I have lots of memories of the time that my parents were together. As a child, I was very fortunate I got to travel the world with them and experience many things. My dad was not always around, though, because he was in India or elsewhere working (or doing other things I found out about later!), and I remember the excitement I always felt when he came into town. We lived in a huge house and for the majority of the time it was just my mom, my grandmother (dad’s mom) and myself, and at times the house could feel quite empty. But when my dad was there, the whole house would come alive and had a kind of energy it didn’t otherwise have.
We also had a second home near Southampton on the south coast of England, and my mom, my dad, me and a bunch of my parents’ friends would go there on weekend trips. I loved it because we were all together.
Then I remember going on a couple of trips where it was just my dad and me. One of those was to South Africa, which was a great place to go as a kid. Being in the African bush, going on safari and seeing all the amazing animals in the wild were experiences that I absolutely loved. At the time, I didn’t really question why my mom wasn’t there, and I guess I saw those trips as father-son holidays. Either that or I was so caught up in the excitement that it probably didn’t even register to me that she was absent! It certainly wouldn’t have crossed my mind that perhaps the reason my mom wasn’t there was because there might have been issues between the two of them.
The next distinct thing I remember was my dad showing me photographs of two little girls. One was a toddler named Leana and the other was a newborn named Tanya. He told me these two girls were my sisters. I don’t think I fully comprehended what that meant at the time. After all, I was eight years old, so what is one really meant to think or say? I do know though that my mom was upset that my dad had told me about them without her being there because she has since said that she had wanted them to tell me together. Obviously my mom was well aware of my dad’s new family long before I was.
Oh, and just for good measure, let me tell you that the woman who was now my dad’s wife used to be a friend of my mom’s. How’s that for Shakespearian drama?
Of course when you’re that young, you don’t really think twice about this kind of thing or appreciate the possible implications of finding out that you actually share your parent with two other people and the effect it can have on your psyche. So I just went along with it all.
Two other moments during this time stick out for me as well. The first was finding a book in my mom’s room that was titled something like “How to Deal with Divorce”. At first my mom sort of brushed it off when I asked her about it. Then she said she had bought that book for me to find and read.
The second was that I had to go to court. I was in year four at school at the time and thought it was great because it meant I could miss a day of school. When you are that young, any excuse to get a day off from school is a win, even if it means going to court because your parents are going to divorce!
Looking back now, not only does it seem absurd to drag a child to court, but it also may well have been one of the things that triggered my irrational fear of going to jail. In court, I was taken into a room without my parents. A lady who must have been one of the attorneys asked if I was aware that my dad had a new partner. Now, I knew about my stepmother at this point, but I said, “No, I don’t know.” The lady looked a little confused by my answer. After all, that’s why I was in the court, right? But it turned out that I was the one who was confused. I thought the word “partner” meant business partner, not “significant other”! Oh, the innocence of youth!
For years, I couldn’t understand why on earth I was dragged to court that day. Only when I started writing this book did I ask my mom about it. She told me that my dad had wanted me for half the school holidays, but she was apprehensive about me meeting my dad’s new family. It was, therefore, decided that I should be the one who got to choose. No pressure for a nine-year-old! Whilst I still think that taking a nine-year-old to court is not the smartest thing in the world to do, I do understand that it was done to protect me and my interests. As the saying goes, “Everyone has their day in court.” I guess mine just came a little sooner than most!
The point when it all truly became real was when I was finally introduced to my dad’s new family. It was Christmas day, 1996 (my dad had got his wish; I was spending half the holidays with him). I knew I had two half-sisters, but I don’t recall being told prior to this trip that my dad’s new wife (my stepmother as she now was) also had two children from her previous marriage – a boy and a girl who were about my age, and who my dad had effectively embraced as his own.
Excerpted with permission from If I’m Honest: A Memoir of My Mental Health Journey, Sidhartha Mallya, Penguin India.