Bell goes to speak but dad simply raises up his hand to stop her dead in her tracks, she looks shocked but in a very un-Bell like fashion, she submissively follows his lead, very few people are brave enough let alone stupid enough to put her in her place. "I would like to speak to my daughter".

Bell obediently leaves to the courtyard, not quite leaving but just far enough so that she can reach me if she needs to, she gently shuts the glass doors behind her and perches on the smoker's bench.

Dad drags a bar stool and places it directly in front of me, "so she told you". The quiet reside in how he said those four words killed any hope that this was all fabrication on Bell's side and with that went my last shred of normality. The person who once was my everything; father, home, protector had now been replaced with a stranger, this person I didn't know.

"Please Jane give me the chance to explain" he pleads trying to touch any tiny bit of love that still is inside of me for him. I feel like my link to humanity is becoming like an elastic band, it's been stretched to snapping point, there seems fewer parts I can relate to, the darkness and deception of people leave nothing more than a bad taste in my mouth.

"Explain but after you leave" the words are cold, I'm rung dry of all emotion and now simply living on autopilot. I know he hears me but doesn't react to my words I can see and smell hope on him wafting towards me like soothing lavender but his hope is wasted. I realise the more closed off I become to my human emotions the sharper my evolved senses are becoming as if the two struggle to coincide with each other.

"Jane I will tell you everything, I have always intended on telling you, it's just as the years rolled on it became harder and harder to find the words to explain it to you, to make you understand, I never meant to hurt her". There, in that moment, I know he's telling the truth I can smell roses as they start to bloom, I know he did love her but somehow it still doesn't feel enough.

"I met your mother when she was sleeping rough I didn't realise at first, she would come in the late-night cafe I'd go into most nights after I'd finished my shift. I did late night factory work so I'd grab a coffee before I'd go home. She was always sat in the same corner, nursing a cup of tea whilst reading the paper, from the first moment I saw her there I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame, it took me weeks before I gathered the courage to speak to her but as soon as I did that was it I was hooked." He smiles as if the memory of her brings him so much joy like the very first time he set eyes on her. "Your mother was beautiful and smart but when you scratched deeper she was also scared, vulnerable and broken a little by life, she never said what had happened but she was marked by it like an invisible scar, that scar runs very deep but every evening I would look forward to my coffee with her, it was the highlight of my day, the reason I got up, went to work. I was treading water until I could see her. We'd chat for hours about this and that, I didn't realise she was pregnant with you she always wore this oversized coat that swamped her tiny frame".

Bell has crept in unable to bear not hearing about her daughters last moments on this earth, she hovers holding back by the doors but desperate to take in and absorb everything.

"And that was us and how we went for weeks until one evening she wasn't there she never came, that rolled on for a few days. I left my address and phone number with the cafe owner just in case she came in and I missed her. I didn't hear anything for two weeks, she didn't come into the cafe, I'd pretty much given up hope and shelved her in my mind as the one that got away until I came home after a shift at work and she was sat there by my front door. She was black and blue all over, her beautiful blue eyes puffy and bruised, her usually shinny hair dull and greasy, her face gaunt almost haunted. she was so tiny I wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let her go".

Bell had now stepped forward unable to control herself. "Who had done that to her ?"

"Her dealer" His words hissed out of him like poison in his mouth he wanted to spit out. "I knew I had to protect her from these people and from herself so I asked her to stay with me ... this is when I found out about you Jane, when I found out she was pregnant. It just made me want to keep her safe even more, so that's how we became our little dysfunctional but happy family and it worked for a while... until".

"Until what?" I interrupted

"I had begged her through her pregnancy to stop the heroin, she told me she couldn't HE had told her it was the only way that you would be ok. I assumed she was scared she'd miscarry from the detox it would put too much strain on her and you, so we agreed she would cut down and once you were born she would stop, fresh start for us all, she tried and it was working until HE came to see her when I was at work. I don't know how he found her but it was like a darkness suddenly consumed her, she became withdrawn and started using again, I could see the sickness spreading through her again but this time it was different, it was destroying her. I told her I wouldn't stand by and watch her kill herself I couldn't put you Jane through that, as much as I loved your mum I had grown to love you, I had to put you first. She promised it would be the last time, I could see how ill she was getting so I convinced myself it would make her better and it would be the last time, I insisted on getting it for her even though it goes against everything I believe in, I didn't want you or her around those kinds of people so she gave me the address and I scored for her. She said she would wait until I was home from work to use it so I'd be there to look after you Jane, but she didn't - I don't know why but I came home and found her ....."

"Dead" I finish his sentence I remember that moment because it's scratched on to my soul like a darkened smudge I can't erase, try as I might.

"Who was HE "Bell intervenes "Her dealer, a fellow junkie".

"HE is Janes biological father," dad angrily growls, as if referring to this man in this context burns in his mouth and sears in his throat.

"Who was he? Have you met him?" Bell interrogates him.

"No and I wouldn't want to, he was the reason she had the drug problem, why would I want to meet the monster who put poison into the body and mind of my beloved angel until he rotted her inside out" Dad takes a deep breath to regain his control. "She never said a lot about him but the little she had said made me believe that he was the one who had broken her".

Bell starts to silently cry, her guilt running down her cheeks in the form of tears. "I'm afraid if anyone was guilty of that it would be me, she deserved a better mother than I was able to be".

"No Bell, she knew what you were the good, bad and ugly, she said you had your reasons but nevertheless tried, but him .... HE gave her false hope, he promised her the world and delivered her nothing, when she needed him he turned his back on her and watched her fall to the ground to smash into tiny unfixable broken little pieces".

My voice cracked and hoarse from crying, I ask him the one question that has tortured me since Bell had told me the truth. "Did you look after me because of guilt ?"

His face distorts in anger, anger because how could I think such a thing let alone say it to him. "No I have looked after you, loved you, tried and sometimes failed to do the best by you because you are my daughter -you will always be my daughter, Im your father, we may not have the same blood pumping in our veins but we have a bond and nothing and no one will ever break that, like no one can ever take away the love I feel for your mother that is ours and ours alone".

With that, he falls to his knees, my gentle giant. I know he's telling the truth because his heart is breaking in front of me and for the first time I comfort him, I hold him while he cries. He cries for the loss of my mother, the hardships he's endured to protect me and the secret he carried with him that tortured his mind.

In between his sobs, he holds my face between his giant hands. "Jane please forgive me, please forgive your mother. We both got so many things wrong, made bad decisions but never you, you were the one thing we both got right ... our daughter, she loved you more than you will ever know, more than life itself".

I see Bell turn away from us to hide her crying, for she is unable to share her raw pain with anyone other than herself and that is fine, her pain is her own.