A Letter from the author
Dear Reader,
I’m a mum, I work with vulnerable children and I run a website that promotes understanding between us humans of diverse cultures. I believe in the power of love and kindness, mercy and empathy. I love to laugh and dance and enjoy nature and all beautiful things.
I’m also struggle with depression daily. My youth felt like an experiment in annihilation of myself, by any and every physical or psychological means, at the hand of the woman I called Mom. Life as a dependent child was about survival by any means, physical or psychological.
Everything I am and do now is a balancing act between who I am deep inside and, still, fighting off the insatiable beasts of guilt and humiliation that dog my mind because of the way I was raised.
I’ve written this work of fiction (a lie that tells the truth) because I’ve been told a million times that I ought to 'lighten up', or 'get over myself', or 'put the past behind' me. This must happen to many who have suffered trauma and abuse, even those who are still suffering. These statements have not only served to set back my growth as a human, but have felt like shackles, pinning me to brokenness and uselessness.
I’ve written this book because some humans are thoroughly broken, having never had the opportunity to train their mind in hope and joyful expectation, some people are drowning and as Oswald Chambers said “some clouds are dark all the way through”
I’ve written to give you the opportunity to have an insight into the relentless struggle some face, daily; children or adults you are unlikely to be able to rescue, who cannot do any better than survive. I write to ask you to attempt to accept the troubled person in your midst, just as they are, and to be kind. A moment of kindness can supply the energy required to continue hoping that there is a 'one day' when things will be better. Kindness in action is an example to follow, a true light in the dark.
Please don’t think you can rescue anyone from their circumstances and make everything all right. Great if rescue is possible, but honestly, mostly it is not. A daily smile of encouragement, an encouragement of their individual gifts and talents…these truly honor a human who is in a daily fight for their life. Broken people need mentors, need examples, need hope that doesn’t disappoint.
“I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I'm gone which would not have happened if I had not come.”
(Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children)
Please don’t say to a victim “You choose how this will affect you.” Even though there is truth in that phrase. Please don’t say “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Which may be true in some cases. Clever phrases never empowered the healing of a heart. May I ask that you say instead, “I am here for you.” Or “You have me by your side as you fight through this. You are loved just as you are. You are valuable and I believe you when you say how hard this is for you. I believe you. I believe you. I believe in you while you cannot.”
"The secret of happiness is an overdose of love from the people you call family" (Unknown)
And what is love?
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 1 Corinthians 13:1
As the people around you walk out their own journey toward that hope of being known, being needed, loved and admired please try not to put the stumbling block of “You’ll be acceptable WHEN….” in their path, because hope deferred makes the heart very sick indeed.
With my love and gratitude,
Heather Mac
PS: All the characters in this story are fictitious, I'm very sorry if you recognize yourself or anyone you know in them.
Prologue
I was just drifting off to sleep when Uncle John’s voice boomed out, post-hearing-aid loud.
‘There’s something wrong with that girl. I don’t trust her.’
‘Shh, don’t shout!’
‘What?’
‘I said don’t shout, she’ll hear you.’
‘I don’t trust her. A dark horse, shifty, up to something. Useless. What do you think she wants from us?’
‘I don’t know.’
Nineteen years old, and I may as well have been eleven again. All the feelings I’d had for them ‘back then’ come flooding over me like a too-hot shower. That visit, that year.
‘IF YOU”RE GOING TO COME THEN COME!’ I raged at the wolf-like memories, not because I was tougher then them, but because I’d already survived them for years, sort of. In shredding me to pieces they were undeniably real. Undeniable. Real.
They’d collected me from the bus station in Inverness earlier that day, behaving like polite strangers. They told me they’d buffed the car and set the formal dining table in my honor. By the looks they gave my jeans and baggy jumper, my ginger curls disheveled from the overnight train trip up from London and the backpack slung over my shoulder, I was obviously a bit of a disappointment, their efforts perhaps judged to have been wasted.
Aunt Annabelle chattered all the way from Inverness to Dingwall, going into detail about this and that, as if she was terrified to give anyone else space to speak for fear of what might be said.
In their cramped but perfectly organised house I tried to smile confidently over a dinner of steak pie and potatoes, yogurt pudding with blackberries, and a pot of tea. ‘Yes, it’s delicious… No, no butter on the potatoes, thank you; but milk in my tea, yes, I do take milk.’
Uncle John, who was mostly silent except for a low-pitched humming between bites, was obviously chewing over more than just his food, because out of the blue he tossed a nail-bomb of words at me: ‘So, the old man finally gave up the ghost then, aye—left you quite a bit of dosh, I don’t mind guessing?’
I’d always been told that speaking about money was a no-no, especially other people’s money. I blushed. ‘Yes, some, a little; well, more than a little, but I’ll only get it later, when I’m older.’
‘What are you doing with yourself, then? Got any kind of education?’
His tone sounded so accusing that I immediately felt hot with guilt. ‘No; I quit Uni. it was the wrong course for me.’
‘Have you a job, then?’
‘Not really—a bit of au-pair work. The family don’t need me over Christmas, so I thought it might be nice to spend time with family of my own—you know, my first Christmas alone and all.’
He wiped his mouth with a large napkin, squeezed the life out of it and tossed it onto his plate. ‘So, you plan to freewheel around till the money’s available, then live like lady muck, without a thought about how hard he had to work to get that money in the first place, aye?’
I couldn’t lift my eyes from my plate, much less think of an answer, so I made sure my mouth was busy chewing while he went on about responsibility and hard work being the keys to a decent life, but it had become impossible to swallow my food without my old friend the gagging reflex kicking in. There was no grace to be found in either of them, no place for me to be anything other than what they had already decided I was. It didn’t take more than a seconds worth of glance for their eyes to tell me that. ‘I need to stretch my legs. Please excuse me.’
The look on my aunt’s face warned me that I was breaking the ‘rules’ and exhibiting very bad manners by abandoning their dinner and not helping to clear up after. But I wasn’t in the mood for either remorse or reconciliation as I stole a few moments outside, stamping snow off my boots and slapping it off my jumper and jeans, attempting