「故事·听力」My Father Left Us... And Returned After 5 Years
My Father Left Us... And Returned After 5 Years
Hello, this is Julia, and her father left her family when she was ten...and returned five years later. How and why did it happen? It’s hard to understand it even now. But she’s going to explain it as best she can.
As you can imagine given what happened, her parents’ relationship was always...difficult. Julia still remembers how, when she was a ten-year-old girl, they would argue all the time and she didn’t really understand why, because she was just a kid. But then one day, her father was just gone...he just left us and went somewhere else.
She doesn’t know why, but at the time she was sure it was her fault, and for a time she cried constantly, especially when she realized he wasn’t coming back. She was angry at her mom too, but of course it wasn’t her fault.
She always has been (and still is) a hard-working woman, and after her father left them, she worked two jobs just to keep them warm and fed.
Five years have passed since then, and Julia had gotten used to the fact that her father wasn’t coming back. But you know, by this point things were alright. She had a good relationship with her mom. And, well...a guy from her school named Dennis had become very interested in her, and she liked his attention and liked him, although she was still a little bit scared to start dating.
Basically their life had become very stable, but then one day her mom told her that her father called her and that he wanted to come over. Julia was shocked, and her mom said that if she didn’t want it to happen, they could just say “no.” But deep down, she did want to see, him and she wanted for everything to go back to normal. It was funny that even after five years she still sensed that something was NOT normal.
After a few days, he showed up. It was so...weird seeing him after so many years. He was a little bit fatter and a little bit balder, but he was still her father. It was surreal! They sat down in the living room and he started to talk.
He said that he had been in a very bad place when he left us. He had had problems at work and felt that he wasn’t helping them, and he’d therefore started to drink; all he’d wanted to do was run away from his problems and responsibilities. But now he wanted to come back. He wanted to correct his mistakes and promised to be a good father to Julia.
Her mom really didn’t want to take him back, but Julia was so happy and she wanted to give him a second chance. So they came to an arrangement that he would live in a hotel for a few weeks and if everything went well, he would move back into their house. She was sooo happy!
Her dad was actively looking for a job, and he was there every day, helping around the house, repairing stuff, even cleaning. He was a little bit reluctant to talk about the previous (what he called “dark”) five years, but he said he was not proud of whom he’d been before. He said that the worst thing about it was missing seeing Julia grow up. Even her mom started to soften up towards him a little bit.
Julia was feeling so happy and confident; it seemed that her life had become so much better. In fact, she even started dating Dennis. She knew that this was a good time for it because everything in her life had started going smoothly. Basically, she stopped being scared of relationships like she was before. And Dennis was wonderful!
A month or so passed, and then everything...changed. Her dad still couldn’t find a new job, and he almost stopped helping at home. He mostly watched TV and drank beer, and if her mom tried to talk some sense into him, he would get very annoyed and angry, and would say that he had tried very hard and that they should appreciate his efforts. Julia was on his side and told her mom that she shouldn’t be so mean to him. But then she came to her senses after one very awkward evening.
She finally decided that it was time for Dennis to meet her parents, so they planned for him to come for dinner. At first everything went very smoothly; her mom really liked him, and well, there was a lot to like – he was a very smart and well-groomed guy. He was the opposite of her dad, in a way...and her dad noticed it.
He started to make fun of Dennis, saying, “His hands are too soft, boys were different back in my day.” And he continued to make these awkward “jokes” until her mom politely said to him that it was time to stop saying those things, AND to stop drinking. Her father then got really angry at her, saying how she had ruined his life and...a lot of other really unpleasant stuff.
Up to that point, Dennis had been very quiet, but when her father started to say stuff about Julia’s mom, he interrupted him and said that it was not very nice and he should stop...