







Before I go onto age 9 and my Mother's parade of men let me retouch on my Mother and my Dad. My Mother was in a full swing of removing us from my Dad. He would call and she would hang up on us telling us it was the wrong number. I remember thinking that may be some restaurant had the same number as us because we got a lot of people calling us for no reason. Her other favorite was to get into arguments with my Dad when she came to collect us from his place. Screaming that we weren't going to visit him again, and if she got into an argument with him when she was dropping us off then we didn't get to stay at all.My Dad had started seeing Anne at this stage. She was younger and much better looking so naturally my Mother hated her. I was in awe of her. She had long red hair and was like this big sister I never had. She liked flowers and painted my nails and she had body glitter, she was just all these nice things that I had never encountered before. I think she was the first person who inspired me to let the little things be the food for my spark. See after everything I could find the hope to make a fire but I could make a spark for my little light and so long as I kept that I wouldn't die inside. She seemed to glow all the time and I wanted to be like her, to learn how to glow, to inspire other people the way she inspired me. I don't always think of her but she's one of the people who kept me alive.But back to Dad, two things happened that year, my Mothers all out war against my Dad which culminated in her having me confront my Dad over missing my birthday party and my Dad leaving to live in another state as my Mother was relentlessly trying to have him arrested for anything. The birthday party incident was a doosy; My Mother sprang a birthday party on me, I knew my birthday was coming up but I didn't expect her to throw me a party, at times I was convinced my Mother was unaware of my existence. Now why the sudden party? Well to make sure my Dad couldn't come of course! I remember my Mother sitting me down and telling me Dad was coming over after school the following week and schooling me in what I would say to him, how I would demand to know why he didn't come to my birthday party, to ask him why he didn't care about me. My Mother stood there staring at my Dad with a smile as I repeated what she had told me to say and not once did he say a word against my Mother. He took it, I think he knew what had happened. We all knew, even I wasn't actually upset or crying because the whole charade seem ludicrous to me. I knew Dad loved me and my Mother kept him away so what was the point.My Mother won though, he really went away. Before my ninth birthday I stood in my Grandparents driveway and watched my Dad leave with Anne in their red mazda to live in Sydney, two states away. And then I was resigned to my Mother's antics winning. This was the world I lived in now and that was that. I didn't become empty so much as guarded. Even from that age I was going to be OK, somehow I knew the world was so much larger than just this and I was going to get out. I didn't know when or how but I would be OK if I kept going. One wonders if this was the time I had spent hiding in churches and talking to priests, no matter what happens if you are good you will go to heaven, so I just had to have patience and everything would work out. I didn't know anything about heaven except that you aren't sad anymore.Thinking about that I guess my legendary patience to a combination of my Mother and the Catholic Church.Substitute Girl Card #5 the SaintMy Dad did come and visit that Christmas though, he came and stayed in our house while my Mother stayed with friends. He spent the first few days cleaning the house as my Mother (shock -horror!!) wasn't big on the home upkeep. I remember my Dad saying that was ironic as she was allergic to penicillin and he was reasonably sure that's what was growing in the bottom of the fridge. My Dad tried, when he visited us that Christmas I knew he tried. After that trip my Mother really did start to get worse though. But hey, she got better on the neglect side of things, she knew I existed again because I had a target on my back as far as she was concerned.