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      "body": "<html>\n<p>“There’s something wrong,” Teddy tells me. “Mum’s sorting . . . through stuff.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Of course she is,” I reply. &nbsp;“She’s got almost a century of Gran’s memorabilia now occupying their double garage, the spare room and half the lounge room.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum’s mother, our Gran, died three months ago. &nbsp;Gran always said that a nursing home would be the end of her – and it was. &nbsp;Gran might dispute my logic, but I also believe it had something to do with the fact that she was ninety-seven, had one kidney, and a somewhat recalcitrant liver. &nbsp;&nbsp;While her death may have been expected, it was quite understandably traumatic for Mum; even more so because Mum’s not one to share her feelings. &nbsp;I can totally see why it’s taken so long to stroll down what must be an acutely painful memory lane. &nbsp;Besides which, Gran was a notorious hoarder; though not the kind of hoarder who amasses valuable antiques; more the old bus ticket, shopping list and scribbled note kind of collector - stuff with sentimental value, the type of stuff you’ve got to hold, read, and reminisce about before finding the courage to relegate it to the ‘throw out’ pile. &nbsp;Sorting through that kind of stuff takes time.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Yeah, I guess,” Teddy says, clearly unconvinced. &nbsp;He pauses then adds, “It’s just that she finished Gran’s stuff six weeks ago. &nbsp;Now she’s started on everything else.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Hhhm, probably just got the bug. &nbsp;You know, simplifying, de-cluttering. &nbsp;It’s excellent feng shui to have a good clean out.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I guess,” he says even less certainly. &nbsp;“I’m just worried how far this clean out is going to go.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Well, Mum is her mother’s daughter so it’s probably only going to get as far as the spare room cupboard . . . at worst the garage.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Teddy doesn’t laugh. &nbsp;Maybe it is more serious than I’m assuming. &nbsp;Teddy, his wife Joelene and their three children live five houses away from my parents. &nbsp;This means they have babysitters on tap 24-7. &nbsp;The trade-off is that they get all the dramas first-hand. &nbsp;A dying rose bush, a burnt roast, a cancerous growth identified and removed, a dispute over a neighbour’s fence, the death of a beloved pet or life-long friend are all played out with the emotional restraint – and illogicality - of a daytime soap. &nbsp;I’m no longer afflicted with a dying-to-know type of curiosity, but rather the cautioned interest of a player who’s seen several theatrical seasons come and go. &nbsp;Same themes. &nbsp;Same cast. &nbsp;Same outcome. &nbsp;It gets predictable. &nbsp;But if Teddy’s noticed something out of the ordinary, well, maybe there is something worth investigating.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I sigh. &nbsp;“Okay Ted, I’ll call her, ask her to a girlie lunch. &nbsp;We’ll order a mid-range Semillon blanc, a seafood platter and she’ll sit back, relax and tell me all that’s going on in her world.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“You think so?” &nbsp;Teddy asks, half hopeful, half doubting.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“No,” I tell him.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Prying information out of my mother is like trying to extract a beloved teddy bear from the chocolate-covered fingers of a screaming three-year-old. &nbsp;&nbsp;She’s not given to revealing her inner emotions – at least not in a way that might give me a hope of understanding. &nbsp;The closest she’s come was a couple of months ago at the nursing home. &nbsp;Gran was slowly slipping away. &nbsp;Mum was pacing and wringing her hands. &nbsp;I tried some comforting words like, “It’s for the best”, “She’s in pain and really, you don’t want her to live in pain” and finally, “You know you’ll meet her again . . . er. . . . in Heaven. &nbsp;I mean, not soon of course, but eventually we’ll . . . er all be reunited . . . a family . . . a whole family . . . together forever.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum stared at me, her expression a jostling of emotions that stretched mere seconds into minutes. &nbsp;Then she erupted into a drought-breaking deluge and ran down the hall to the Ladies. &nbsp;One of the nurses had to crawl under the door and administer a sedative. &nbsp;&nbsp;Needless to say, I’ve been reluctant to probe the subject of emotions. &nbsp;Despite the desperate need for rain, I certainly don’t need a repeat performance. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“But look Teddy,” I say, “since you’re obviously concerned enough to pick up a phone and dial my number, I’ll willing to give it a shot.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>As usual when I meet my mother, I have chosen my wardrobe carefully. &nbsp;There certainly won’t be a repeat of the Cyndi Lauper mistake of 1987. &nbsp;&nbsp;No siree, no spiky technicolour hair, dog-collar belt and thigh-exposing mini here. &nbsp;My youthful exuberance has been replaced with a pair of black woolen slacks, an apricot-coloured cashmere top and a tailored black jacket. &nbsp;I’ve chosen my shoes and handbag, both patent black leather, to match. &nbsp;I even sacrificed a ‘can’t miss, must-see, thrilling, new blockbusting’ episode of Law and Order to strategically daub globs of hot wax on my eyebrows and rip the errant hairs out by their unsuspecting roots. &nbsp;And although I am generally not inclined to wear much more make-up than a hurried slash of lipstick, I have taken great pains to rifle through my bathroom cabinet and resurrect some foundation, blush and mascara. &nbsp;So great is my disguise that Marc, my part-time lover, says, “Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I leave a smudge of Autumn Rose on his cheek and flounce, as best as a retired tomboy can flounce, out of the kitchen. &nbsp;Marc grabs my hand and swirls me round. &nbsp;How romantic, I think, and smile widely. &nbsp;Marc points his index finger through my lips and rubs my front teeth. &nbsp;“Lipstick,” he says.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I approach the café – mum’s choice - wonder if there is hidden meaning in her selection, then chide myself for reading too much into too little. &nbsp;It’s a café, I tell myself. &nbsp;Now if it had been a hotel with banquet hall and side chapel I could easily anticipate a “when are you going to get married” speech. &nbsp;Since my brother bless him, bless him, bless him married Joelene, and Joelene bless her, bless her, bless her took it upon herself to bear three wonderfully boisterous little boys, Mum has eased up on the idea of encouraging more grandchildren. &nbsp;It frees her up to focus on why I haven’t found myself a lifelong mate, conveniently forgetting that since my first experience of having a lifelong mate did not go so well, perhaps I’m a little more cautious about leaping into that supposedly final frontier. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Besides, I’ve been sorting through some of my own stuff – emotional that is. &nbsp;My therapist, a spritely young nymph in her mid-twenties, has helped me unlock a startling truth: &nbsp;My first marriage was a mere convenience. &nbsp;Apparently my tying the knot with Steve was a futile attempt to stop my mother trying to squeeze me into a mold of herself. &nbsp;This, it seems is a trap many women fall into. &nbsp;We want to please our mothers and think that giving them the wedding they’ve always dreamed of will be just the ticket. &nbsp;Unfortunately, that’s simply the tip of the iceberg. &nbsp;After the wedding comes the perfect house, then the perfect promotion – for hubby – then the perfect first child, the perfect second child, even the perfect pet. &nbsp;The challenge is that nothing in life is perfect. &nbsp;Our mothers, having obviously had relations with the opposite sex, should be well-versed in this natural imperfection. &nbsp;Alas, it seems that imperfection applies only to their lives. &nbsp;Their daughters’ lives will be a magical fairytale. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Ah yes, a magical fairytale that ends in a place called Splitsville. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It was a nice thought though. &nbsp;I could have used a Prince Charming rather than a Prince Cheating. &nbsp;&nbsp;According to little Miss Psychology I am wracked with guilt over my failure to produce said fairytale ending. &nbsp;This is why I am flitting all over town trying to snare the perfect mate. &nbsp;Though of course the perfect mate does not exist. &nbsp;So basically I’m looking for someone worthy of my mothers’ approval all the while knowing such a beast is as available as a living unicorn. &nbsp;It’s totally illogical. &nbsp;And still I dart around town playing the dating game, hoping I’ll meet The One who evokes an unwavering need to don a frou-frou frock and throw a bouquet. &nbsp;When the bells, wedding or otherwise, don’t start ringing I become despondent and abandon all hope – and the relationship. &nbsp;Oh yes, it all makes perfect sense now. &nbsp;What a relief! &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Not only that, Miss Psychology’s discovered another gem: &nbsp;I hide my true thoughts and feelings behind a sardonic humour. &nbsp;“Oh Piffle!” is my only comment to that. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Besides, Marc loves my sense of humour; says it’s what attracted him to me. &nbsp;At thirty-eight, Marc is a struggling artist who barely ekes out an existence teaching artistic expression to senior citizens and pre-schoolers. &nbsp;He has absolutely no long term prospects and, unless he “commercialises his art by selling his soul to tasteless corporate ignoramuses who wouldn’t know real art if it leapt out of their Perrier and snorted some of their choicest cocaine,” he’ll never be able to keep me in the style to which my mother would like me to become accustomed. &nbsp;All this makes me deliriously happy. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Little Miss Psychology claims I’m perversely gleeful because I’ve finally found someone who’s life is shittier than mine. &nbsp;And she’s right. &nbsp;Marc’s life is so far down the toilet he’s rounded the s-bend and is heading into the sewer pipe. &nbsp;I, by comparison, am merely poised on the edge of the bowl wondering if to pee or get off the pot. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Miss Psychology also reasoned that once I’ve sorted through any lingering mother-daughter issues, Mum and I will be best buddies able to share our deepest, darkest secrets. &nbsp;&nbsp;I protested, of course, that my mother firmly believes I already tell her everything. &nbsp;Apparently it was Miss Psychology’s turn to proclaim, “Oh piffle!” &nbsp;In her ordered mind, my mother is not only fully aware, but quite lamenting of the distance between us. &nbsp;&nbsp;She tells me this so often, I begin to wonder if it’s true. &nbsp;Have I been deluding myself that Mum really didn’t know there was more to my life than the trivialities I’ve shared? &nbsp;Could she really be patiently waiting for me to feel comfortable enough to come clean on all my escapades? &nbsp;Arrgh, I shudder at the thought. &nbsp;Surely a little mother-daughter distance is a good thing. &nbsp;Just imagine the mess if all those skeletons tumbled from the closet. &nbsp;&nbsp;Still, I might find a viable spine among them and finally be able to live my life totally guilt-free. &nbsp;Oh yeah, a girl’s gotta have a dream.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>When I arrive, Mum is sitting in the alfresco dining area under an expansive umbrella. &nbsp;She waves at me, then stands to kiss my cheek.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Hallo, love,” she says.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Hey Mum.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>We sit. &nbsp;Mum pours me a glass of water and hands me a menu. &nbsp;I pretend to peruse it, though really I’m trying to read her body language. &nbsp;She’s looking at her own menu, running the index finger of her right hand down the items. Her eyes dart to assess the price. &nbsp;Her eyebrows rise. &nbsp;Her index finger continues down the page. &nbsp;Seems normal enough. &nbsp;Though in reality, that means nothing at all. &nbsp;My mother is the el supremo of poker faces. &nbsp;Anything less would ruin the element of surprise.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Sometimes the dramatic suspense is not at all worth the wait, like the time she told me Joelene was pregnant. &nbsp;I’d promised the expectant parents that I wouldn’t spoil her fun and thus endured fifteen minutes of the “You’ll never guess what?” game. &nbsp;Then there was the time when Uncle Freddy ran off with a Presbyterian minister’s son. &nbsp;Now that was a bit of fun. &nbsp;Though if I’d realized that Uncle Freddy not only sewed cabaret frocks, he also wore them, I may not have been as surprised. &nbsp;But since our family is so, so boringly staid, so, so mundanely normal it never occurred to me that we would have a member of such vibrancy hidden in our midst. &nbsp;Too late now. &nbsp;Freddy and his lover escaped to San Francisco. &nbsp;The only hope for some real shenanigans in our far-too-sedate family and we’ve surrendered him as an export.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Our waiter’s shadow falls across the table. &nbsp;Mum leans away a little and looks up at him. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I’ll have a toasted turkey and cheese sandwich with mayonnaise,” she says.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Ham and cheese toasted, a side of chips and a glass of orange juice,” I add.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>He takes our menus, leaving only the carafe of water and two tumblers to command our attentions. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Any developments with you and Philip?” Mum asks. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I frown. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“That’s his name isn’t it? &nbsp;Philip, or Phil? &nbsp;The stockbroker?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Oh, I realize, I haven’t got around to telling her about Phil. &nbsp;Admittedly it has been three months, but it was also around the time that Gran’s condition began to deteriorate. &nbsp;Since Mum was very emotional and her mother’s death is infinitely more poignant than another of my failed romances, I declined to mention Phil’s departure from my life. &nbsp;And really, is there a pressing need to do so right now? &nbsp;Despite Miss Psychology’s prodding to sort through the issues and blaze the trail to a more open and honest mother-daughter relationship, I think whatever Mum’s hiding is far more important.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Fortunately I’m mid-sip so I simply shake my head and continue slurping water. &nbsp;Mum raises her eyebrows and sighs. &nbsp;Every now and then I have the urge to ask her why marrying me off is so important. &nbsp;It’s not like I need the financial support and even more pointedly, it’s not as though her own marriage is an example I’m breaking my neck to emulate. &nbsp;Oh sure Mum and Dad have been together for over forty years, but I’m looking for quality over quantity. &nbsp;I want more than grunts across the breakfast table and a habitual peck on the cheek. &nbsp;Sometimes I wonder if she resents my single status; if marrying me off isn’t just a ploy to make me as miserable and bored as I would be if I were in her position. &nbsp;What is it they say, “a trouble shared is a trouble halved”? &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Instinctively Mum refills my glass. &nbsp;“How’s work?” she asks.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Fine,” I say. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum smiles tightly. &nbsp;Asking about work is a dead-end because, although she can ask general questions, she really has no idea what I do. &nbsp;Admittedly, sometimes neither do I. &nbsp;Officially I’m a public relations professional. &nbsp;Unofficially I’m a writer, image consultant, events co-ordinator and general punching bag. &nbsp;Yes, yes, shout at me, let those frustrations fly, as long as you promise to be sweeter than fairy floss in your press conference. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I’m working on a new account. &nbsp;One of the big construction firms.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“So things are going well?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I shrug. &nbsp;“Sure.” I</p>\n<p>’m about to inquire after the wellbeing of her roses when our food arrives. &nbsp;The waiter takes a step back and asks, “Can I get you anything else?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum picks at the edge of her sandwich, breathes deeply and says, “Yes. &nbsp;I’ll have a scotch and soda.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>Though I joked with Teddy about Mum and I sharing a bottle of wine, my mother and alcohol have never really made merry on a regular basis. &nbsp;In fact, the last time I can remember Mum having a tipple was when I was in high school. &nbsp;She went to a farewell luncheon for a friend and came home plastered. &nbsp;It was weird watching my always-together mother leaning into the taxi to pay the driver, then tottering up the driveway on clearly uneven heels. &nbsp;Dad stood at the top of the stairs, arms folded across his chest, barring the doorway. &nbsp;Mum leant on the rail at the bottom of the stairs, stared at the petunia bed for a moment, then raised her head and said, “Don’t start.” &nbsp;Then she stomped up the stairs, passed Dad and into the house. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Dad released the obvious tension by throwing pots and pans around the kitchen. &nbsp;I could almost see the lasers shooting from Mum’s eyes into his back, just daring him to speak. &nbsp;It was like she wanted him to challenge her, and yet, at the same time, wanted nothing resembling a confrontation. &nbsp;Dad, for his part never said a word; just made scrambled eggs on toast for me and Teddy. &nbsp;Then he sighed, shook his head and locked himself in his workshop. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>After Teddy and I had eaten, I went to find Mum. &nbsp;She was slumped in a lounge chair nursing a glass of sherry. &nbsp;&nbsp;I guided her into the bedroom, took off her shoes and eased her head onto the pillow. &nbsp;Suddenly, she grabbed both my arms, focused intently on me and said, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take”. &nbsp;Then she passed out. &nbsp;Though at the tender age of fourteen &nbsp;I hadn’t had much to do with alcohol consumption, even I had to agree that she seemed to have reached her limit. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>Mum continues to pick at the crust of her sandwich. &nbsp;Surprisingly, Teddy was right; clearly something is up. &nbsp;And equally as crystal, I must bide my time. &nbsp;Don’t want to scare her off. &nbsp;I might never uncover this juicy kernel that’s causing so much angst. &nbsp;What can it be? &nbsp;I wonder.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Maybe Mum and Dad can’t decide where to go on their next holiday. &nbsp;Or maybe the prize-winning roses aren’t going well. &nbsp;Perhaps she wants to re-decorate and they can’t agree on colours. &nbsp;She might want a cat. &nbsp;Dad would never agree. &nbsp;He’s a dog lover who claims a life-threatening allergy to felines. &nbsp;Ah, the trials and tribulations of the long-married couple. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Of course my view is from the outside looking in; a position which makes it easy to criticize. &nbsp;I’m sure they look at my relationships - my flip-flopping around commitment, my inability to settle down and raise a brood, even my propensity to take group holidays with like-minded adventurers stalking through rainforests, scaling rock faces or zooming down boulder-filled rivers on foamy white waves - roll their eyes and openly wonder what they did to raise a daughter so intent on spinsterhood.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>And equally I’ve got to admit, my parents have stuck at it. &nbsp;They’ve never holiday’ed apart. &nbsp;Never stormed off to huffily spend the night at a motel. &nbsp;Never had affairs; in fact, never seemed to be remotely interested in any other members of the opposite sex. &nbsp;Never missed an anniversary dinner. &nbsp;Never invited people round, then argued over the lobster bisque. &nbsp;Wow, how can you do that for forty years? &nbsp;I’d have blown a gasket a long time ago. &nbsp;Still, maybe that’s what true love is and I just haven’t found it yet. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Anyway, since something is obviously bothering Mum, I take a deep breath and dive right in to a mother-daughter heart-to-heart.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Roses going okay?” I ask.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>She nods. &nbsp;“Oh yes. &nbsp;Fifty blooms this year.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Impressive.” &nbsp;I sip my orange juice. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum looks down at her plate. &nbsp;There’s only one eighth of her sandwich left. &nbsp;She stares at it, as if strength of will might make it expand and thus delay the revelation she’s clearly dreading.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Here, have some of my chips,” I say. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>She smiles meekly. &nbsp;“Thanks.” &nbsp;She nibbles alternately on chips and sandwich, like a mouse, though probably taking much smaller bites. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I’ve planted a herb garden,” I say. &nbsp;“Parsley’s doing okay. &nbsp;Coriander’s gone to seed though and the snails have eaten the basil. &nbsp;Water restrictions don’t help either.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I had to water the roses with shower water,” Mum says, staring into a space where she seemingly imagines her blooming charges. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>The waiter arrives with Mum’s scotch and soda. &nbsp;He puts it on the table and she eyes it nervously, reaches for it, holds her hand in mid-air, then takes up her sandwich. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I stuff three French fries into my mouth. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Yes, we’re all having to learn new ways of living aren’t we?” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum looks up like she’s a rabbit chewing at my lettuces and I’ve got a shot gun aimed at her fluffy little cotton tail.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Wh-hat?” She stutters.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“With the drought – we’ve all got to change the way we do things, gardening-wise.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Oh, yes, yes of course. Gardening-wise.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum reaches for the scotch and soda. &nbsp;She sucks in enough air to dive to twenty feet, then in a single swift motion, downs the contents. &nbsp;Before I can propel my stunned mind to probe her on the merits of composting, she grips the edges of her chair and blurts, “I’ve left your father.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>I join my teeth together in a broad television news presenter grin and signal for the waiter. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“We’ll have another scotch and soda and I’ll have a rum and coke.” &nbsp;It’s not that I’m in need of a medicinal bolt, I just don’t think women who have recently left their husbands should drink alone. &nbsp;Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m gob smacked. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“You’ve left Dad? &nbsp;Wow, that’s . . . well, that’s pretty huge. &nbsp;Are you . &nbsp;. . are you sure?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum nods. &nbsp;“Oh yes. &nbsp;I’ve found a little flat, a bed-sit really. &nbsp;I finished moving my things in this morning – while your father was at lawn bowls.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Okay then.” &nbsp;I’m momentarily stymied. &nbsp;“So he doesn’t know?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum shakes her head. &nbsp;“I’ve left him a note.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>After forty-odd years that’s it? &nbsp;“I’ve left him a note.” &nbsp;And hang on, what happened to the ‘til death do us apart crap that she’s always shoving down my throat? &nbsp;Or is there suddenly a statute of limitations on wedding vows? &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I can feel my lifetimes worth of repressed emotions gurgling to the surface. &nbsp;It just doesn’t seem right to be sitting across from my sixty-four-year-old mother who’s calmly confiding that she’s left my father in the same tone that someone else’s mother might announce they’ve cooked your favourite dinner. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>What’s worse is that this revelation makes my entire life a sham. &nbsp;I’ve spent my four decades trying not to stress my parents with too much reality. &nbsp;Oh yeah I told them scumbag Steve cheated on me three times, but it wasn’t three, it was ten and half of those were hookers he paid for. &nbsp;I didn’t tell them that I only found out because he gave me a sexually transmitted disease. &nbsp;Oh no, I’ve been sugar-coating the truth and this woman, my mother, calmly admits she’s left a faithful, financially secure, non-alcoholic, socially acceptable husband with all the sense of occasion of someone proclaiming they’ve bought a new couch. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“You’re upset,” she says.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“No,” I mutter through gritted teeth. &nbsp;“I’m perfectly fine.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“No, I can see you’re upset.” &nbsp;She looks down at her lap and picks at her dress. &nbsp;“I know I’m breaking up the family . . . it’s just . . .”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Breaking up the family? &nbsp;I want to scream. &nbsp;Breaking up the family? &nbsp;God we’re all adults here. &nbsp;It’s not about breaking up the family. &nbsp;It’s about me living a half-lie all my life and finally discovering that all that Brady Bunch niceness was a load of 1950’s Housewife’s Almanac phooey. &nbsp;&nbsp;And what brought this on? &nbsp;This sudden burst of humanity? &nbsp;What happened to repressing all negative emotions and living in a bubble of denial? &nbsp;Wasn’t that the civilized way to do things? &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The drinks arrive and I take a gulp. &nbsp;I consider ordering another, though restrain myself. &nbsp;After all, I did drive. &nbsp;I could call Marc to collect me. &nbsp;Then again, maybe Mum’s not quite ready to meet my struggling artist. &nbsp;I grind my teeth. &nbsp;There I go again. &nbsp;Protecting her. &nbsp;When clearly, she is more than capable of protecting herself, even able to find her own flat and sign her own lease.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“So, er, what’s the plan from here?” I ask.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>She wriggles in her chair and smiles like a naughty school girl caught checking out the male teacher’s butt. &nbsp;“Well,” she says conspiratorially, “I’m going on a holiday to South America. &nbsp;I’ve always wanted to see Mexico.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Mexico is in North America,” I tell her.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>She shrugs. &nbsp;“Wherever. &nbsp;There’s a whole group of us going. &nbsp;Like a Contiki tour for us oldies.” &nbsp;She sips her drink. &nbsp;Her back straightens slightly, as though her confidence is growing. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“They speak Spanish,” I add.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I know. &nbsp;That’s part of the fun. &nbsp;Dos cervezas y un plato de papas fritas por favor.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I stare. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“That’s two beers and a plate of chips, please,” she tells me.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“You don’t drink beer.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>She shrugs. &nbsp;“You never know, I might just take it up.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I restrain my uncharitable thoughts and stare at this woman. &nbsp;She has my mother’s face, her deep brown eyes, the worry lines etched in her forehead. &nbsp;Her voice is the same, it’s just the words that are foreign and that tone. &nbsp;&nbsp;Now that she’s spilled her dirt, she sounds . . . excited. &nbsp;Is that possible? &nbsp;Could my mother be truly excited? &nbsp;I don’t know. &nbsp;I’ve never seen her excited. &nbsp;Oh there’ve been tiny lapses, like when I got into university, and then when I graduated; when I got engaged and then finally married; when I bought a house with the divorce settlement instead of blowing it on two years of decadent overseas adventures. &nbsp;But this is different. &nbsp;This is a glow that emanates from her very core. &nbsp;And who’d have thought that my mother has a core from which to glow?&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“But why leave Dad?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum rolls her eyes. &nbsp;“As if he’s even going to notice. &nbsp;I cleaned out half the house and he just grunted and asked where I’d put the potato peeler. &nbsp;Oh, he’s okay in his own way, but life’s short and I’m not getting any younger. &nbsp;If I don’t do this now, I may never get to do it. &nbsp;Besides, your father hates travel, doesn’t even cross the river if he can help it.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Yes, she’s right there. &nbsp;Still, I think, it’s been over four decades. &nbsp;Doesn’t that count for something? &nbsp;How do you wake up one morning and suddenly want out after forty years? &nbsp;I mean, I could understand if she’d been visibly unhappy. &nbsp;Then I remember her friend’s farewell lunch. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“It’s not a whim, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she tells me. &nbsp;“I’ve been wanting to do this for years. &nbsp;It’s just . . . well anyway, when I made up my mind, I started to put some money away. &nbsp;A little bit at first. &nbsp;Then I did some part-time work and started my escape fund.” &nbsp;She giggles. &nbsp;“That’s what I called it. &nbsp;My escape fund.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I nod. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>She continues, “I mean, your father can keep the house. &nbsp;I’ve got my super and my pension. &nbsp;I don’t need much so I’m sure I’ll be fine. &nbsp;In fact, I’ll be better than fine. &nbsp;I might even be . . .”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Happy,” I say.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>She smiles, a genuine, though somewhat nervous smile, “Yes, happy.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>And suddenly I see a woman who’s spent more than half her life waiting to start living. &nbsp;Who am I to stand in her way now she’s found the courage to take the plunge? &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I’ll have to be there for Dad, of course. &nbsp;Let him cry on my shoulder. &nbsp;Or better still, suggest that he cries on Beryl McArthur’s shoulder. &nbsp;I saw the way she looked at him during the club championships. &nbsp;Yeah, I’ll bet she’d polish his bowls any time he wanted. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Then I might even join Mum in Mexico. &nbsp;Ah yes, I can see us &nbsp;lounging on Mexican beaches under shady palapas, drinking piña coladas and swapping stories of our latest toy boys. &nbsp;&nbsp;Okay, rewind over the bit about swapping toy boy stories. &nbsp;My stomach lurches. &nbsp;Did I just conjure up an image of Mum and I having a real relationship? &nbsp;Wow! &nbsp;Little Miss Psychology would be proud. I sigh. &nbsp;I’m over forty. &nbsp;My mother’s over sixty. &nbsp;Perhaps now is a good time to start sorting through a few of those lingering mother-daughter issues. &nbsp;After all, if Mum has seen how wanting her marriage has been, perhaps she’s recognised that our relationship is merely a collection of socially acceptable superficialities.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I open what I’m hoping will be an in-depth dialogue with a very simple question: &nbsp;“But if you’ve known for years, why wait so long to leave?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mum drinks the last of her scotch and soda. &nbsp;“I wanted to do it sooner,” she says. &nbsp;“But . . . well . . .” &nbsp;She leans in close. &nbsp;“I know you might find this difficult to believe, but I couldn’t tell my mother everything. &nbsp;She wasn’t very good with bad news; always wanted everything just so. &nbsp;And really, what would it have done to upset her? &nbsp;So, well, I just waited . . . until . . .well, until she died.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>She shakes her head and shivers. &nbsp;“Can you imagine that? &nbsp;Not being able to tell your mother the things that are closest to your heart?” She looks at me with serious eyes. &nbsp;“I am so, so very glad that we’re not like that.” &nbsp;She pats my arm. &nbsp;“Now, tell me all about your Philip. &nbsp;Are you sure there isn’t a pressing need for me to buy a new frock?” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>--- ENDS ---</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>“I’m pregnant.” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The words ambush me; like the final siren when you’re one point down. &nbsp;No time to reassess, regroup, make the winning play; just a heavy realization that your time has run out. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>I stand in my doorway, bruised by this knockout punch, winded into silence. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kaylene softens then, admitting, “I, um, used the spare key. &nbsp;From under the geranium. &nbsp;I’ve, er, cooked dinner.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Yep, she’s gone all out; tablecloth, candles, silver-plated cutlery. &nbsp;She’s even hauled out the white crockery my mother bought me last birthday; a not so subtle jibe at my lack of domesticity. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I sidle past Kaylene’s festivities to the fridge. &nbsp;God how did this happen? &nbsp;I’ve always been so careful. &nbsp;&nbsp;I choose a beer and snap the screw-top. &nbsp;Ahh, that crisp coolness; a taste you can trust. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Hell, the only piece of advice my lousy father ever gave me and even that’s let me down. &nbsp;My fifth birthday, he’d just bought me a cheese burger and fries at the drive through; didn’t want to dine in, probably too much of a commitment. &nbsp;He parked on the curb outside our house and said, “Whatever you do, son, don’t let one trap you.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Great advice for a five-year-old. &nbsp;Can last your whole life, that piece of advice. &nbsp;Had to because he skidded away leaving me to choke on a bloody McDonald’s pickle. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I wanted my mother to chase him, to find him, to bring him home. &nbsp;She refused. &nbsp;&nbsp;“He left,” she said. &nbsp;“He won’t come back for the right reasons. &nbsp;But Robbie, always remember that he tried to do the right thing.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Yep, for 1825 days, six hours and twenty minutes he tried to do the right thing. &nbsp;Whoop-di-do. &nbsp;Not much consolation for a kid straining to hear an old Holden ute clunk its way home. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kaylene stands in front of me, daring me to ignore her. &nbsp;I pull her into a one armed hug and kiss the top of her head. &nbsp;Kaylene clings to me. &nbsp;I feel her flatness. &nbsp;No tabloid baby bump there. &nbsp;I pull away. &nbsp;Is this her idea of a sick joke? &nbsp;</p>\n<p>She senses my disbelief, rummages in her handbag and retrieves a white plastic stick. &nbsp;&nbsp;“It’s true,” she tells me. &nbsp;“See. &nbsp;Two lines.” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I nod. &nbsp;I still can’t say anything. &nbsp;There are too many words vying for my attention. &nbsp;They’re all jumbled up and I’m not sure any of them are what I really want to say. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Rob?” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>It sounds so pure; like the whisper of a first kiss; or the tingling excitement of virgin flesh. &nbsp;But something inside me warns that it’s as innocent as a cat with a feather caught in its whiskers. &nbsp;Suddenly I feel nauseous.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Rob, please.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Choking.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Say something.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Dizzy. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“<em>Please</em>.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I need space.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I take my beer upstairs, drop my suit jacket and sag onto the bed. &nbsp;She’s dropped a bomb. &nbsp;Doesn’t she realize that? &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And on poker night. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Shit, the boys. &nbsp;They’ll be here in half an hour. &nbsp;They never liked her. &nbsp;Too loose, too erratic, too unobtainable. &nbsp;Kaylene Whitnall, 34, 28, 36; not perfect but oh so close. &nbsp;Maybe I liked that; having something everyone else wanted. &nbsp;Having someone who always came back to me. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Is that why I’ve let a month-long fling drag on for two years? &nbsp;Or maybe I think that saving Kaylene might heal my mother’s sad romantic past? &nbsp;No, that’s not it. &nbsp;My mum’s soft, vulnerable, quietly determined and emotionally balanced. &nbsp;Kaylene’s selfish, flighty, and manipulative. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I guess I did kind of spring it on you.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Suddenly she’s at the bedroom door, then grazing against me on the bed, seeking reassurance. &nbsp;“The doctor says I’m almost two months. &nbsp;Not showing though,” she says. &nbsp;“Don’t know the sex yet. I thought maybe we could find out together.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>I want to yell, “This is life-changing stuff, so just cut the chatty shit.” &nbsp;I don’t. &nbsp;Instead I grit my teeth. &nbsp;“I thought you’d left for good this time,” I say. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“It was hormones,” she tells me. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Whore moans? &nbsp;God I can’t go there. &nbsp;But it’s too late. &nbsp;The images loom. &nbsp;Kaylene flirting at the café. &nbsp;Kaylene and her salivating fan club who are “just some guys. &nbsp;I’ve never met them before, honest. &nbsp;I don’t know how they know my name. &nbsp;You go. &nbsp;I’m going to stay here . . . with Tracey.” &nbsp;Kaylene creeping in at 4am, doused in a stranger’s Brut. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Besides that was only a month ago,” she adds. &nbsp;“Like I said, I’m two months along.” I nod. &nbsp;Then ask my burning question. &nbsp;&nbsp;“Kaylene why did you really come back?” &nbsp;&nbsp;“I told you Rob, I’m pregnant.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>And for once, I realize, she’s telling the truth. &nbsp;She isn’t here for me. &nbsp;She’s here because she’s pregnant. &nbsp;She’s hoping I’ll give her an out; offer her some extra time so she can work out her next play. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I know you’d never want a child, your child, to grow up without a father.” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kaylene mistakes my silence for agreement. &nbsp;She caresses my leg. &nbsp;“Rob, you’re the only one for me.” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>But that’s a lie. &nbsp;I realize now, I’m not the father. &nbsp;I’m just a softer touch than the kids’ soccer coach, or the White Lion’s barman or that advertising salesman. &nbsp;She knows all I’ve ever wanted is unconditional acceptance, the permanence of a real family. &nbsp;And she’s hoping, oh God how she’s hoping that I want it so, so badly that I’ll settle for a lie. &nbsp;How long can you settle for a lie? &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“You’re not like your father Rob,” she baits me. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>But I get it now. &nbsp;I get <em>me</em> now. &nbsp;I’m still that five-year-old pining for a clunky old Holden, the unreliable lemon that’s rusted right through. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I smile wryly. &nbsp;Kaylene’s right. &nbsp;I’m not at all like my father. &nbsp;But she is. &nbsp;And I’m not going to be caught in that trap again. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“You’d better go,” I say. &nbsp;“Guy’s ‘ll be here for poker soon.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>--ENDS--</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>The door to our station wagon slams shut with the heavy hand of a child eager to be in the company of his friends. &nbsp;Our son, Sam turns to us, leans in through Kristin’s open window.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Say hi to Grandad,” he says. &nbsp;His eyes droop. &nbsp;The corners of his mouth twitch. &nbsp;“And Grandma too, though…..” He hesitates, waves briefly, turns quickly, then hoists his knapsack onto his shoulder. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kristin and I wait in the idling car watching Sam walk up the path.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Do you think he knows?” she asks.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I hope not.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The front door opens and four boys his own age but of different shapes and sizes cascade down the steps. &nbsp;They engulf him, relieve him of his physical burdens and sweep him down the side of the house towards the backyard where they’ve erected their tent city.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Sam doesn’t look back. &nbsp;With any luck he’s forgotten we’re even still here. &nbsp;At least, that’s what I’m hoping. &nbsp;Because if he’s forgotten we’re here, it would mean that his life is still about looking forwards, about exploring and discovering. &nbsp;I know that one day he’ll face a situation that etches itself in his psyche, a decision perhaps that will haunt him, forcing him to return again and again to that moment wondering what he could have done, said or been to make things turn out differently. &nbsp;Fortunately today is not that day. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Today Sam is nine and a half years old. &nbsp;He is spending the weekend with friends. &nbsp;I am hoping that his only concerns are the latest video games, hotdogs and whether or not his football team wins. &nbsp;I am hoping that he hasn’t overheard our whispered conversations; hasn’t accidently uncovered the nursing home brochures; doesn’t yet realise that today marks a turning point for his family.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kristin stares into the boy-less front garden. &nbsp;“He must sense something.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Yes,” I say. &nbsp;“But sensing something and knowing it definitively are two totally different things.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I sigh, grateful that this sleepover gives us some space. &nbsp;&nbsp;It means we can do this thing without his knowledge, without tainting his childhood with an adult reality, without making him an eye witness to that first monumental change in his life. &nbsp;&nbsp;*</p>\n<p>****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I indicate and pull away from the curb. &nbsp;Suburbia bustles with Saturday morning activity. &nbsp;Bare-chested men push lawnmowers; frazzled women pop open their boots and begin the transfer of shopping bags that bulge and strain with a week’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, dinners; children on bikes race down driveways, along footpaths. &nbsp;Just a normal Saturday morning. &nbsp;Except it isn’t. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Izzy cried when Sam was born,” Kristin says.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Yes.” Izzy, my mother, Sam’s Grandma, did indeed cry when Sam was born; and when he took his first step and when he started kindergarten and then primary school. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kristin says, “She knitted him mittens.” “So he didn’t scratch his face,” I add.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kristin smiles. &nbsp;“She was so clever, so creative, so capable.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Yes.” &nbsp;I try to forget the word that’s now bouncing against my skull: was. &nbsp;Was. &nbsp;Was. &nbsp;As in past tense, as in isn’t anymore, as in missing, defunct, lost. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“This will kill your father.” &nbsp;Kristin states the obvious. &nbsp;She knows it. &nbsp;I know it. &nbsp;Yet this ubiquitous knowledge doesn’t bring alternatives. &nbsp;That’s why my voice is emotionless, flat, devoid of all hope, as I say, “Do you have another suggestion?” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kristin doesn’t reply immediately, but I know what she’s doing. &nbsp;She’s searching her mind for a different solution: &nbsp;she’s adding up sales from assets, deducting debts; tallying daily responsibilities against energies available; allocating bedrooms; assessing our available resources against those we’d have to bring in on a daily basis; calculating the cost of extensions in time, money and patience; and then peering optimistically at the bottom line.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I hold my breath, hoping, praying, begging that this time the bottom line might be black, rather than the vibrant red we’ve been getting for the last three months. &nbsp;When she speaks, Kristin’s voice rasps as though it’s scraping against a huge prickly chunk of regret.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“No,” she says, “I don’t.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Neither do I. &nbsp;But it’s what you do isn’t it? &nbsp;When you’re faced with the one thing you never truly believed in – the mortality of your parents? &nbsp;You keep striving to work out a way to avoid the reality that’s trying to slap you in the face. &nbsp;I mean other people age, suffer illnesses, lose energy, activity, voice. &nbsp;Maybe even your parents, but not mine. &nbsp;My father doesn’t have cancer cells in his body. &nbsp;They cleared them all out last year. &nbsp;Not a single one left. Not even the shadow of a single one. &nbsp;And my mother never forgets who I am. &nbsp;Why would she? &nbsp;I’m the son she carried for nine months, the son she’s nurtured for decades. &nbsp;Those things are just scenes from B-grade TV dramas. &nbsp;I won’t acknowledge their presence in my life, in the lives of my parents. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Instead, I let my mind wander back to the pivotal moment of my first major decision, because surely that choice marked a fork in my destiny. &nbsp;Pick A and travel to the left. &nbsp;Pick B and travel to the right. &nbsp;Did I choose correctly or incorrectly? &nbsp;Or did I make a critical error that made my life chocolate when it should have been vanilla? &nbsp;I don’t know; I may never know. &nbsp;But still my mind skips back.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>It happened when I was ten years old. &nbsp;I don’t remember the finer details; they were always irrelevant to the outcome. &nbsp;What I remember is this: &nbsp;When I was ten years old I killed my dog, Rufus. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I can’t say I didn’t mean to. &nbsp;I did. &nbsp;I killed him with purpose and deliberation. &nbsp;I killed my dog because my father gave me that decision, forced it upon me like a plate of Brussel sprouts, unwanted, repugnant, daunting. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“He’s your dog, son,” my father said. &nbsp;“This is your decision.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>It didn’t matter to my father that I was ten and wanted the memories of my dog to be of him chasing Frisbees, his ears flapping as he cantered across the park; or barking with palpable frustration as the neighbour’s cat taunted him from the safety of a tree branch; or lying at my feet, his body solid, warm, alive.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>My dog broke and I killed him as surely as if I myself had injected the green fluid that oozed through the syringe into his veins. &nbsp;&nbsp;The ‘green dream’ the vet called it, as if to assure me that I was sending Rufus to a happy slumber; or at least freeing him from the lethargy a speeding truck had foisted upon him. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>It didn’t seem real, that need to kill. &nbsp;Rufus was just tired, and so simply resting on a towel that just happened to be set upon a sterile stainless steel table. &nbsp;He was okay, really. &nbsp;Any moment he’d leap up, lick my face and beam the smile he kept for me, all gums and jagged-teeth and dripping tongue. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“He’s broken on the inside,” the vet said. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“How do you know that?” I asked.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The vet pointed to the x-rays, backlit blobs of white and gray and black; meaningless smudges that seemed open to artistic interpretation. &nbsp;The vet proffered only one opinion: &nbsp;“It would be for the best.” &nbsp;For the best. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Who’s best? &nbsp;I wanted to ask, but didn’t.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I stroked his head and Rufus opened his eyes, or at least dragged his eyelids upwards to reveal irises the colour of dark chocolate. &nbsp;They weren’t my dog’s eyes; not the windows to Rufus’s soul. &nbsp;They’d lost their spark somehow, as though the essence of my dog had already left, like a hermit crab discarding an old shell as too worn, too small, too confining. &nbsp;The essence of Rufus was elsewhere, searching perhaps for a more complete body. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Okay,” I said.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I was ten years old when my dog Rufus broke and I killed him.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kristin stares through the windscreen like a mannequin might gaze out from Macy’s window. &nbsp;Even her skin seems waxy, polished, unreal, as if having become emotionally overloaded, she’s retreated behind a plastic façade. &nbsp;But her eyes at least are alert because she turns to me. &nbsp;“You’re going the wrong way.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Am I?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kristin opens her mouth, I assume to protest this detour that she knows will cost us twenty minutes. &nbsp;She is about to speak, then stops. &nbsp;Perhaps she’s realised this diversion is no error. &nbsp;I am taking the long way round, putting as much time and distance between me and this thing as might go unnoticed; except Kristin has noticed. &nbsp;She faces out her side window, pretends to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear. &nbsp;But I know what she’s doing. &nbsp;She’s wiping away the tear that’s escaped from the dam behind her eyes. One tiny leak will bring a whole ocean surging out of her. &nbsp;That can’t happen. &nbsp;We are adults. &nbsp;We must hold it together, to carry on regardless of any overwhelming conditions, either internal or external. &nbsp;We are duty-bound to plug the holes that our decisions make in the fabric of our lives – and the lives of others. &nbsp;And so we bury our anger, confusion, hurt, perhaps for reassessment at a later date, perhaps not.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Of course some decisions are frivolous, light, perhaps even playful. &nbsp;Like deciding between ice cream or cake; garlic bread or herb focaccia; pastrami or peanut butter. &nbsp;See, no life and death there – unless you’re allergic. &nbsp;Still, anaphylactic shock aside, there are decisions that don’t damn you if you do and damn you if you don’t; there are decisions that work out for the best, whatever you decide. &nbsp;But I’m not faced with one of those decisions. &nbsp;I’m faced with a choice that brings me again and again to the ten-year-old me; to the moment I keep pecking at like a vulture plucking a corpse; but there’s no nourishment in my pickings. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Ty, she wanted you to make this decision,” Kristin says. &nbsp;“That’s why she gave you her Medical Power of Attorney.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I know.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“She trusts you.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I know.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>My mother trusts me the way Rufus trusted me. &nbsp;Rufus broke and I killed him. &nbsp;I think that’s why my mother trusts me; she knows I can make the hard calls. &nbsp;Or maybe it’s because I know that every decision has consequences that will become my permanent bedfellows, welcomed or otherwise. &nbsp;It’s because I know that decisions colour your life. The question is: &nbsp;What colour? &nbsp;Is it the drab gray of muted pain? &nbsp;The pitch black of an emotional abyss? &nbsp;The bright yellow of relief because surely no future choice could ever be as soul-fracturing? &nbsp;But whatever the colour or rendering, the underlying canvas remains fixed: &nbsp;Decisions have consequences and sometimes the question is not so much “What do I want to do?” but “What can I live with doing – or leaving undone?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>See the decision I have to make, have almost made, will damn my mother to a nursing home where she’ll get the 24/7 attention and care that late-stage dementia demands; it will damn my father to the hollow shell of his family’s home or to our spare room with its cheerful daisy wallpaper. &nbsp;At least he’ll get that choice. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I ache to give my mother the choice. &nbsp;To have her answer the question: &nbsp;“Do you want to live in a nursing home, away from your life memories, away from your husband, surrounded by kind and caring strangers? &nbsp;Or are even the most familiar things alien to you now?” &nbsp;A month ago, I dared to do just that. &nbsp;Her answer was a blank stare of incomprehension. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>If that summed up her illness – an inability to understand the question and thus respond with an appropriate answer – perhaps I could fool myself into believing the situation is manageable. &nbsp;I know differently. &nbsp;It’s one thing to forget how to get dressed or clean your teeth; it’s entirely another to throw a saucepan at an eighty-year-old man or to turn the knobs of the gas stove to ‘on’ then wander to the shops. &nbsp;What is she searching for? &nbsp;How can I help her find it? &nbsp;How can I help her find herself? &nbsp;How can I lead her back to me? &nbsp;To my father?&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I can’t and so I am damned. &nbsp;As damned as my father was when he gave me the Rufus Decision. &nbsp;It’s true. &nbsp;What sort of father would make their ten-year-old son choose between the life and death of a cherished companion? &nbsp;What sort of father would take that decision away? &nbsp;See, either way he was damned. &nbsp;As I am now damned; either way, whatever I choose, there’ll be some do-gooder standing on the sidelines screeching, “Unfair!”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>But what does unfair mean? &nbsp;A disproportionate allocation of fairness? &nbsp;An absence of the justice we consider to be our basic human right? &nbsp;Yeah we love to fool ourselves that justice exists. &nbsp;We convince ourselves that we actually see right and wrong. &nbsp;Perhaps sometimes we do. &nbsp;&nbsp;But what I’ve come to know is this: &nbsp;The scales of so-called justice don’t balance fairness; they don’t even balance rights; the only thing their pans would hold is pain. &nbsp;And really, how can you dispassionately allocate pain to people you love? &nbsp;I can’t. &nbsp;&nbsp;I</p>\n<p>&nbsp;love my mother. &nbsp;I love my father. &nbsp;So why can’t they both live with us? &nbsp;Because our house is too small. &nbsp;Because Sam is too young to watch his Grandma crumble in on herself. &nbsp;Because I need to work and can’t spend endless hours scouring the neighbourhood for a woman who doesn’t know she’s lost. &nbsp;Because most of the responsibility would fall to Kristin and that’s too much to ask her to accept. &nbsp;Because I’m not strong enough to watch the woman who was my decisive mother waiver. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>My mother is the woman who sewed me a superman costume for my first fancy dress party; the one who wiped the blood off my knees and soothed the grazes when I learnt the hard way that wearing a cape with a big S really doesn’t mean you can fly; the woman who kissed my tawny curls and made me a hot fudge sundae to ease the pain; the woman who knew the first time I mentioned Kristin’s name that she was my one. &nbsp;That woman sits in my memory, but only there. &nbsp;She’s not to be found in the shell that parades in my mother’s clothes, eats off her crockery, shuffles around in her slippers. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>So a nursing home is for the best. &nbsp;Because how can I watch my mother’s soul drain away? &nbsp;And equally, how can I not? &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Twenty minutes after our predicted arrival time, I park the car and Kristin and I walk to the front door. &nbsp;I am about to knock when my father opens it. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Tyler,” he says. &nbsp;He pauses and in that fragile moment I look past him to where my mother stands in a pool of her own urine. &nbsp;She stares at me with lost eyes; another hermit crab gone in search of a better place. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Kristin squeezes past us both and leads my mum out of sight, probably to the bathroom where Kristin will ‘help clean her up,’ as though my mum is some artistic pre-schooler who’s smeared herself with non-toxic paint. &nbsp;My father stares at me as if trying to read my mind, or perhaps already suspecting the story that lurks there. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I want to ask him why Mum gave me control of her medical decisions. &nbsp;Why not him, her partner of fifty-six years? &nbsp;Five years earlier when she thrust the legal documents at me I asked, “Why?” She simply patted my arm. &nbsp;That was it. &nbsp;No words. &nbsp;Just a series of gentle taps, a Morse code I couldn’t interpret. &nbsp;I didn’t ask again. &nbsp;Perhaps I was afraid of what she’d say; afraid that she’d remember the ten-year-old boy capable of killing his best friend; afraid the picture she held of me was of a decisive slaughterer rather than a loving father, husband, son. &nbsp;I still want to ask, why me? &nbsp;But in truth I don’t want to know someone else’s answer. &nbsp;I want to believe it’s because she loved my father too much to torment him with this choice. &nbsp;Because even though there is no other choice, no other viable option, my father would wind himself a noose of guilt and strangle away the fleeting happinesses that might still grace his life. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I look at my father now with his crushed-cotton skin, his white fairy floss hair, his moist eyes. &nbsp;He gestures towards me with a shaking hand. &nbsp;I step closer. &nbsp;He grips my arm and pulls me towards him. &nbsp;&nbsp;He clutches at me as a drowning man might claw at his saviour. &nbsp;I want to tell him that I’m not his saviour. &nbsp;I haven’t brought an effective remedy, an optimal solution. &nbsp;There isn’t one; at least, not one that I can find, can implement for everyone’s best, because when you cut away the rhetoric, when you pare away all the non-essentials you can see clearly that I am no one’s redeemer. &nbsp;I am simply here to allot pain parcels to my father, my mother, my wife, my child, myself. &nbsp;I’m here trying to make sense of the nonsensical.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>My father pulls away, straightens his spine, clears his throat. &nbsp;“Daffodils are starting to bloom,” he says.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>And that is when I know for sure that he understands what will ultimately come to be; if not today, then one day soon in his diminishing future. &nbsp;I want to cry, to throw myself into my father’s arms and sob out every last aching drop. &nbsp;I want to do or say something that will create the miracle we need. &nbsp;I want to be someone I am not; I want to be my family’s hero.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I am forty-five years old and my mother is broken. &nbsp;Will the decision I choose to make, or leave unmade, break my father too? 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      "body": "<html>\n<p>I step from the sanctuary of my Hyundai and stand on the sidewalk, looking into my parents’ lounge room window. &nbsp;My mother is sliding a white blouse around a coat hanger that she hooks onto a clothes rack. &nbsp;It hangs there, cotton carefully crafted to be useful. &nbsp;She smiles, runs a finger down the blouse’s front, then bends to retrieve another crumpled item. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>When I was five, my mother told me, “I create order from chaos when I iron.” &nbsp;Then I was still fascinated by the focus she could conjure for a linen jacket, some denim jeans, a cotton skirt. &nbsp;The way she lovingly eased away their wrinkles as another mother might caress her child’s cheek. &nbsp;Once I even curled up with the washing, trying to scrunch myself into some attention-worthy fabric.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Now at thirty, I stride up the path, flanked by evidence that evolution happens. &nbsp;Even here. &nbsp;The lemon tree I could hurdle at age six is now over my head and four feet wide with waxy green foliage. &nbsp;And the garden gnomes have changed. &nbsp;Doc and Sneezy have been replaced with a kangaroo carved from some sort of gum tree and a stork made from recycled car parts. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Though I have a key, I hesitate to use it. &nbsp;Instead I slide it into my pocket and knock lightly. &nbsp;I watch through the window as my mother frowns, then abandons her position to open the door. &nbsp;She looks almost disappointed. &nbsp;It’s just me. &nbsp;Unaccompanied by balls of laundry. &nbsp;Still, she draws me in, hugs me momentarily. &nbsp;Then I am released and she scurries back to her station.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The air is tinged with lemon freshness. &nbsp;My mother sprays it from a can. &nbsp;Tiny orbs of liquid shower a cotton sheet. &nbsp;The iron hisses and splutters, as though giving my mother a voice she won’t claim for herself. &nbsp;I stand, waiting for speech, each second strained to its limit.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>From a room beyond the lounge, I hear a moan. &nbsp;My mother drags her eyes away from the sheet. &nbsp;Meets mine with an unspoken challenge. &nbsp;I turn and step towards that sound. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Hisssss! Pfffft! &nbsp;The iron wheezes with projected disapproval. &nbsp;With three more steps I am framed by the painted beige wood that marks the doorway to my parent’s bedroom. &nbsp;&nbsp;The room is a mish-mash of shadows with a double bed as centerpiece. &nbsp;Within it, between crisp sheets, beneath a wrinkle-free quilt, is my father. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Resting, my mother would say. &nbsp;But he’s not resting. &nbsp;Every breath is a marathon. &nbsp;Even simple movements, a sigh, a blink, a swallow, are gargantuan efforts. &nbsp;So no, my father isn’t resting. &nbsp;He’s dying. &nbsp;Cancer. &nbsp;His final stages. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I step forward, run the back of my hand lightly down the hollow that was once his cheek. &nbsp;He strains his lips into a smile. &nbsp;I fold onto the edge of the bed. &nbsp;Then kicking off my shoes, I crease the quilt with my body, stroke the skin that sags into furrows my mother can’t iron away. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>--ENDS--</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>The button is round and grey and glossy with the words Unfuck the world in glaring neon red. &nbsp;Even as I lurch along with the other commuters I am transfixed by that stupid button, not even noticing if the bearer is male or female, old or young. &nbsp;The messenger is irrelevant. &nbsp;It’s the message that counts. &nbsp;And clearly this is a message. &nbsp;No, an imperative. &nbsp;The fact that I seem to be the only one who’s really noticed the button at all, means this imperative is for me. &nbsp;I feel myself shrink; compressed by the weight of this dubious honor.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>You might think the instruction is from God. &nbsp;I might too, if I believed in him or her or whatever it’s politically correct to call an omniscient being these days. &nbsp;It could be a psychic plea from the unborn generations begging someone to wake up and see how we’re wrecking what might one day become their playground – if there’s enough of it left to support life of any kind.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>And then, if you’d eavesdropped in our kitchen this morning and heard my wife, Melanie, bemoaning my inability to fulfill her apparently desperate desire for a child, you might claim she’s tapped into the collective unconscious and in doing so reinforced the message she gave me this morning.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“We’ve been married for four years now,” she’d said. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Married, yes. &nbsp;For better, for worse. &nbsp;For richer, for poorer. &nbsp;In sickness and in health. &nbsp;All promises I was confident I could keep, will keep.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“And you did say you wanted a family.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>A family. &nbsp;Yes, I do want a family. &nbsp;But a child? &nbsp;What unspoken promises does a man make when he commits to fathering a child? &nbsp;Does he swear to surrender every Saturday for the next eighteen years? &nbsp;To learn all the latest slang or memorize Dr Seuss? &nbsp;Or is his promise more fundamental, like making the child’s mother happy? &nbsp;Like staying involved beyond the first nappy change? &nbsp;Like helping out financially long after he’s physically and emotionally disappeared? &nbsp;A child. &nbsp;No, that’s not a promise I would have made. &nbsp;Besides family can mean cats or dogs or both. &nbsp;It doesn’t have to mean children. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>For better or for worse I didn’t share my thoughts. &nbsp;I planted a kiss on a cheek hot with exasperation and said, “Let’s talk about it tonight.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Knowing that, you’ll agree, my wife is a prime candidate for having magically engineered this psychological reminder of my spousal responsibility for her happiness. &nbsp;And yet, it’s not her voice that I hear over and over in my head, shouting with the same ferocity as that damned neon red.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Fortunately, before I can reconfirm the message source, the train stops, thrusting me first forward, then backwards. &nbsp;The seasoned travelers stand their ground, clutch more tightly at the leather straps overhead. &nbsp;The greenhorns stumble, some even fall. &nbsp;A person in grey gropes at my ankles. &nbsp;I grab an elbow and pull what becomes a young woman to her feet. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Thanks,” she says, brushing the floor’s dirt from her tailored trousers.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Not a problem,” I say, pushing my black-rimmed glasses further up my nose then stepping past her and through the open carriage doors. &nbsp;Yeah, me and a thousand others; spewed out onto the platform, black and white detritus sweeping towards the stairs. &nbsp;Outside the station the sky is an overbearing white, as if the God I don’t believe in is glaring down upon the world, upon me, itemising transgressions, calculating the personal bottom line that he, she, it, will present on my judgment day – the judgment day I also don’t believe in.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I squint and scuttle towards the familiarity of my office building. &nbsp;As if complicit in my escape, the lift remains open long enough for me to step quickly into its sterile, though peopled, security. &nbsp;I sigh with relief. &nbsp;I have stepped back into a womb. &nbsp;It is a tight fit, this manmade uterus. But the doors slide shut and I am safe. &nbsp;Twenty-two floors later, they slide open and I stride meaningfully into the offices of Doctor Farrington and Associates, Child Psychiatry. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>***** &nbsp;</p>\n<p>By seven fifty-two I have made a cup of coffee and am sequestered in my office, staring out across the city. &nbsp;From this height the people are no longer people, they are teeny tiny insects that swarm along the sidewalk, a colorful river that ebbs and flows. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“There you are old chap.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I swing round. &nbsp;I didn’t hear the door open, but it must have because Dr Thomas Farrington is standing in my office. &nbsp;He’s tall, elongated somehow by the vertical threads of his double-breasted pin-striped suit. &nbsp;His face has the texture of an under-baked pastry – all white and floury. &nbsp;All he needs is a bowler hat and a London Times folded under his arm and he’d be the stereotypical Londoner. &nbsp;He’s annoyingly British especially when he’s been to the Bahamas and come back all red and inflamed, like a rare steak you just want to cauterize out of its pain. &nbsp;He’s more British then than when he’s twirling his moustache. &nbsp;It turns up at the ends, making his top lip hair look like a grey smile. &nbsp;Not that he needs another smile. &nbsp;He grins like a circus clown or perhaps a male Mary Poppins; all sugary bounce, expecting the best of people, ignoring the worst. &nbsp;Sometimes he’s so blinkered by optimism I suspect he’s been self-prescribing. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>When I’m feeling particularly disenchanted I like to imagine him wearing white boxer shorts – white with red spots - and doing that funny walk thing that John Cleese does in the Ministry of Funny Walks. &nbsp;Sort of like a German goosestep, but just for fun, not as a military exercise. &nbsp;I imagine that despite the boxers, he’s still wearing a white business shirt and his double-breasted pin-striped jacket. &nbsp;And he’s doing it somewhere serious, like a courtroom where they’re trying a rapist, or through Accident and Emergency when there’s been a horrific car accident. &nbsp;Strangely the thought of Dr Farrington and his stiff British upper lip going a bit ga-ga can make my world seem somewhat brighter. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Fuck you,” he says in that ever-so-polite English accent. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“What?” I almost choke on my coffee. &nbsp;Has he read my mind? &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“New patient. &nbsp;Young chap named Farque Yew. &nbsp;He’s eight. &nbsp;Hates his mother and his sister apparently. &nbsp;Tried to do his sister in with a knife. &nbsp;His mother’s quite distraught. &nbsp;But the thing is old chap, I’m booked solid. &nbsp;So . . .”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>He waves a Manila folder at me and without waiting for an answer, places it on my desk and begins to back away. &nbsp;Do the British do that with everyone? &nbsp;Back away, rather than turning around? Is it because you’re not supposed to turn your back on royalty and there’s so many bloody aristocrats in Britain that it’s best not to risk offending anyone? &nbsp;Or is it because they realise they’re so damned annoying that a turned back might very well garner a bread knife, a letter opener or at the very least a murderous glare?&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Sure, no problem,” I say.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Eight-fifteen old chap,” he says, then disappears behind the closed door.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I flop into my chair, pulling Farque’s file towards me. &nbsp;It’s new-patient thin, just a single page with only the details gleaned from a frantic mother during a desperate telephone call. &nbsp;I sigh and glance at my watch. &nbsp;Seven fifty-nine. &nbsp;Sixteen more minutes before I start unfucking the world one youngster at a time. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I’m one of Farrington’s associates. &nbsp;A child psychiatrist. &nbsp;And because I’m a child psychiatrist, you might assume I care very deeply about the world’s children, our country’s future. &nbsp;But if I really cared about the world’s children and our country’s future, I’d be working with the adults who see themselves as the victims of these supposedly demonic children. &nbsp;Instead I smile politely at these parents all the while wishing they were the insects I see from the window of my office and I had a huge can of bug spray. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>It’s not that they’re intrinsically bad. &nbsp;It’s just that they can’t see their part in the problem. &nbsp;They’re conditioned to bury any festering resentments and unreleased guilt. &nbsp;When challenged, they say, “We’re educated, balanced, high-functioning contributors to our society.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I want to ask them, “Have you looked at our society lately? &nbsp;Are you sure you want to claim your contribution with such pride?” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mrs Yew; the name deceived me into thinking she’d be more exotic. &nbsp;But Mrs Yew is middle-aged plump, not grossly obese, though spongy enough to indicate a lack of exercise and a mild excess of comfort food. &nbsp;She’s got bleached-blonde hair and fake-tan skin. &nbsp;She perches on the edge of her chair clutching the handles of the oversized handbag she’s rested on her knees. &nbsp;Her blue eyes lure you in, but I can sense there’s a startlingly coldness there.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Farque huddles into the far reaches of the chair beside her. &nbsp;If his hair is anything to go by, Mrs Yew is naturally field mouse beige. &nbsp;Nothing exotic there. &nbsp;Farque’s skin is egg-shell white, but it’s his physique, rather than his color that makes him appear fragile. &nbsp;He’s rakishly thin; as though his body steals growth calories to energize the nefarious activities his mother seems intent on itemising. &nbsp;It’s fascinating. &nbsp;Mrs Yew bleats on and on so rapidly I seriously begin to wonder if she can breathe through her ears. &nbsp;Every word, syllable and phrase is chosen to throw blame, to foist responsibility onto an eight-year-old boy. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I see,” I say bringing my hands in front of my face and touching the finger tips together in a way that lets my patients’ parents assume I’m carefully considering their every word. &nbsp;I’m not. &nbsp;I’m simply awaiting a natural pause where it won’t seem rude to eject them so that I can focus on the whole point of the session they’re paying $500 an hour for – their afflicted child. &nbsp;Sometimes the pause takes a while – perhaps a session, maybe even two. &nbsp;Parents, particularly mothers, have a lot to say about their children. &nbsp;What about fathers, you might ask? &nbsp;You might ask. &nbsp;And I, chastened by my Achilles heel, the absence of any direct experience in this regard, choose not to respond.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The more Mrs Yew babbles, the more I watch Farque retreat. &nbsp;Not physically, because he’s held captive, first by the chair’s wooden arms and then by the office. &nbsp;No, he’s retreating emotionally, closing out the words he’s heard a thousand times before. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Right,” I say, hoping my voice will draw Mrs Yew’s attention away from herself. &nbsp;It doesn’t. &nbsp;Her blurting continues. &nbsp;I should be amazed that in less than a decade the child before me has accomplished so much evil. &nbsp;Clearly he is the devil. &nbsp;I should be waving a silver cross or wearing a necklace of garlic. &nbsp;&nbsp;But it’s not Farque who scares me; whose heart I’d choose to drive a stake through.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I slap my hands loudly on the desk and stand. &nbsp;“Thank you Mrs Yew,” I say. &nbsp;&nbsp;“I’ll ask you to step outside now, so I can speak with Farque.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mrs Yew stares at me with the incredulity of a three-year-old that’s just had its lollipop stolen.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“But I haven’t finished.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I’ve heard enough,” I say as gently as my impatience allows.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“But you don’t understand.” &nbsp;Her eyes flare with the cornered wild animal look I know so well. &nbsp;“I have to be here. &nbsp;He lies. &nbsp;He’ll only tell you lies. &nbsp;I’m not paying you to believe his lies. &nbsp;I have to be here to tell you what the truth really is. &nbsp;How will you help him if you don’t know the truth?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I take Mrs Yew’s elbow and try to gently raise her from her judgment throne. &nbsp;She resists. &nbsp;I lean towards her. &nbsp;“I understand your concerns, but Mrs Yew, I am a seasoned traveler. &nbsp;I can spot a lie from fifty paces.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I match her gaze. &nbsp;She wavers, as though she’s unsure of what I mean, but sensing she has lost this battle. &nbsp;She stands and I lead her to the door. &nbsp;Before I can usher her out, she breaks the silence, turns back to Farque and says, “I’ll know. &nbsp;Whatever you say, I’ll know. &nbsp;I see everything, hear everything. &nbsp;And remember, liars always get what they deserve. &nbsp;Always.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Finally the door is shut. &nbsp;Fortunately Mrs Yew is on the other side of it. &nbsp;I am grateful for its thickness because I know that Mrs Yew will be standing in reception recounting Farque’s extensive list of transgressions to Maizie, our receptionist. &nbsp;I smile. &nbsp;Good old Maizie, and yes, I mean that word old. &nbsp;I doubted Farrington when he suggested in his pompous English accent that we employ his old nanny as our receptionist. &nbsp;“Sharp as a whip,” he’d said. &nbsp;“Deaf as a post. &nbsp;At least without her hearing aid turned on.” &nbsp;As odd as it might sound to the uninitiated, Maizie’s perfect. &nbsp;She’s the only one who’s stayed for longer than a month. &nbsp;The others, young, college-educated, bubbling woman came full of enthusiasm for their quest to help tomorrow’s leaders. &nbsp;But they withered under the unrelenting onslaught of women like Mrs Yew; women who were so sure they were right, they eliminated any pauses that might invite a conflicting opinion. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Right then,” I say, glancing at my watch and perching on the couch beside Farque’s chair. &nbsp;“We’ve got thirty minutes left. &nbsp;What would you like to do?” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Farque shifts in his chair so he’s facing me. &nbsp;He says nothing, just blinks, quietly examining me like I’m an exotic bug.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“We could, um, let me see. &nbsp;We could play cards. &nbsp;Do you know any card games?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>He shakes his head. &nbsp;Well, at least it’s a response – of sorts. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Or we could build a model plane.” &nbsp;I wave towards the dark wood cupboards. &nbsp;“I have a kit for a B52. &nbsp;Or perhaps you’d prefer a ship?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Farque watches me as an untamed animal might watch its captor. &nbsp;&nbsp;His eyes never leave me. &nbsp;Still, he says nothing. &nbsp;I sigh, stand, walk to my desk drawer and pull out a bar of chocolate and return to the couch. &nbsp;I rip the wrapping, break off ten pieces and squeeze them into my mouth.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Wan thome?” &nbsp;I ask, letting chocolate and saliva ooze down my chin.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“My mother’s not paying you to be uncouth.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Finally, a reaction. &nbsp;I swallow my chocolate, wipe my face. &nbsp;“No?” I lean towards him, resting my elbows on my knees. &nbsp;I frown. &nbsp;“What is it that she’s paying me for?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“To make me into a nice boy.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“And how does she expect I’ll do that?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“She thinks you’ll give me pills to take.” “</p>\n<p>Pills, huh?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“To make me nicer.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Aren’t you nice already?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“No. &nbsp;I’m selfish, intolerant. &nbsp;I hate my sister. &nbsp;I am lazy and messy and I don’t try hard enough at school. &nbsp;I’m a smart aleck and a nasty little boy. &nbsp;I am greedy and hateful and hurtful and . . .”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>My outward features don’t betray my inner cringing. &nbsp;I know they don’t. &nbsp;When I decided to become a child psychologist, I practiced in the mirror. &nbsp;It took years, but I am finally able to hear this parental laundry list without crying, shouting, punching something or sinking into a depressive abyss. &nbsp;“And your mother says you tried to kill your sister.” &nbsp;I try to coax the truth. &nbsp;Not his mother’s truth, but Farque’s. &nbsp;I need to understand his truth, if I’m to help him at all.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Farque is silent. &nbsp;His head bowed in submission. &nbsp;“It was an accident,” he whispers. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“An accident? &nbsp;Tell me about the accident.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Farque curls his legs underneath him. &nbsp;The gesture shrinks him back into a fetus. &nbsp;I want to reach out, to touch him, to warn him that even fetuses aren’t safe; they hear, they feel, they absorb. &nbsp;But it’s too soon to touch him. &nbsp;He’d recoil from that unwanted, unknown intimacy. &nbsp;He’d scramble even further into himself. “Tell me about the accident Farque.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>He turns his head away, perhaps trying to dissociate his being from the words he’s about to utter. &nbsp;Lies, his mother would say. &nbsp;I know differently.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“The accident?” I prompt again.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I wanted to help with dinner,” he says. &nbsp;“I wanted to cut the carrots. &nbsp;Mum says I never help and I wanted to. &nbsp;Petra hates me helping. &nbsp;That’s my sister, Petra. &nbsp;She says she wishes I was never born. &nbsp;She’s mean to me, but only when Mum isn’t looking. &nbsp;Anyway, I wanted to help and Petra wasn’t cutting the carrots. &nbsp;She was peeling the potatoes. &nbsp;So I got a stool and started cutting the carrots. &nbsp;But she told me I was doing it all wrong. &nbsp;She tried to grab the knife. &nbsp;I lost my balance on the stool. &nbsp;The knife slipped. &nbsp;It hit her in the foot.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“It was an accident. &nbsp;But no one believes me. &nbsp;No one believes me because I’m bad.” He turns then and I see the tears clearing a path through the thinnest dirt veneer that layers his face. &nbsp;Beneath that manmade pollution, there’s an innocence, a purity, a vulnerability that I’ve sworn to protect. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I can’t help myself. &nbsp;I sweep him from the chair, into my arms, onto my lap. &nbsp;He struggles, but I hold him firmly, not tightly, not so he can’t breathe, so he feels stifled, just firmly enough that he can comfort himself with a half-hearted struggle then nestle into a security he’s never known. &nbsp;He cries then. &nbsp;Cries and cries and cries. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Nineteen minutes and thirty seconds later my timer beeps, signaling the end of our first session. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“You’re not bad,” I whisper into his ear. &nbsp;“Deep down you know that. &nbsp;Trust yourself. &nbsp;Trust your own heart.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>He looks at me with puffy red eyes, wanting to believe me, yet not wanting to betray the one who gave him life.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Next week,” I say. “I’ll teach you how to play poker.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>He smiles. &nbsp;It’s a drawn, uncertain little smile. &nbsp;A less-seasoned observer might proclaim it merely a grimace. &nbsp;It is not. &nbsp;It is the biggest smile his crushed little soul can manage right now. &nbsp;And that’s okay. &nbsp;Little steps. &nbsp;One-by-one. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>***** &nbsp;</p>\n<p>I didn’t grow up wanting to be a child psychiatrist. &nbsp;When I was five I wanted to hunt dinosaurs. &nbsp;My mother told me they didn’t exist. &nbsp;When I was nine I wanted to be a fireman or a policeman or anything that seemed adventurous and heroic. &nbsp;My mother pointed out my puny arms and distinct lack of physical co-ordination. &nbsp;When I was twelve I wanted to be a rock star, until my mother recorded my singing and played it back at my thirteenth birthday party. &nbsp;“My son, the rock star,” she announced. &nbsp;I haven’t sung a note since; not even in the shower. &nbsp;Having expunged rock star from my career wish list, I decided to become a scientist. &nbsp;The thought of experimenting appealed to me. &nbsp;I imagined my mother in a cage, fed only what I gave her, suffering through the side-effects of a new drug I’d concocted. &nbsp;I’d smile gleefully as I thought that sometimes, only sometimes, I wouldn’t give her a drug at all, would just give her something to make her feel bad, make her vomit maybe, or get cramps in her stomach or make her head ache. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I’ve kept mementos of those dreams in my office. &nbsp;No smiling family in a silver frame for my desk. &nbsp;No, I’ve got a stuffed dinosaur. &nbsp;And on the shelves, amid an impressive array of academic texts there’s a bright red fire truck, an electric guitar, even a three yard long tapeworm that I keep in a jar of formaldehyde. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Some might consider them playthings for my patients. &nbsp;They’re not. &nbsp;They’re trophies, reminders of the lives I might have lived. &nbsp;Perhaps, if I do become a father, I can inflict one of my dreams onto my off-spring. &nbsp;That’s what father’s do isn’t it? &nbsp;At least, that’s what I’ve gleaned from movies; from the bleating protests that my rooster-pecked friends made throughout our high school and college years.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>What would I want my son to be? &nbsp;A teacher? &nbsp;A stock broker? &nbsp;An air-conditioning salesman? &nbsp;Or better yet, the ubiquitous claim that all the parents I see make, “I just want to see my kids happy.” &nbsp;Ha. &nbsp;That’s exactly what my mother said. &nbsp;And her mother before her. &nbsp;And probably even her mother before that. &nbsp;If everyone’s so dedicated to making their kids happy, how come I’ve got a penthouse apartment and a holiday house in the Bahamas?&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Still, I consider myself one of the lucky ones; one of those kids that saw through adults and the defenses they consider to be impenetrable. &nbsp;It was weird at first, hearing my mother’s words from my Grandma’s mouth. &nbsp;Sometimes they came from Grandpa. &nbsp;I made it into a game. &nbsp;I’d tuck all the caustic comments, the snippy little remarks, the acerbic observations Grandma and Grandpa made into a special cupboard in my mind. &nbsp;Then, weeks later when my mother would say something like, “You’ll never get anywhere with that attitude,” I’d open my cupboard, examine its contents and think, ah yes, Grandma, last Thanksgiving. &nbsp;I believe the topic was starting an internet business and my mother’s concern over the costs of marketing versus eventual returns. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>My Grandma declared her daughter a defeatist. &nbsp;Told her she’d always been a pessimist; that only optimists really made it in the world. &nbsp;So my mother came home and started her internet business. &nbsp;Perfumes. &nbsp;She was going to sell perfumes. &nbsp;The problem was, despite all the optimism she tried to muster, her efforts failed. &nbsp;My Grandma crowed that she was right; reveled in my mother’s failure. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>But I could see that Grandma wasn’t right. &nbsp;I could see that the failure of my mother’s business had nothing to do with optimism and everything to do with an absence of the marketing prowess that only more money than she had could buy. &nbsp;I saw that my mother was right. &nbsp;But instead of rejoicing, she waded into her own mother’s negativity, swam in its familiarity. &nbsp;No doubt it felt safe, predictable. &nbsp;It wasn’t. &nbsp;It never is. &nbsp;But my mother wouldn’t, didn’t, couldn’t absorb that truth. &nbsp;</p>\n<p>***** &nbsp;</p>\n<p>When Farque and I step out of my office into the reception area, Mrs Yew leaps up, takes Farque by the arms and peers at him. &nbsp;Curious behavior, I think. &nbsp;Reminds me of someone who takes their guinea pig to the vet, or a budgie or a gold fish, something that’s easier to replace than cure. &nbsp;Is that what Mrs Yew thinks? &nbsp;That it would be easier to replace Farque, than to fix what she perceives is wrong with him? &nbsp;I let the words I long to say burn a hole in my tongue. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I smile down at Farque, then address his mother. &nbsp;“Same time next week, Mrs Yew?” “What?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Next week? &nbsp;Same time?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“We have to come back?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“These things take time Mrs Yew.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>She stares at me, like I’ve said spoken too quickly in a foreign language she’s only just beginning to learn.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“It’s in Farque’s best interests,” I say, then add, “The best interests of your family.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“What about pills? Can’t you give him pills?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Pills wouldn’t help.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“How do you know?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“That’s the point you seem to have missed, Mrs Yew. &nbsp;I do know. &nbsp;I can see very clearly the source of Farque’s problems.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Mrs Yew tries to speak, but it’s like there’s too many words vying for supremacy; they seem to fumble in her mouth, fail to stumble out in any order and instead become an incomprehensible murmur. “</p>\n<p>\"Well, that’s agreed then. &nbsp;Book Farque in for next week, Maizie.” &nbsp;I ruffle Farque’s hair. &nbsp;“See you champ.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Farque quivers under my touch. &nbsp;He doesn’t smile. &nbsp;That’s okay. &nbsp;It’ll take some time before he’s ready to step outside the false self he’s been lead to believe is real. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The train home is crowded with adult-sized black insects whose faces bear the troubles of their adult day. &nbsp;An irate boss or client; a lost account; an overwhelming challenge; even a pay rise can cause us a grief we’re conditioned to ignore. &nbsp;It’s fear. &nbsp;And I see it every day. &nbsp;Fear of success. &nbsp;Fear of failure. &nbsp;Fear of cats or dogs or spiders. &nbsp;Fear of speaking a truth. &nbsp;Fear of not speaking a truth. &nbsp;Fear, in all its horrific machinations drives us all; inexpressible, incomprehensible, unavoidable fear.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>As I look around the carriage at the city’s detritus, I don’t see the badge, that round, grey button with Unfuck the world written in glossy neon red. &nbsp;But maybe they’ve taken it off or slung their jacket over their arm, bundled it into a bag or briefcase. &nbsp;I wouldn’t know the wearer if they held a gun to my face or even if they offered me a million dollars no strings attached. &nbsp;Wouldn’t know which arm or briefcase or bag to search.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I’ve seen ten clients today; ten troubled children struggling to understand their place in a world that affords them little comfort. &nbsp;It’s not their fault. &nbsp;I know though, that no amount of truths whispered conspiratorially into their eager ears will erase the damage. &nbsp;No, the horrible things they believe of themselves are never totally erased, the imprints remain, like whiteboard markers. &nbsp;You can wipe away the surface color, but there’s still a trace, a remnant of the message that was written there. &nbsp;That’s what I can’t erase, no matter how hard I try.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>It’s night time now. &nbsp;The tonight that seemed so distant this morning now looms like an obstacle to be overcome. &nbsp;But I keep my promises. &nbsp;That’s why I’m coming home fully intending to discuss Melanie’s request for a child, our child. &nbsp;I know what she’ll say. &nbsp;Hell, I know what I’ll say. &nbsp;We both do. &nbsp;We’ve been having the same conversation for two years now.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Why don’t you talk to someone?” she’ll say.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Someone?” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“A counselor. &nbsp;Someone who can unravel the real reason you don’t want a family.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I never said I don’t want a family.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Then why don’t we have one?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“It’s more complicated than that. &nbsp;There’s more to having a family than just wanting a child.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Like what?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>And that’s where it stops, where I stubbornly refuse to dive deeper. &nbsp;What would happen if I did? &nbsp;Would Melanie recoil in disgust? &nbsp;Would she calmly, silently pack a bag and leave without another word spoken? &nbsp;I don’t know and because I don’t know I am afraid. &nbsp;I’m afraid because I’m supposed to know. &nbsp;I’m supposed to have the answers.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em>Unfuck the world</em>. &nbsp;That damned bloody button. &nbsp;<em>Unfuck the world</em>. &nbsp;As though I knew how to bring my father back. &nbsp;<em>Unfuck the world</em>. &nbsp;Like he ran away because of me. &nbsp;Like it’s all my responsibility. &nbsp;Yeah, well why doesn’t someone come in and unfuck my world? &nbsp;Why doesn’t someone hold me on their lap, firmly, but not tightly? &nbsp;Why doesn’t someone whisper in my ear, “It’s not you, it’s her?” &nbsp;Why doesn’t someone tell me how can I step outside myself to the me I might have been? &nbsp;The me I ache to be but don’t know how? &nbsp;Yeah, unfuck <em>my</em> world.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I step from the train, push my glasses further up my nose and head home for that talk with Melanie – because I, at least, keep my promises.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>&nbsp;--ENDS--</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>“I’m sure he’s in there.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>Officer Ralston stepped into the rain. &nbsp;“Is he armed?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Amos shrugged. &nbsp;“He’s got my silver candlesticks.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Ralston paced. &nbsp;If Amos Fulton was right, the perp had been in Edith Milner’s house for thirty minutes; too long for petty theft. &nbsp;Something had gone wrong. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Officer Ted Kramer returned his radio to its holder. &nbsp;“Perp’s probably Jake Taylor, seventeen. &nbsp;Amateur. &nbsp;Pregnant girlfriend. &nbsp;They rent a flat on Main. &nbsp;He’s a delivery driver. &nbsp;Borrowed money from a loan-shark to buy the car. &nbsp;Loan shark wants it back – with interest. &nbsp;Kid can’t pay, so he’s playing Jesse James.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>And taken eighty-year-old Edith hostage. &nbsp;Ralston smelt a Sergeant’s badge. &nbsp;She strode to the patrol car and pulled out the bullhorn. &nbsp;“Jake let Edith go. Come out with your hands up.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Shadows moved behind the drawn curtains. &nbsp;The door opened. &nbsp;Edith Milner appeared. &nbsp;“Go away,” she said, then, turning inside, added, “Adams defence. &nbsp;Make your move.” &nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>&nbsp;At 3am Scott Milner knew this was the call he dreaded; the call to tell him his mother had had a stroke or fallen down the stairs. &nbsp;He grabbed the phone with one hand and pulled at his trousers with the other. &nbsp;Dear God, he begged, please let there be time. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Scott stay calm,” the voice said. &nbsp;“Your mother’s being held hostage. &nbsp;She’s given us a coded message. &nbsp;‘Adam’s defence. &nbsp;Make your move.’ &nbsp;Before we make our move, as she suggests, we must decode the message. &nbsp;Scott, who is Adam? &nbsp;What’s his defence?” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>Officer Ralston paced the sodden street. &nbsp;“Adam’s defence. &nbsp;What does that mean?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>A distraught Scott equalled her steps, forcing his mind to focus. &nbsp;“Mum’s younger brother Adam died when he was five. &nbsp;They said it was a peanut allergy. &nbsp;When Mom heard about adrenalin injections stopping anaphylactic shock, she shook her head and said, ‘imagine that, just one shot’.” Ralston stopped, spun round. &nbsp;“That’s it,” she said. &nbsp;“Perp’s only got one shot left.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>Ralston moved her team into position as Jake prepared his final move. &nbsp;His eyes gleamed. &nbsp;His fingers twitched. &nbsp;“Check mate, Edith,” he said, grinning. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>“Come out with your hands raised.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Edith did so - alone. &nbsp;Officer Kramer pushed past then returned. &nbsp;“No perp.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I let him out the back,” Edith said.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Ralston groaned. &nbsp;She’d forgotten to cover the back.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I hope he’s okay. &nbsp;I head butted him. He had his arm round my neck and was dripping on my thousand dollar rug. &nbsp;I only meant to push him onto the tiles. &nbsp;But he fell, knocked his head. &nbsp;Shivering with the cold, he was. &nbsp;I put his clothes in the dryer; made muffins; less than five minutes in the microwave. &nbsp;We had cocoa. &nbsp;Played chess; Adams defence, some think it’s weak, but it’s what I know. &nbsp;&nbsp;He’s quick. &nbsp;Beat me after the fifth game.” &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“But Mum he’s a thief and it’s 3am,” said Scott.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Edith shrugged. &nbsp;“I don’t get many visitors. &nbsp;Dates. &nbsp;Times. &nbsp;Appearances. &nbsp;They’re irrelevant when all you want is to hear the sound of someone else’s voice.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>--ENDS--</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>And finally . . . we are on the home stretch . . . or at least the road leading up to it.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I was huffing and heaving when I passed my buddy Gary and a friend he’d picked up along the way. Because they were going to miss the cut off for the road closures, they’d been re-routed. They were plodding their way along St Kilda Road. Gary shouted out, “What’s all that puffing about Missy?” I scowled, too exhausted for frivolity.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The course seemed never-ending. I lived for the drink stations where I could walk while I drank (my self-imposed rule). I forced myself to start running again, though I use the term ‘running’ very loosely. We went up yet another incline that felt like crawling up a sand dune the size of Everest. A lady in the crowd shouted, “The finish line is just around the corner! It’s only 400m away! You’re going to make it!”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>This is why Melbournians can’t reverse park – they have no sense of distance. Her 400m was more like 900m. I didn’t know this at the time though and her encouragement and support seeped into me and I had hope that I would actually whimper across the line.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #12: Not seeing the finishing line can be a good thing. Blind faith that it is within reach can be a beautiful lie. &nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>After rounding the aforementioned corner, and veering to the left and then gently to the right, I saw it. It was big and red and inflatable and flanking the road up to it were crowds of strangers clapping and cheering and spurring us all onwards. Some runners found ‘a bit in the tank’ and sprinted gleefully under the arch. I had nothing left. Absolutely nothing. It was all out there behind me, waiting for someone to come along with a rake and scoop it up.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I smiled though – and crossed the line – as the announcer declared that the five hour runners were just coming through. Five hours. Or four hours, fifty-eight minutes and twenty-eight seconds. I wasn’t euphoric. I wasn’t leaping and high fiving. I was spent. Physically, mentally and emotionally spent. Admittedly, I wasn’t grumpy any more. But I had nothing.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I wandered away from the finish line and found a tree. I thought I could lower myself to the ground. My calves had other ideas.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Excuse me,” I asked a stranger, “could you help lower me to the ground?”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“Of course,” he said and rushed over to help me sit down.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“How are you going to get up?” his friend asked.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I smiled. “Oh I’ll worry about that later.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #13: Sometimes the next step is a mystery. That’s okay. Lean against your tree and suck in tranquillity. The next step will reveal itself when the time is right.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>I texted Gary that I’d finished. He told me that he’d be a while, that I should go home and he’d catch a taxi. I took a couple of selfies and posted them on Facebook. I swapped stories with a couple of competitors and posed for one of the official photographers. I limped to the car and sat. It felt good.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I could see Gary and his new friend walking/limping/crawling/crying along the looping route that the slower competitors had to do to make up the part of the road course they’d missed. On the final loop, he signalled me to join them.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>“I’m not moving,” I called. Then I regretted it. We should cross the finish line together. I hobbled towards them. By the time I’d gone 100m, Gary had crossed the finish line, collected his finisher’s medal and was halfway to the car. He’d crossed the line 15 seconds before the official race cut-off time. If I’d hobbled along with them, I would have held them back and they wouldn’t have made it.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #14: It’s okay to be imperfect. It’s human to be imperfect. And sometimes, believe it or not, other people can more easily achieve their goals if you aren’t beside them, aiming for sainthood.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>Gary hugged me tightly. We’d done it. We’d finished a marathon and lived (so far) to tell our tales. Gary looked at me, like only an age-old friend can. It was a moment to relish, to remember for the depth of friendship it conveyed. Then Gary spoke: “That is the last stupid thing I am ever doing with you.” (Insert from Gaz: However, before long we will be looking for something stupider and crazier to do together.)&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #15: Real friends know that the craziest ideas often give us the most treasured memories and so will never let you set out on insanity’s road alone.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>Gary Pearce is the founder and organiser of the Col Pearce Corporate Triathlon, a supporter for the Hervey Bay 100 triathlon and lover of, and tour guide on, Fraser Island. He’s also the best mate a girl could want! My deepest thanks to Sharon Pearce for finding Gary’s running singlet, and bundling him to the airport on time – and more importantly for sharing the crazy life of my good buddy.</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>We take up the story, just prior to M-day . . .&nbsp;</p>\n<p>My friend Gary and his wife Sharon were to arrive the day before the big event. So I spent some time making my flat respectable. The dining room table which had been swamped by papers, user manuals, books and electronics, finally emerged. My kitchen and bathroom sparkled and the carpet, relieved of its dusty burden, fluffed up. &nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #6: The road to achieving a goal is paved with unforeseen benefits.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>The night before we synchronised alarms – for 4:30am. I woke up excited. This was the day I’d been waiting for. It seemed surreal. Surely this wasn’t actually going to happen? Could it possibly be that within a few hours . . . . okay within seven to nine hours, I could call myself a marathoner? I ate two pieces of toast and drank some water. We drove towards the city and the parking the event organisers co-ordinated next to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). The MCG is a bit like a religious shrine in Melbourne. It makes sense, our collective religion could be mistaken as ‘sport’ and the MCG is our oldest sporting venue. As an aside, it is apparently also the best venue in which to have a heart attack – it has a number of defibrillators. Usually the marathon finishes in the MCG. Last year, due to repairs and an impending sporting event, it was to finish outside. I know some people chose not to run for that reason. Still, the five events had a collective field of over 32,000 people.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #7: If you build ‘it’, not everyone will come. That’s okay. You only need to attract enough people to make, whatever ‘it’ is successful by your measure.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>Melbourne is renowned for its variable weather; four seasons in one day is sometimes an exaggeration – we can experience four seasons in an hour. While Melbournians will talk somewhat incessantly about the weather, it doesn’t dictate our activities. If it did, we’d never venture outside. Besides, as the saying goes, “If you don’t like the weather in Melbourne, wait five minutes.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>The day of the marathon, Melbourne ‘turned it on’ in the way only a city besmirched for having year-round bad weather, can. The sky was blue and cloudless. The temperature began at 11oC and rose to 25oC while we were on the course. There was no discernible breeze; or more correctly, no gale-force ice-cold southerly.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #8: The unexpected can often be a good thing.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>And so it came to pass that at 7am on Sunday, October 12th 2014, my buddy Gary and I set out on a marathon. It was my first ever. Gary had only ever done a marathon as part of an ironman event (for the uninitiated this is a 3.8km, 180km bike ride followed by a full marathon). Except Gary had had a foot injury and a time-consuming new job and hadn’t been able to train. So he told me to set my own pace and not worry about staying with him.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #9: Real supporters don’t need to hold you back in order to achieve for themselves.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>Melbourne is the sporting capital of Australia for a reason. We love sport. We play it, watch it on television and turn out to cheer on individuals and teams whether we know them or not. So children stood at the roadside, their little hands out for low fives – which we runners gladly gave. They also offered snakes and jellybeans and squirts of water from spray bottles. They cheered and clapped and held signs of encouragement e.g. “The pain is temporary. The pride is forever.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Volunteers filled cups of water and Hydrolyte and held them out to us. Others, including a small boy whose rake was taller than he was, collected all the discarded cups. At every turn there were people to usher us in the right direction.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #10: On the road to personal victory, linger a while and notice how many people with no vested interest are actively contributing to your success. It is truly humbling.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>I knew it was going to be difficult. I’d psyched myself up for that mental challenge. I had four energy gels in my pockets and my iPod. I was saving my iPod battery for the second half. Just after the halfway mark, I temporarily joined a group of three guys who told me that our pace was 6:30 or one kilometre every six and a half minutes. If we kept that pace, we’d finished in four and a half hours. I knew the likelihood of maintaining that pace was slim, but I hoped that perhaps I could make the finish line in under five hours. They assured me I would.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>As the course wove around the streets of inner Melbourne in what seemed like ceaseless loops and endless inclines, I began to wonder. My calves were screaming. I couldn’t breathe. At one point I thought it might be wisest if I pulled into the next first aid station for some oxygen. I gave this serious thought because I wasn’t getting enough air. But asking for oxygen would mean the end of my marathon. I was 15km away from my goal. But I couldn’t breathe, my legs were so heavy I could barely lift them, I was getting irritated by little things – like cheerful runners with boundless energy who could not only bounce along but sing! Sing!!! I couldn’t breathe and they were chanting Queen’s “We are the Champions”. I wanted to cry. And not just cry. I wanted to collapse on the road, exactly where I was and sob my racing heart out. I didn’t. That all seemed like far too much activity.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>I forced myself to control my breathing. I instructed, nay, commanded my calves to relax. I told myself to suck it up or I’d be doing it all again. After all, this was a bucket list item. It had to be done and if not that day, another in the future. “Just one step,” I told myself. It became my mantra. “Just one more step. Just one more step.”&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #11: When the going gets tough, far tougher than you’ve ever imagined, instead of pushing, pushing, pushing, relax, breathe and focus on the biggest step you can take with the minimum amount of pain.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>Almost on the home stretch . . .</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p><em>I am wearing the smirk of the cat that got the cream and the plump cushion in a brilliant ray of sunlight; the fighting fish that has his very own wave pool, and plastic weed; the dog whose human is a perpetual ball-throwing machine. &nbsp;</em></p>\n<p><em>Okay, you get it; I’m pretty chuffed. I ran a marathon. &nbsp;</em></p>\n<p><em>And because I’m so chuffed that I completed a marathon I am going to regale you with comparisons between my sporting achievement and the business world and life in general. &nbsp;</em></p>\n<p><em>It’s going to be a long haul, so I’ve divided it into three parts. Still, you might need a snack so I’ll pause while you get coffee and a donut. &nbsp;</em></p>\n<p><strong>Right then, let's begin at the beginning . . . &nbsp;</strong></p>\n<p>You may know that the first person to run a marathon dropped dead from exhaustion shortly after. My smugness at having survived this gruelling event was short lived when I researched the marathon’s history. As is often the case that truncated version left out a few rather important points. In 490BC the Persian Army wanted to invade Europe and had landed an army just outside of Athens on the plains of Marathon. Phidippides, a professional runner, ran 140 miles through mountainous and rugged countryside to seek help from Sparta’s army. He did that in 36 hours. The Spartans agreed to help – but due to religious laws they needed to wait until the full moon, thus leaving the Athenians alone and vastly outnumbered. So Phidippides took the news back to Athens. On foot. Yep. That’s another 140 miles (Ostapuk, 2014).&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Then, wearing heavy armour, he joined the fighting force. Despite being outnumbered 4 to 1, the Athenian’s lost only 192 men to the Persians 6400. The Persians fled to the sea and headed to Athens hoping they could attack before the Greek Army had time to regroup. Once again the fleet of foot Phidippides was asked to pass on news of the victory and warn of the impending attack. That was the 26 miles too far. Having done the best he could, Phidippides died from exhaustion (Ostapuk, 2014). It certainly puts my achievement into perspective.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #1: Measure your achievements in the light of your life, your abilities and your life journey; because no matter what you achieve, there will always be someone who seems to have achieved more with less. That in no way diminishes your efforts; it simply highlights the different paths we all take.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>The victory kept the Persians from conquering Europe, increased their confidence in their government and culture and led to modern nations like the United States and Canada.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #2: When you focus on your unique talent, you really can make a difference – even if you never live to recognise it.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>Speeding ahead to modern day, we get to me. I’m not a professional runner but I’ve long admired people who have run a marathon. It seemed to me a physical, mental and emotional achievement beyond anything I could imagine. So I put it on my bucket list.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Since I’m not getting any younger, I decided that 2014 was the year. I started training late in 2013, though I use the term ‘training’ as loosely as you’d use the word ‘cuddly’ to describe a pet alligator. The Melbourne Marathon was almost a year away. Still, in keeping with the idea that publicising a goal tends to pressure you to fulfil it, I made my grand announcement. One friend, Gary Pearce (Gaz), called me up one day and asked me if I’d actually entered yet. I said I hadn’t – well, seriously an announcement is one thing, putting up money is a commitment. As a true friend would, he promised to make the journey from Hervey Bay in Queensland to Melbourne to run the event with me. We signed up that day.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #3: A difficult goal seems easier to achieve when someone signs up to join you – even though this may also indicate you’re just two lunatics egging each other on.</strong></em> &nbsp;</p>\n<p>And so I ran. I also joined a 24/7 gym to work on strength and my core. This proved to be an exercise haven when Melbourne weather threatened to derail my training schedule. My main running route was a 5.3km course around my neighbourhood. Given that cities often have reputations for being unfriendly places, I am happy to report that my neighbourhood, at least, is very friendly. People walking their dogs smiled and said hello. People waiting at tram stops gave the thumbs up. Drivers stopped to allow me across the road. As I puffed up one hill near the end of a lap, one lady pushing a walker said, “I’m jealous.” There was also an old man who usually sat on his verandah; we began a waving ritual. He disappeared for weeks and when he came back I met him at his gate. He’d been sick, he told me. He was still sick. I told him that I’d missed him. He said that he’d missed me too. We wished each other well.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #4: Inspiration lingers in the most unexpected of places. Often the most inspiring people are not those who have already achieved, but those who support you to achieve what is no longer available to them.&nbsp;</strong></em></p>\n<p>My training required sacrifices. Yet, they didn’t seem like sacrifices. In the last three months before it, I undertook to only eat chocolate when I met up with my friend Emma. (I’ll bet she’s glad it’s over and she doesn’t have to see me quite so much ;-)). I stopped drinking alcohol. I drank three litres of water a day. I tried to do some sort of exercise every day. When people invited me to join spontaneous weekend activities, I often had to decline because the weekend was my ‘long run’ time. We call these things sacrifices. They aren’t really. A sacrifice to me is giving up something I’d rather be doing for something I feel obliged to do – like my tax. The reality was, while I would have enjoyed being with my friends, a part of me would have felt I was cheating myself out of a greater enjoyment.&nbsp;</p>\n<p><em><strong>Lesson #5: Instant gratification comes every moment we spend working towards a goal.</strong></em></p>\n<p>Read more in Part II</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Bibliography&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Fuehrer, D. and Douglas, S. (2014) “A Brief History of the Marathon” April 28th 2014. Available at http://www.runnersworld.com/races/a-brief-history-of-the-marathon. Accessed 13th October 2014.&nbsp;</p>\n<p>Ostapuk, P. (2014) “The Marathon Story. The Battle that Changed Human History” Available at: http://www.lakepowell.net/marathon.html. Accessed 13th October 2014.</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "Thank you! Wow! As someone who is technically challenged, I wasn't expecting your instructions to actually work....more me than you.  However.....2 minutes later I have uploaded photos! You are a gem!!!",
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      "body": "Pictures from the amazing Iguazu Falls Argentina. They do not do this magnificent natural wonder justice. Enjoy!\n\n\n![]https://i.imgsafe.org/6810f5223b.jpg\n\n\n![]https://i.imgsafe.org/68106cb927.jpg\n\n![]https://i.imgsafe.org/680fcbaf30.jpg",
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      "body": "Thank you.",
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      "author": "positivesteem",
      "body": "Thank you for this excellent idea and for the support.\nPlease upvote my nomination\n \nhttps://steemit.com/steemvoter/@walterz/re-steemvoter-steemvoter-guild-nominate-a-friend-for-the-guild-vote-monday-june-5-20170605t154221292z",
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      "body": "This is beautiful. Reading it and seeing the picture, I imagined greeting cards that are a composite of your son's artwork and your poetry. So heartfelt and pure. Thank you for sharing this with us.",
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      "author": "steemitboard",
      "body": "Congratulations @mandyjvic! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :\n\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/notifications/firstcomment.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@mandyjvic) You made your First Comment\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/notifications/voted.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@mandyjvic) Award for the number of upvotes received\n\nClick on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.\nFor more information about SteemitBoard, click [here](https://steemit.com/@steemitboard)\n\nIf you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word `STOP`\n\nIf you want to support the SteemitBoard project, your upvote for this notification is welcome!",
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      "body": "The sadness of this poem touches me.\nDo check out  father and autistic son, poem and art collaboration\nhttps://steemit.com/art/@positivesteem/i-wish-i-understand-featuring-my-autistic-son-s-artwork-and-my-poem",
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