I was penniless. There was only one place to turn—the welfare office. A friend told me I could find help there to rent an apartment. The thought of going on welfare filled me with shame and regret, but I had no way of feeding my children unless I went out and begged in the streets. I didn’t have a job and my parents were barely managing to provide for their own children still living at home. I figured I could find employment, maybe with the newspaper again, if I were in Oromocto. The welfare people told me I could supplement my income by working part-time until a full-time job came along.
Feeling certain God must care about the well-being of my children, even if He was mad at me for parting company with my husband, I prayed to Him to guide me toward opportunity. Almost immediately my prayers were answered. A week after we moved into the apartment a new office opened up down the hall in my apartment building. It turned out the office belonged to a new weekly newspaper, the Oromocto Monitor. They were advertising for someone to work part-time as a reporter. When I handed in my application, I told the receptionist I wouldn’t have much trouble getting to work on time, regardless of the weather. I could ensure this. I was hired the same day by Al Nonovitch, the owner/editor.
Bob was genuinely happy for me when I informed him about my success. He was always telling me I was smart, and that made me feel worthy. I thought he was the most wonderful man I’d ever met. I’d read stories about being in love. Now I knew exactly how it felt.
A few months after Bob and I started dating I began experiencing bouts of dizziness. I made an appointment with my doctor and he suggested I might have diabetes. I would have to be tested. When I told Bob, I could see the news deeply affected him. He was so shaken he had to sit down.
“When will you know for sure?” he asked gently, taking my hand and patting it. “When’s the test?”
“The test’s tomorrow morning,” I told him. “Dr. Roxborough says I should know in a couple of days.”
“Well, I know you’ll be okay. I’ll do anything I can to help.”
I learned later he went to church that night—a place he reserved mostly for Christmas, Easter, funerals, and weddings—and lit a candle for me, offering it up with hope for my good health. All the roses in the world couldn’t have touched me more. Here was a man who cared for me. I wasn’t used to such devotion, and it felt so healthy and charitable.
When the news came that I wasn’t diabetic, Bob brought over takeout fried chicken for supper to celebrate.
My mother’s father died that year. He was one of the men whose unwanted caresses had plagued my childhood. I had mixed feelings about his death. For obvious reasons I wasn’t as close to him as I was to my grandmother, but I was saddened that he had to die in an old folks’ home alone.
I don’t remember much about the funeral other than the hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” sung by my cousin, Heather. I questioned my grandfather’s prearranged choice for a musical selection. Had he ever really considered Jesus to be his friend? I’d certainly seen no sign of it while he was living. But when I heard someone say my grandfather was finally free from alcohol, I supposed the hymn might have been fitting, after all. Even dirty old men needed friends, I thought, feeling the same kind of pity I’d felt when I visited Stan in Centracare.
IN A STRANGE APARTMENT
Bob and I lived together for three years before we decided to marry. Those years were like heaven compared to the rest of my life. I finally had a man who was a true partner, a man who loved me and all my children. We were a family. Convinced I was in love, I turned a blind eye to my first failed marriage and heedlessly tied the knot for the second time.
The wedding was a quaint little ceremony solemnized in the Oromocto Baptist Church on September 17, 1977. Quite appropriately that church was later turned into a funeral parlour. But that late-summer day it was bristling with the excitement of the living.
All of my children participated in the ceremony. Heather was a junior bridesmaid; Jody, junior best man; and Sonya and Jennifer fought their way up the aisle as flower girls, stumbling over their pink-and-green cotton gingham gowns. Bob’s sister, Judy, took the role of maid of honour, and my brother, Allison, stood as best man. It was one of the happiest days of my life.
After the ceremony, we hosted a reception on the army base, where Bob was working as a civilian carpenter. It was a lively evening with fine music provided by our DJ friend, Wally, and plenty to drink. For the first waltz Wally played Dr. Hook’s “A Little Bit More,” one of our favourite songs. Bob held me tightly in his arms as we danced to the familiar words: “When you think I’ve loved you all I can/I’m going to love you just a little bit more.”
Unfortunately everyone drank too much, and I spent my wedding night sitting up nursing a bottle with my brother while my new husband snored in the motel bed beside us. Until the wee hours of the morning Allison and I talked about movies and songs we’d both enjoyed. My brother was crazy about science fiction, animated fantasy, and documentaries that dealt with the paranormal. He had a brilliant, analytical mind and was also a talented writer but lacked the confidence to pursue a career in writing.
“You should go to university,” I said. “You’re so smart.”
“I don’t have time,” he said, obviously wanting to change the subject.
I studied his features in silence as I took another sip from my drink. None of my brothers really resembled me. For one thing, they all had much lighter hair, and two of them even had blue eyes. Allison was tall with sandy brown hair and a moustache. His eyes were brown, like mine, but a shade lighter.
When there was no booze left to drink, I crawled into bed with my new husband, and my brother passed out in the hotel-room chair.
My kids were impressed by the idea of gentle hands that could give a pat on the head without tightening into a fist. Bob became the only real father they’d ever known. For a while we were a proper family.
Bob made physical fitness a priority. He jogged and worshipped every sport known. His eyes would light up quicker for a hockey game than any new outfit I might model for him. He always made sure we had lots to eat and he never once hit me.
After the wedding, we settled into another apartment on Gilmour Street in Oromocto. There were only two bedrooms. The four children slept in one big room in two sets of bunk beds. It was crowded but cozy. Bob’s two sisters, with their four children, lived directly across the hall, which was convenient. I was working two part-time jobs, and one of his sisters often baby-sat for me when I left for work at Steinberg’s, a grocery store in the Oromocto Mall. Bob was usually home when I went out to gather information for the features I was still writing for the local newspaper.
During our relationship, Bob often encouraged me to go back to school. I took six months off work to attend a community college in Fredericton. There I completed the academic subjects required for me to attend university. Once again I was at the top of my class. When one of the instructors noticed my writing, I felt a renewed interest in it again. I was actually beginning to get my life back on track.
Christmas was a precious time during the eight years Bob and I were together. We would gather for large helpings of mouth-watering pork pie laboriously baked each Christmas by my sister-in-law, Myrtle. She and her husband had three boys and lived next door to her parents on Nevers Road. We’d wash this down with egg nog or a glass of wine. Then, with full bellies and contented smiles, everyone would head for midnight Mass.
I often sat and basked in the serenity of those nights. I never let the skeletons from the past, or my