Cameron: How To Save Your Family

I'd done some research online to help me figure out how to support my daughters as they grow up. I'd even thought about trying to enlist the help of one of the women that works for the construction company. She's a single mother and would likely have some good suggestions for me about how I can best support Laura and Diane as they grow up. Laura is almost thirteen now and I can see that she is becoming a young woman. Maybe having Britt around would be a good thing for the kids. I just wasn't sure that I could handle having her around. If she wasn't prepared to change to be a better person, then I wasn't going to allow her into our lives. I couldn't handle the pain again; I was just getting over it from before and now here she was.

**********

The day went very quickly. The kids got up, got fed and helped out doing their normal chores. They kind of tiptoed around their mother. It was as if they didn't really believe that she was there. She was there, but was it the real Mom that had come through the front door last night?

I saw when I got up that Davey wasn't on the air mattress. I'd looked around the house for him and then realized that he might be in his own room. I very quietly peeked in and sure enough, he was sound asleep, snuggled up to his mother. He was the first to vote.

I knew that Laura was going to be the one that would have the most difficult time with her mother coming here. She's a very smart kid and has really stepped up and taken on lot of responsibility that a normal 12-year-old might not have. She is the one that corrals her sister and brother and gets them at their homework. She takes the lead in cleaning up the kitchen after meals and she helps me with all kinds of small things in our lives. She's invaluable to me. But now, her mother is suddenly here and just what that means is a long way from being known. It remains to be seen if Britt will be here for more than a few days and then bugger-off back to her home.

I had plans for us to go on a day-hike north of the city. Sure enough, when breakfast was done, Laura reminded Diane and Davey that they had to go get their day-packs ready. She also reminded them to brush their teeth. I tried not to laugh. I was watching Britt and she wisely stayed out of the way. I told Britt our plans and she asked if she could come with us. I looked at the kids and told her 'Yes,' she could come.

When we went outside to get in the truck Laura went to the front passenger door, like she normally does to get in. Britt was a bit confused, from two perspectives. The passenger side was on the left of the truck and Laura was already in the passenger seat. I looked at Laura and asked, "Do you mind if your mother sits there today?" Laura rolled her eyes at me and let out a bit of a sigh, as much to say 'whatever,' and got out of the front of the truck and went to the back seat.

My truck is a 2010 Toyota Hilux model, which in the U.S. is called a crew-cab. It's very much like the Toyota Tacoma sold in the U.S. only the steering is on the right side of the truck and it has a diesel engine and a manual transmission.

We were off to Mount Donna Buang Observation Tower to take some photos and then do some hiking in the area. Melbourne is surrounded by a lot of national parks and breathtaking scenery. We had done some of the coastal walks before and the Tower was on the kids list of places that they wanted to see.

I had packed lunches and bottles of water for everyone and I made extra for Britt. I carried it. The kids all had their own backpack and hiked with all their own essentials. I had the first aid kit and a couple of foil emergency blankets. We always took a rain jacket and hat; that was an essential every time.

Britt was noticeably nervous since this was really the first time in the last eighteen months, she had done much of anything with her kids. One of the last times she did anything with us as a family was in the camper that I had bought. She hated the thing and only went with us in it twice. By then our marriage was on the down swing. She was making work excuses to not do things with us. Today, there was no escaping having to do outdoors physical activity. If she wanted to curry favour with the kids she was going to have to hike and enjoy it. Besides, today was easy hiking and only about 10 kilometers.

Davey took his mother's hand as we hiked. Now that she was here, he was making sure that she didn't get away. Diane was walking with her for a big part of the hike and they talked about all the things that ten-year-old's talk about. Laura stuck with me and I could tell that she wanted to talk to me. When we were a bit ahead of the others, she came right out and asked, "Dad, how long is she going to stay?"

"I don't know. I think that she wants to be part of the family again. I think that she very much misses you and Diane and Davey. I know it's clear that Davey misses her. And I think that Diane does too. Do you?"

Laura gave me her very serious face. "I did, miss her. But I'm not sure that I do now. She left us. She gave all of us up; me, Davey, Diane and even you. Why did she do that, Dad?"

I let out a big breath. "I wish I knew, Sweetie. I wish I knew. I do know that she made some bad decisions and that she paid the price for those decisions. She lost us. But, is it fair for her to lose us forever?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you mother told me this morning that she wants to be part of our family again. She told me that she misses you and Diane and Davey very much and wants to be with you."

"Does she want to be with you, too?"

All this wisdom from a twelve-year-old. "I don't know about that part."

"Do you want to be with her?"

"Okay, too many questions for now. Let's enjoy the hike while the weather is good." I avoided answering that very difficult question because I didn't have an answer for it.

We got to the top of the observation tower and took some photos and ate part of our lunches. Next was on to the hiking trail and a waterfall. We sprayed everyone with a generous amount of bug spray since Ross River and Barmah Forest are the two most common mosquito-borne viruses in Victoria. Britt made a face as she got misted with the stuff and the kids all laughed at her noises. We all smelled like bug juice for the rest for the day until we got home and everyone got showered up. It was a nice outing and let us all get reacquainted.

That night, Davey wanted his mother to read to him at bedtime. She read to him and then once he was asleep, she came out and sat in the kitchen at the island to talk to me. This was going to be a continuation of the discussion that we started in the morning. I could hear Laura moving around in the hallway going to the bathroom and then back to the bedroom she shared with her little sister.

I got Britt and I each a beer since I didn't have any wine in the house. I don't drink the stuff and so never buy any. I handed her the beer; it was in a glass bottle. No glasses needed. I took a drink.

"Did you enjoy the day with the kids? I know Davey did and probably Diane did too. Laura is going to be the tough customer and hard to convince that you're serious about wanting to be her mother again."

Britt took a drink. Before she could say anything, I continued "She felt very rejected by you. Just in case you missed it. I did too."

Britt was looking at the counter-top. "How do I tell them that I want to be full-time mother to them?"

"I don't think you can actually just tell them and have them understand, you have to show them. You have to be here for them and you have to do the things that mothers do. You can't play the part of a mother; you have to live the part of a mother. I try to live the part of a father. I don't always do it really well, but the kids are great and they help me every day. I couldn't get through the day without them."

Britt was looking at me now. I had my serious face on.

She started. "I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why you weren't good enough for me. You had to be lacking in something for me to want to spend time with another man. But it took a lot of time for me to realize that I wasn't good enough for you."

She took a big drink. "The more that you did as a father, the less I did as a mother. It's hard to explain but I thought of your success as my failure. Part of my brain thought that I was better off away from my family. So, I went to Dean. He was charming and completely devoid of any actual principles and values. He cheated on a nice girl to spend time with me, a married woman. I told myself that it was strictly recreational and there was no way that it would affect you or the kids."

She took another drink. "I didn't know how you found out that I was cheating on you until after the divorce and then it hit me. His girlfriend must have told you. The cat was out of the bag."

We both took and drink. I told her, "She came to my office and brought some photos of the two of you. She realized that he was cheating on her, even though they were supposedly engaged. She hired an investigator to get the evidence that she shared with me. I thought about it for over a week before I did anything. Then I got some help."

I explained in the Readers Digest version what I did. How I made the decision to try and wait it out and see if she were ending it. When she didn't seem to be, I decided to do some things for myself to deal with the stress and yes, the humiliation of knowing that my wife wanted some other man, rather than me. I must have been a failure as a husband. So, I decided that if I couldn't save my marriage, I would save myself and my children.

I went to the refrigerator and got two more beers. "If you want to return as part of this family, there are conditions. You aren't just going to walk in and say that you're back."

Britt nodded her head. "What do you want me to agree to?"

"Well, the first thing is that you have to faithful to me and the kids. Your infidelity affected us all. If you can't accept that as the first condition, then we don't have anything further to talk about."

"I have thought about that, and not much else for most of the time that you've all been gone. I want to be your wife and their mother."

She wasn't saying that she would do 'anything' to accomplish that objective. I mean, those are really empty promises. Nobody will ever do 'anything.' There are all kinds of things that we won't do, so to say that is pointless. She did, however, say that she wanted to be a wife and mother again. That was...encouraging, if nothing else. I wanted the kids to have a mother, their mother. I wanted that stability for them. For the last year I was planning that their mother was done with the mothering business. She had made her decisions and had to live with the consequences. End of story, for her. My job was to get on with it and make a life for the four of us. That's why I took Tommy's offer and moved us half-way around the planet.

The other thing that impacted Britt was that physical distance from the kids. Being so far away meant that her weekends and holidays were spent alone. I know that if I had to give up my children that it would virtually kill me. There would be no point in my existing anymore. My children are the tangible result of my life. If I do nothing else while I'm alive, I've produced three human beings and fathered them to adulthood. To do a good job at that was the most important thing, for me. If I failed at that, nothing else mattered. That I get to help build something else, is just gravy on top.

Back to my dilemma. What do I do now that Britt is sitting in front of me telling me, in her most sincere way that she wants to be my wife again and the mother of our children again.

"What did you do about your job?"

"I took an indefinite break. I told Rachael that I might be back. It all depends on what you and the kids decide."

"And the place where you were living?"

"I put everything into storage. If you and the kids let me stay, I'll get my father to sell it all. If you send me packing, I'll look for a new place to live. That tiny apartment was depressing. It was cold and very...well, I can't stay there, no matter what."

"That was a very small suitcase you arrived with."

"I have three other big ones being shipped. The airline is holding them for me. If I get to stay, I'll call and get them delivered. If I don't get to stay, I'll call and they'll send them back to Albany."

"The second condition is to talk to me. If you're unhappy with being with me, you have to talk to me. Maybe you and I weren't meant to be married to each other. Maybe we were meant to be with someone else and our marriage was a big mistake. I've thought about that, a lot. But one of the things that I don't think about is that those three kids are a mistake. No matter, they are mine, they are real, for the rest of my life. And I hope it's a long life."

I had to take a breath; I was getting worked up. I took a drink to help me calm down.

"The third condition would be that we go to marriage counseling. We need a psychologist or therapist to help us work through a lot of things. My feelings are still very raw. I was just starting to feel good about myself and now your showing up here has brought all of this back up and I have to deal with it all over again. That's just me. The kids must be very confused right now. I mean, you show up after a year; they are likely wanting to know how long you're planning on staying. You need to talk to them all together and one-at-a-time. You have to regain their trust."

"When would be a good time to do that?"

"Tomorrow. Don't put it off. Not for a minute. But don't you dare get their hopes up and then run back to the States. If you do that I will...I'll do something; don't know what yet, but I'll be very pissed-off."

We talked for a long time. It was late when we finished. I went to bed and left Britt to manage on her own. I carried Davey in to the main bedroom and carefully put him down on the air mattress. I knew that he wanted to be with his mother but she needed to get some sleep too.

There were a lot of questions that I wanted answers to that we didn't talk about. That was for another day.

**********

Britt

The next week went by slowly and quickly. I go to do a lot of things with my kids and Cam. The girls each wanted to talk to me. Laura was the going to make a great lawyer someday. She grilled me unmercifully. 'Why did I come here,' 'How long before I left, again,' 'Was I living with a man at home,' 'Did I want to be a mom again,' and the hardest question, 'Why did I want to stop being a mom.' She was tough customer and didn't pull her punches.

I tried my best to be honest with her. I tried to explain that I made some very bad decisions that affected the whole family and for that I was truly sorry. I told her that I had used the last year to try to figure out why I made those bad decisions and that I realized that I wanted to be with my family, more than anything else. She was silent and didn't offer her vote of forgiveness. I would have to wait for that. I would have to earn it.

Diane was far less critical, but really wanted to be reassured that I wasn't going to run off and leave them.

Davey, well Davey was his normal self. "Mom, do you love us?" I cried like a baby in front of him. He held me and cried with me. At night he often came to snuggle with me. Diane did as well. One night I had two of my kids in my bed. But not Laura.

I'm such a fucked-up person to leave my family like that. I was such a fucked-up wife to be so dishonest with my husband. I thought that I loved him, so why did I do what I did to him?

**********

Cam

Britt has been here a month and it's January and time for the kids to go back to school and me to go back to full-time work. I've been working from home as much as possible, the last month, on my laptop and cell phone. It was coming to a point that Britt had to make a decision and the kids and I had to make one as well.

I took the kids over to the office/warehouse that we used to run the business from. They were set up in our conference room and doing their homework. I brought in cans of orange pop and closed the door. "Okay, we have to have a family talk." Heads snapped up from books and iPads to look at me.

Laura said the obvious, "Mom isn't here, should we wait until we go home?"

"No, I want to talk about your mother. I want the four of us to talk about the last month that she has been here. I want to know what you think. Davey, we'll start with you; I have pretty good idea what you will say, but go ahead and tell me and your ugly sisters (that got a laugh from all of them) what you think."

Davey took a sip of his orange pop, "Crikey, Dad. I want Mum (Davey had adopted the Aussie terminology) to live with us. I don't want her to leave. Besides I really hate that air mattress."

Like always, right to the point. "Okay, that's one vote for your mother to stay."

I looked at Diane, next. "Sweetie, have you liked having Mom here?"

She looked at us all, "Yes. I missed her a lot and I was glad when she came here. I want her to stay."

That was two votes for their mother. I turned to Laura. "What's your decision?"

For her, the jury was not yet convinced. "What do you want Dad?"

"This isn't about me. This is how you feel about your mother."

"But it is about you, too. If we want her to live with us, does that mean that you are leaving?"

Suddenly the faces of Diane and Davey got really serious. They quickly turned to look at me. I know that they hadn't thought of this whole situation in those terms. But Laura did. She's my incredibly mature daughter. She'll make a great prosecutor someday.

"If your mother stays, we have a lot of very hard problems to work out. Your mother has made a very good start by coming here." I paused.

"Dad, do you love her anymore?"

I looked at my three kids. "I never stopped loving your mother. She did some things that meant that I couldn't be married to her anymore, but I have always loved her."

Prosecutor Laura continued. "Can you live with her again?"

Before I answered that one, I had to take a deep breath and let it out. I knew that for the benefit of my family, I had to try to mend things with Britt. I knew that Laura wanted her mother back, as well. I could see it in her and how her attitude to Britt had defrosted over the last month.

So, I told them what I wanted to do. They smiled and came to me for a group hug. We were all crying.

**********

Later that night

Laura

When we got home, we could smell something good cooking and after we went in and unloaded our backpacks on the dining table to finish our homework, Mum stuck her head around the corner. "Supper will be ready in a little bit so clean that table off in about twenty minutes and wash your hands."

Dad had not hugged or kissed Mum once in the last month. He had been extremely polite to her but not once had I seen him actually touch her. The three of us all muttered our 'okay' and carried on. I was watching Dad like a hawk. What happened in the next little while would be the thing to tell us what our future would look like.

Before we sat down to eat, Dad went to the refrigerator and got two bottles of beer out and opened them and put them down at the spots where he and Mum were going to sit. Now, Dad never has beer with his supper, never! Unless it's a special time.

We all got food on our plates and started eating. We were all watching Dad and Mum and waiting for something to happen. But it didn't. Crikey! When are these two going to figure it out?

At one point Dad looked at me and I gave him my wide-eyed laser-beam bug-eye stare. It said, 'come on, get on with it!'

All through supper, nothing. Just chit-chat about our new term at school and how the construction business was expanding very fast and Dad was soon going to have to train Diane to do plumbing and Davey to do electrical stuff. We kind of laughed at that. All except Davey, he was keen to avoid school this term since the mathematics class had a new teacher and the work was really hard to understand.