Arrivals and Departures

This week has been dominated by in my mind by my night with Savita but life continues around me and changes are occurring elsewhere.
First, a wonderful piece of news – Lisa has had her baby girl, a healthy 3.5kg. Lisa herself is a bit exhausted but well. The girl looks a lot like Lisa but also quite a lot of John is there. She is an incredibly cute child – almost one-tenth as gorgeous as my daughter. (No-one could be more than one-tenth as cute.) They came out of hospital last weekend. Sue is beside herself with joy. The girl has very healthy lungs as I discovered when I went visiting one time, I could hear her even before I entered the block of flats.
Sue was fussing about everything and I had to calm things down a bit – I had forgotten how daunting a new child can be. But despite the frenzy, the sense of joy was wonderful. Maybe the daughter is not in the most conventional family but she is certainly in a deeply loving one.

John has seen the little girl a few times – Sue keeps inviting him –he is being helpful to them ensuring that anything they need is got to them – including an endless supply of nappies and proper food for the parents. Sue keeps referring to this daughter as John’s also but he does not want that – this is the child of Sue and Lisa even if he is the biological father and I know Sue appreciates John’s tact in not trying to push in even if she also wants to include him.

I asked John about how he felt about the baby and he said, he thought she was gorgeous and he was so delighted to see Lisa and Sue happy. I asked about his relationship with the baby and he said that Sue had asked him to be godfather and he was delighted to be that.

I know that this was a testing question for him given the other major event of the week. This is something that has been in the wings for week but the final nail was placed in the coffin. Annette finally moved out completely.

Things had not being going well for some time. Annette felt left out and had quarrelled with almost everyone. I think she was especially disappointed in me and my failure to build closer bonds with her. I felt bad about this but somehow I have felt a distance which I just couldn’t reach over. Part of it was her bad attitude to John since the birth of her son but also I could not find common emotional ground.

The parting was not amicable and Annette said she would fight tooth and nail to stop access for john to their son. John loves that little boy so much and this is just so nasty that I am afraid at the moment I feel an intense dislike for her. I tried to talk to Annette’s mother to smooth things over and was intensely disappointed – her mother (Joan) said that if we “made trouble”, she would report us to DOCS and we would have to struggle to keep our daughter – she said that we lived in a corrupting environment and our daughter was “at risk”. She said that I was a perverted whore who would corrupt my daughter and she wasn’t going to let her grandson be abused by us.

Lin was very upset by Annette’s attitude and, as her ex-gf, she tried to talk to Annette and went to visit her. They quarrelled fiercely and Lin – who has always been so loyal to Annette – came to see me with an anger against her that matched my own. When I told her what Joan had said, Lin screamed “That bitch. Her daughter is perverted and a whore – you’re just a very sexual woman – maybe you’re a whore like me but I tell you, Grace, your daughter is in a more loving and healthy environment than 90% of kids in Sydney. All your friends know that you’re a great mother and John’s the greatest father – you can tell by how happy and untroubled your daughter is. Don’t listen to that bitch and don’t change.”

Lin’s words were greatly appreciated – Joan’s comments had hurt me deeply and I had not wanted to talk to John because his loss of his son is much more devastating. Lin and I have clashed a lot and we are not really friends but I know she is a decent person and this discussion reinforced my trust in her. I know she loves John intensely but it was not just that which has made her so forceful on this.

Meanwhile, John is being his usual wonderful self – playing with our daughter and generally being supportive of the family. I know he is missing his son deeply though.

I guess one good thing about Annette moving out is that my sister now has a room of her own rather than alternating between the lounge and my daughter’s room. I can’t see her moving out any time soon and so it is better that she is not quite as much under foot.