Where this path it leads, I will go

When we touched down in Perth again, I was glad.  I was glad to be “just us”.

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The Melbourne visit had been like confirmation, to me, that I had made the right choice to be near 4,000 kilometres from those known as family, for like within a picture frame we all stood inside the photographs we took of Daniel and my visit, but it was like my soul was outside the frame – above and looking down at me, knowing, “You are best to stand alone.”

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I never meant to be such a lone soul, but I was.  Was it fate, or was it my making from the childhood I’d spent?  I wanted love, ideally – just not possession of me; I wanted support, ideally – just not ownership of me in exchange by virtue of gratitude.  I wanted to collapse into loving arms and therein rest – just not to realize, again, that the man who stood to catch me was not capable of carrying me, when mentally exhausted I fell backward, for the weight of my troubled mind would cause him to buckle.  And correct myself, I would, and carry me and my mind away to be alone and not-affecting others in the world.

“Yes, just awful stomach pains – I think it’s gastro”, I would tell work.

“Just, you know, that time of the month”, I would tell him, which explanation he was unconsciously ecstatic that I saved him by.

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And to the corner of my life I would drag myself, and cower in the shadows until “it” passed, that thundercloud and storm that dogged me my whole life.  I would endure, endure, and eventually by its very nature, the last strike of lightning would splinter my memories/depression/the unspoken, the last assault of tears banked would recede, and I would look up to see a slither of sunshine.  Just a slither of sunshine was enough to have me uncurl from that corner and, though cold and drained I would be from the journey weathered inside my head, I would continue the day – zombie-like, sometimes, I would – but I would.

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As we passed the airline staff – and this time it was a genuine smile from me, and a gurgling wave from my cherubic baby – and I walked down the tunnel to solid ground, it did not entirely matter that there was no-one to meet us.  As I waited for our one huge suitcase to appear amongst all the travellers’ luggage, this time bulging with more clothes for Daniel, and toys, I supposed I could keep going it alone.

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As I bundled us onto the bus, and jammed our suitcase into the luggage hold of the vehicle, seated us nearby a window and looked out at the city of Perth as we passed it, I reckoned I could be firmer with Chris, more an authority, have boundaries, not let him arrive at any hour at his convenience.  Rather, I thought, from now on I will sometimes say we are busy or Daniel is sleeping – even if it’s not true; even if I am just playing with him on the floor alone and we have nowhere to go and nowhere to ‘be’.  Just to assert some boundaries, I would pretend to Chris we have a schedule and our lives have structure, and we are so important that we are not available at his unpredictable whim.

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As Daniel’s mother, I decided while we passed the Swan River and I pointed out to Daniel the fishermen at its edges, stubby in hand – “Guess who’s having fish tonight?  – from now on, if Chris wants to see him then he will need to give us notice.  And he will need to not disappear for literally a month or two, leaving neither of us knowing when he would choose to see his son again.  And he would need… child support.  Would he need to pay for Daniel’s wellbeing, nappies, existence, food?  Money still posed a moral dilemma, somehow.

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Whereas the one left holding the baby wanted to be holding the baby, raising that little life – whereas they were expected to pay every day for that life, or struggle on a pension and be victim of other’s departure from responsibility; it remained seemingly a choice of the departed whether to contribute to that life, their blood.  Should I continue to allow Chris to visit as Daniel’s father, and not bear the responsibility of Daniel’s father?

“The other mother doesn’t ask for money – why should you?” I recalled his words.  “You’re lucky in Australia:  the government takes care of it.”  How unforgettable.

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Daniel’s joy tumbled from the babble through his lips, to my soul.  Such music, was the voice of my infant son.  Had I once babbled so?  Had my mother lovingly held me so?  These moments, they would pass in our lives, and where within our selves would they reside in the furrows of memory?  Would Daniel subconsciously ever recall my warm hands holding his belly steady so he could sort of stand on my lap, his fingers pressing against the glass of the bus, seemingly seeking to reach through it and pluck the fishermen up like dolls in a play set, and put them down somewhere else – like maybe under that tree over there?  And that dog, it can go to the water’s edge as if it’s about to rush into the river, chasing that seagull suspended above the choppy waters.  And that brown car with the man standing next to it, talking to the girl – we can put the car up near the road alongside the pier, and the girl we can stand next to the man and have her strolling along the pier with him.

Do our lives, we place so?  Mine, it seemed to have fallen through the cracks of our broken family.

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The bus neared our stop so I stood carefully, held Daniel on my hip and edged our way to the luggage rack at the front.  I then pressed the bell.  We waited.

As I manouevred Daniel and our suitcase out of the bus, I decided there was nothing I could do about Chris’ resistance of financial support of Daniel but to wait until we went to Court in May, 1 year and 5 months after Daniel’s birth, for a Magistrate to tell us what we both knew from the DNA tests I had to force upon Chris:  that Daniel is his son.

 

I didn’t know what step followed beyond that, but I hoped Chris would take it on the chin like a real man – like I had – and be responsible for Daniel’s life.  As for “the other mother”:  I wished (in the name of human progress) she had enforced her rights, although Chinese national she was – her rights as a woman, mother, citizen of Australia.  And enforced the rights of her child.  

For their lives, however, I could not fight.  But for my son’s, I would.  Wherever this path in the law took us, I would go.

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I just hoped, hoped that Chris would not fight to avoid his responsibility to Daniel for the next whole 18 years.  I felt exhaustion, even at the thought.
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Copyright, Noeleen&Daniel 50/50