Give Me a Reason Pt. 04

In this next part we move onto the aftermath of their sexual encounter and it took longer than normal to do this part, I've had to compress a few years without neglecting important plot points. On a further note, Puffing Billy is a tourist steam train that operates between Belgrave and Gembrook, it runs several services every day and is quite popular with children.

It's a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm feeling oddly at peace with myself after writing about the first time I had sex. I emailed Astrid and told her what I'd written about and then went straight to bed and woke up at about half past seven to the smell of fried bacon. Anna was not beside me but I found her downstairs with Penny and Robyn, helping to cook breakfast. She's quite the gourmet cook! I've noticed that ever since her father left, she's taken to helping out with the cooking. I don't know if it's a sign of things to come but she certainly enjoys it. I was ordered out of the kitchen and so I sat in the living room with my laptop to read the email from Astrid.

She loved the fact that I'm writing about my first sexual encounter but she wants to know a bit more about what happened next. In some ways we both harbour a little guilt about it. So with that in mind let me begin, now that Penny has taken Anna out to ride on Puffing Billy. It's a group outing with Melanie, her grandkids, Josie, Annabelle and their daughters Jorani and Sokha. Puffing Billy is a Melbourne treasure.

Where to start? With the benefit of hindsight I can see a perfect storm was on the horizon, there'd been hints but in the aftermath I felt no great guilt about our encounter.

In my naïveté I'd not taken into account a major factor. We'd gone from housemates to lovers in the blink of an eye and despite the romantic themes found in movies and books, when people cross that line there are always complications. In my defence, I was young and in love for the first time. Astrid tried to educate me but I only started to ask questions towards the end of the year when she was about to graduate. She was finishing her thesis and as anyone who's had to labour through a thesis can testify, it's a trying time.

However, the practicalities were fairly easy, she kept her bed but shared mine most nights and Shobi couldn't have been happier. It was one thing that had worried me but in her opinion it was the best of both worlds. She even went as far as to suggest that if Astrid extended her visa she'd discount the rent for both of us and make it cheaper.

That leads me to the first problem. Our visa system. I've mentioned it before but it's problematic to be kind, and downright inhumane to be brutally honest. I've met many people since who've run foul of the immigration system here. Our points-based system is designed to fail because it's an arbitrary number set for certain professions. It doesn't matter if you're an architect, if they don't need any of those then you won't get points for that but if they need hairdressers then they get the points. It gets even more complicated when couples emigrate here, one might have enough points for a working visa but their partner might not. No matter who is in power, Labour or the Liberals (conservatives), they all bow to the Murdoch press. The only party that had any compassion and common sense are the Greens and they're anathema to the political elites in Canberra.

The first we knew that things were going south was when Astrid was 'reminded' that her visa was about to expire in two months and so she applied for a bridging visa but because she didn't have the points she failed. The only way to get extra points was if she had a partner here and that's where I failed completely. You see, I had come out to her and Shobi, but they were the only ones who knew that I was out. My parents had no idea and in October my dad went in for a heart bypass operation, I didn't think it was a good idea to tell him that his youngest daughter was now gay at that point in time, it might kill him.

It left Astrid with no choice but to return to Denmark. I promised to follow her there but deep down I knew it wasn't just a case of booking a flight. I'd have to come out to my parents as well and despite my best intentions I could never find the right time. In hindsight I know that no time is the right time for everyone. I don't think a day went past without me considering it. I'd go over the speech one day but the next day it wasn't sitting right with me.

It caused a rift between us towards the end. The last two weeks Astrid took to sleeping in her own bed and I vanished into my own little world. I had no coping skills when it came to this, I couldn't talk to any of my friends from church, I hadn't been there for awhile and I knew what they'd say. I didn't feel like talking to Penny and Robyn, or Josie and Annabelle either. I felt like a fraud and a little awkward and self conscious but as I've already said, I was naïve.

I look back on those last two days with shame and regret but also, oddly enough a bit of pride. I was not about to be pushed into making a decision before I was ready and if I had, Anna would never have been born. If it's one thing I'm proud of it's the fact I gave birth to her but I'll get to her in a little while. In the meantime, let me tell you about that last day.

I'd been in hospital visiting dad. He was on the mend but feeling poorly, mum was fussing over him and he was pleased to see me. He actually asked me about my housemate, Astrid. I'd introduced her to my parents but it was as my housemate, not my girlfriend.

"She's okay, dad. I have to take her to the airport in a few hours. She flies back home tonight."

"She's not staying on?" my mother asked me.

"No, they wouldn't amend her visa."

"A shame," my dad mumbled, "nice girl like that and you two seem to get on so well together."

I didn't know how to reply to that but I must have blushed because years later mum remembered my red face but wisely kept her silence. I left not long after that and headed back home. Shobi was working at the time and so it was just us at home.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, as ready as I'll ever be," she bit her lip, "I know I'll remember something when I'm in the air or landing in Copenhagen."

"Don't worry, if you've missed something I can send it to you."

"How's your dad?"

"He's on the mend but he's still not right. He says g'day."

"I'll miss that word," she managed a crooked grin, "along with, she'll be right."

"She will be right, I know I have to deal with this but at the moment it's the wrong time and I'm sorry I can't come out now."

"Hey," she squeezed my shoulder, "don't be, no one's forcing anyone to come out now or at any time in the future, I'm just happy for the time we've spent together."

I hugged her then and told her I'd always love her and I meant that. We left for the airport not long afterwards and had a meal out there, it felt like the right thing to do and we dragged that meal on for as long as was possible. Eventually however she finally had to remind me that if she didn't head for border control soon then she'd miss her flight.

"And my bags will be on their way to Copenhagen."

"Shit," I nudged my glasses, "sorry, let's do it."

I walked her to border control and gave her a hug and a kiss. She held onto me for a few minutes and then she was walking away. I stared after until she was out of sight and then I suddenly felt a desire to call her back but it was too late. I watched the plane take off, not literally, I saw it on the departure board. I went back to my car and sat there with tears streaming down my face because I knew that if I'd had the courage to come out then she could have stayed.

When I got home I remember stepping into her old room and staring at the bed, it was as if a part of me had died, everything felt empty and disconnected. She'd slowly worked her way into my life, first as a friend and later on as a lover. Now she was gone and I could've stopped her from leaving, if I'd had the courage to come out. I cried again and then laid down in her old bed because it still had her fragrance on it and fell asleep for half an hour or so.

Shobi was sympathetic when she got home and I cried in her arms because I felt that I'd failed her but Shobi never accused me of that. From that day on though, Pink's music always made me think of Astrid, particularly our favourite song, Give Me a Reason. For years afterwards, if I played that song I thought of Astrid. When an inebriated Rodney once tried to claim it as our song I laughed at him and told him he didn't even get the lyrics. It was the best I could do at the time without having to come out, to him and that would've been a really bad idea.

Well, that's enough for now, I'm feeling a bit emotional now so I'm going to take a break for a few hours and come back to this later. I have to write about Anna's father. Robyn's just come up from the workshop for some lunch so I'll be back soon with more.

***

Okay I'm back. I had a nice lunch with Robyn and we talked about my upcoming move to Denmark along with one of the requirements for eventual citizenship, learning Danish. Sigrid and her sisters are all able to speak Danish and Swedish fluently, along with Louise, who lived there with Sigrid a few years ago. She's suggested I at least get a basic start in Danish with them, Sigrid can give me a good grounding in Danish and Louise can introduce me to Danish culture from an expatriate point of view. It's the best of both worlds because although I won't be fluent in a month, I'll at least have the basics and the start of an ear for the language.

However as I said before, Astrid left me with a huge hole in my life and a dilemma, which was both moral and financial. I was still a student and not able to afford a flight to Sydney, let alone Denmark and if I'd managed to book a flight I'd have to explain my reasons to friends and family. Only Shobi knew the truth and to her credit she always supported my decision to keep quiet. I questioned her a few weeks ago about that and she simply replied.

"I'm mixed race, blending in was a better survival strategy than trying to shine."

She's never mentioned any problems about her Caucasian/South Asian heritage before but with the rise of Trump and the far right I can see that her 'blending in' made sense, even if I do kick against the far right and with good reason!

Astrid and I broke up a week or two later, it was a week before Christmas and she was emotional and a bit tipsy at the time. She laid out an ultimatum for me, pack my bags and come over or she was going to start looking around. It took me by surprise but it shouldn't have and I reacted badly to that and said maybe we should just be grateful for what we had shared.

"Okay," she replied, "I understand and thank you for everything, I will always love you."

"Me too," I bit back my hurt.

"Merry Christmas," she answered, "if you change your mind... call me."

It was the last conversation we would have for years, but with Astrid out out of my life I was all over the place and it left me in a quandary. I'd finished my arts course and graduated with an A+ in Creative Writing and an A minus in Fine Art, the rest of my units were either A or B+ but there's not a lot of work for artists in Australia. I mean, you can earn money but it takes a few years to hit your peak and a fair amount of luck. I was working part time at the supermarket but casting around for a better job and whilst doing that I decided to do my MBA in Economics. It sounds counter-intuitive to do both art and economics but I'd always done well in maths at high school and getting a job in the financial world would earn money.

I applied and amazingly enough for me, I was accepted. The tutor who interviewed me that day was Vickie Dunbar, an attractive woman in her mid thirties who casually admitted to being gay when I noticed her lesbian necklace.

"I came out when my marriage ended," she confessed, "I realised that the reason I felt nothing for him had more to do with my orientation than his minor faults."

Vickie was with someone but that raised another issue for me. Now that I was single, what was I going to do next? Look for another girlfriend or go back to guys? At the time I still liked guys but hadn't gone further than just a kiss at the door or in the car. Astrid was the only person I'd gone all the way with.

I wasn't going to church at the time because I needed to get my shit together with my university application and contemplate my love life or lack of it. I was still attracted to women but I was still missing Astrid, we'd never gone to any gay clubs and I wasn't about to venture into those places alone and so I just stayed out of the gay scene.

Initially, Rodney and I were just mates, we met at a birthday party in the first week of December, it was Brenda's birthday, she was one my old school friends, Brenda. She'd moved in with Jennifer, a mutual friend who'd gone to the same school for a few years. They both had boyfriends but a few years later they got involved with each other.

Rodney was the shyest guy at the party that night. He was a carpenter, working for a builder and unlike a lot of guys who worked with their hands he was quiet and a little reserved. He was a bit of a wallflower for most of the night until we got talking out on the back patio. A guy crossed himself in front of him and he blushed, which meant he was probably a Christian.

"I'm not, I used to be a Seventh Day Adventist," he mumbled after I asked the question a minute or so later, "they believe..."

"In worshipping on a Saturday, they don't drink alcohol, coffee or tea and they're also vegetarians," I finished for him.

"Yeah, pretty much," he replied, "although vegetarianism is recommended, not mandatory."

"I'm an ex Baptist," I replied, "I was going to a community church that's non-denominational but I haven't been to a service for months... so I'm backsliding," I raised my glass of Coke "I'm just not drinking because I'm still on my Probationary."

"I've had my full licence for a year although I don't drink and drive anyway."

It all started from there, he asked me out the next night and I said yes. Our first date was a movie, and afterwards we went back to his joint in Bayswater North and just chatted at first but when he kissed me at the door I took it further. As it turned out, I was his first sexual encounter and in all honesty it was a good experience. For the first time in my life I was the more sexually experienced, one instead of someone else.

What I didn't realise was that I'd fallen pregnant that night and I didn't know it until the middle of January and by then we were an item. When I told Rodney he proposed and I agreed, on the proviso we got married before I started showing. He agreed and we got married on the twenty second day of February, 2014, a Saturday. It was a good wedding, a lot of my friends were there. Dad was looking a lot healthier but I detected the first signs of real tension between him and mum, after he passed a comment about seeking God's forgiveness. After all, the speed of the wedding spoke volumes to all and sundry! Mum snapped back that perhaps he should settle down and try not to make a scene at his youngest daughter's wedding.

When I asked my oldest sister, Mary about it during a brief interval at the reception she merely said that there'd been changes on the home front. Mum had stepped away from all church activities like bible study, the prayer group and a women's fellowship group. She had substituted them for other things such as ten pin bowling, tennis, gym classes, pool and the local Apex club, which ran a lot of charity fund-raising events for the community. The only contact with church was on Sunday when she still went to the morning service with dad. It surprised me at the time because she'd never even mentioned any of that but I'd been somewhat busy with my own issues.

Robyn was there as well, after all, she'd made the dress and so she and Penny got an invite as well as Annabelle, Josie and their daughters. The rest of the women from the meeting I wasn't sure about but I hadn't been a regular attendee either. It surprised me that four gay women turned up at all but I was still a little naïve. I found out from Robyn that Astrid was now seeing a woman, which was a relief to be honest although I felt a little awkward, as if I'd pushed her into it.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We'd both moved on and whilst there might be regrets we had to live and let live, and basically move on. We had two weeks in Fiji because there was a good deal on flights, to be honest I think Fiji is overrated! I took his name, Smith and we settled down to await the birth of our first child. I kept up my studies but had to put the last semester on hold because by then I was about to drop. Vickie was very accommodating, she actually arranged for me to take more time off and start back in mid 2015 on a part time basis.

Pregnancy, despite the plethora of negative articles was reasonably stress free. Anna Astrid Smith was born on the twenty sixth of September, 2014. Her middle name was in honour of my first ever girlfriend although Rodney was never aware of that fact! He was at work when my water broke and one of my sisters took me to hospital at eleven in the morning. I went into labour at four thirty and she came out two hours later. Rodney wasn't there for the birth but I'm not sure he would've coped but he was a good father for a few years.

Earlier in the year we'd applied for a loan using the money my parents had given me for a wedding present and put our deposit on an older house in Croydon that was going cheap. I have very vivid memories of our first year in that house. I was breast feeding and now that I was on maternity leave from uni I could focus on other things but that year in our new house I first noticed one of Rodney's flaws.

Rodney had a different attitude towards money and he blamed that on his childhood, he was the product of a poor household. His mother stayed home to look after the children but that's a poor excuse. My upbringing was quite similar, there might have been more money because mum had a full time job, but there was never enough. However, I had a good head for figures and my studies at school had shown me the credit card traps carefully laid out to trap people like him. I put my foot down when Anna was six-months-old. Rodney had just been given another card at zero interest to pay off a maxed out card. He thought he was a financial wizard when he showed me the card, I just shook my head and told him he needed to rein in his spending.

He tried to justify it of course. He was doing a lot of renovations. He made walk in wardrobes for the three bedrooms, painted the walls, repaired the front verandah and replaced the garage. All this required money and whilst he was on a decent wage as a carpenter, the extra costs associated with renovating a house had taken their toll on his finances.

I grumpily acquiesced to his argument but it became a bone of contention between us for the next few years. Rodney did pay off the credit card but then maxed out the second one and just repeated the process but by then I'd wrested one concession from him. I became the bookkeeper, he at least realised I had a head for figures. He became the DIY man and I was the home-maker, cook and chief bottle washer as they say here. In July 2015 I went back to university on a part time basis to finish my MBA and for a while it was okay, it wasn't a bad marriage for the first few years. He earned a good wage, we had two cars, a nice home and there were plans for a second child but then it went haywire again.

It happened when Annabelle noticed that Anna had problems with her eyes. For the last couple of years at kindergarten she'd been a little slow and Annabelle suspected she was having trouble with her eyes. A visit to the optometrist led to prescription glasses, which sounds simple enough, these problems can be sorted out easily enough but Rodney blamed me for the fact she'd been struggling for so long. In his view, I should've known she was having problems seeing things, after all, I'd worn glasses all my life.