising the class were doing something she’d missed the instructions for.

The effort of putting on a happy front for Mum was really hard. She would maintain it until she got out of the door and then feel herself crumple.

She stopped spending time with Dad at nights. She would mutter something about having homework to do (which wasn’t a complete lie as she was falling behind on school work), and escape to her bedroom. She and Dad found it hard to look at each other these days and her skin often prickled when he came close. She knew though, that his eyes followed her when she wasn’t looking. She felt guilty for pushing him away. She could understand his need for comfort. She needed some too.

When Mum came home, things became easier again. She still needed a lot of rest, but it was a relief not to have to visit each day and Will became full of smiles again.

Liv forgot about what had happened between her and Dad. He wasn’t around so much anyway and when he was, they didn’t seem to have much to say to each other.

It got harder for Liv to maintain the smiles and jokes that they’d had at the hospital though. Liv found herself snapping back at the littlest things, not answering or even going into fits of rage. Mum couldn’t understand the changes in her. Neither could Liv.

At the end of the term when her report came home, all of her grades were down and there were lots of comments from her teacher like ‘could do much better’ or ‘disappointing’.

Her parents weren’t angry. They understood how difficult it must have been for Liv to do as well as usual when she had the extra burden of looking after Will and Dad. They felt that the school holidays would give her the well needed break and she’d be back to normal in no time.

Unfortunately, this did not seem to be the case. Liv felt unwell a lot of the time and often didn’t get out of bed until after lunchtime. They took her to the doctor, but he didn’t seem to know what was wrong with her.

Partway through Term 2, Liv’s class watched a video about incest. In it, a girl was talking about her father having intercourse with her. He was now in prison. She was very tearful as she spoke about the feelings she had. Liv wanted to get up and leave, but she felt stuck to her seat.

For days the video kept haunting her. She too had all the feelings the girl was talking about but she couldn’t understand why she should feel that way when her Dad hadn’t had sex with her. She thought of telling someone, like the girl in the video had, but that seemed impossible. She kept trying to block the thoughts out and tell herself she shouldn’t be feeling what she was feeling. It didn’t work.

Inside, her head felt like a drier.