Every Second Sunday

Every Second Sunday – Her Story

Sometimes I wish I never had her... then I wouldn't have to deal with her father.

Every second Sunday is the worst; I have to smile pleasantly while he drops our 5 year old home, both of them happy and exhausted from another fun weekend together! They say that the best form of revenge is success, so I’m a successful single mother, a career woman who owns a lovely home and a late model car, yet all that still doesn’t erase the devastation and humiliation I felt when the love of my life heard our baby’s heart beat for the first time then turned around and walked out of my life for the next two and a half years.

We were both high when we found out that I was pregnant, staring in disbelief at the little pink line on the home pregnancy test gave us the giggles and we stayed in that disbelieving non-reality for the next 3 months, until I finally came down enough to visit my doctor whom was no fool and immediately ordered an ultrasound. The next day we walked into the sterile office, the stenographer throwing us puzzled glances as we giggled our way through the 10 minutes of preparation. He held my hand tightly and kissed my hair as the image of our baby came onto the screen; as the steady beat of our baby’s heart filled the room his grip on my hand loosened until it lay limp on the blanket. I looked up into his handsome face to see a stranger, who was this man staring in disgust at the baby that we had both created? Then he turned around and walked out, simply left, he didn’t even glance back. The rest of the consultation is a blur; by the time I waddled into our flat all his clothes were gone and I did the only thing I knew how: I reached for my savior and spent the next 3 weeks in sweet oblivion. Eventually my parents intervened and threatened to seek custody of my baby unless I got clean; so immediately after giving birth to my underweight red-faced girl-child, we entered a mother and baby rehab centre.

Is it wrong that everything I have ever done in my life since that humiliating day is geared toward showing him how great I’m doing without him? My degree, my career, my house, all carefully orchestrated for show, none of it fills the chasm in my soul where he used to be. I don’t really think he’s a bad father, since his unexpected contact 2 and a half years ago he has proven himself to be the kind of father that every little girl deserves: patient and caring and fun and loving. So here I sit yet again, a bland smile on my perfectly made up face in my tastefully decorated living room, swallowing the hysteria I always feel inside when near him, craving a hit, craving a high, anything to escape the fact that I still love him.

Every Second Sunday – His Story

Sometimes after I tuck my daughter into bed, I watch her sleeping; I watch her baby chest rising and falling with each breath and listen for her little heartbeat. The heartbeat that scared me shitless when I first heard it, the heartbeat that scared me clean.

I walked out of the doctors’ office that day and ran home, I threw whatever of mine I could into a duffle bag and jumped onto the next bus that was passing. What was I running away from? The woman who was the love of my life? The responsibility of having a child? Or the truth that my child deserved a better father than a junkie like me? I travelled for 3 days straight, sometimes by bus, sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes just walking, deep into the bush. I had heard of a commune started in the 70’s that a mate of mine had gone to live in; the last time we spoke he told me that if I ever got serious about getting clean to come to him and he’d do whatever he could to help. I spent the next 12 months in that bastard of a place; I don’t know which hurt more; being away from her or the physical pain of withdrawal. I lost count of the times I cried myself to sleep, burying my head in the pillow and imagining it was her hair I was kissing again. Finally I felt ready to go back to real life; life on the commune was hard slog but I knew that life in society would be a million times harder.

I had a plan, but I didn’t stick to it, I asked around and found out that she and the baby had moved in with her parents, good solid people with strong moral fiber and no tolerance for bad behavior. I stood behind a tree across from the house like the coward that I am, hours later I finally saw her emerge, blanketed from the cold by a warm coat and scarf with a students satchel slung across her body. Her mother stood at the front door waving her off holding a baby, I was too far away to see the child clearly, but I swear to God my heart tightened at the first sight of my off-spring. She kissed the baby goodbye then her mum; I could hear the baby gurgle happily. It was another 6 months before I got to hold my daughter for the first time, she claimed that I was an unfit father and incapable of looking after a child however my solicitor proved her wrong and I was granted partial custody.

Three years have passed and I have turned myself into a father that my daughter can be proud of, my house, my career, everything is done with my baby’s best interest at heart. While my life may be going well in that area, it’s not so good in others. Why do I still wake up at night clutching a pillow to my chest and dreaming it’s her that I’m holding? She and I have never spoken about this wall between us; she refuses to utter a word to me that is not connected to our child. I thought that things between us would get easier with time but it is anything but the case. She is like a figure made of glass; cold, brittle, untouchable, unreachable. She thinks I don’t see behind her mask, she thinks I don’t see the contempt in her eyes as she smiles politely at me, she thinks I don’t know that she’s still an addict. I don’t think she knows that I still love her.