Families

*Short post I know, I promise I will try to make them longer!

On Saturday I spontaneously to go home for the night, it was only about a three hour drive from Sydney and I hadn’t been home in a while and thought it was about time for a visit.

I went straight over to my sister’s house, I hadn’t seen her in about two months and she was entering her sixth month of pregnancy and according to my brother in law was becoming quite unpleasant with the pregnancy hormones raging through her body.
Grace and I were always close; she is two years older than me, she was married at 22 and fell pregnant at 24, Grace and Simon were high school sweethearts. My mum wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of her marrying so young, but she accepted it and her and Simon really do love each other.

Grace and I had a blast, we went shopping for some baby clothes, and she asked about the boys in my life I told her about Nathan, she and Simon followed football avidly and she knew all about him.

“Woah you left here like 3 months ago and already dating a football star...”

“I am not dating him! He has some issues he has to work out.”

“Ok, sorry not dating almost had sex with, has almost nightly conversations with AND is breaking up ‘officially’ with his girlfriend to maybe have a shot at a relationship with you.”

“Shut up; let’s go see mum and Ray.

So that’s what we did, mum and Ray are going to Europe on Tuesday travelling everywhere. Mum had been before, but this time they were doing it style. In my mind my trip home was spontaneous, but in mum and Rays mind this was a thoughtful goodbye which I had been planning for ages...

Everyone took turns at good-naturedly poking fun at me about Nate and my articles in Radiance. Mum had collected all of them so far; I decided I probably wouldn’t tell her about my upcoming debut in the sex section of the magazine.
We went out for dinner and had a lovely time, it was nice to be home I hadn’t realised how much I had missed everyone.

On Sunday I went home, I made mum and Ray promise to take a picture of every sign of the new city, I had so many pictures from when I went overseas I got a massive memory board and put all the photos on it!

I was so to be home on my own, but Audrey and I ended up watching movies and having girl time and soon enough Sydney felt like my home again.

Ring, Ring

I got home at 6.30pm; Audrey was visiting her family this weekend so I had the house to myself. I love Audrey don’t get me wrong, it’s just that she tends to be a bit needy, so I was happy to have the apartment to myself.

I walked in flicking off my shoes and noticed the answering machine was flashing 2 new messages.

“Hey sweetie, its mum I haven’t heard from you in a while, give me a ring when you get this please, Love you darling.”

“Umm hey Paris, its Nathan I was just wondering if you got the flowers, I want to talk to you. Please call me back, my number is 040545....” Message deleted.

I didn’t understand why he was calling me, God if Audrey was here she would already be calling Dish the Dirt. That wasn’t the only message he had left me, my work phone had a message from him to. I wonder what this was about; I hope he didn’t think I was the one who had spilled the story to DTD.

“Hey mum it’s me”

“Hey sweetie, how are you? How’s work?”

“It’s all really good mum, I love it up here, but I miss everyone down there. I’m going to dinner with a friend from work tonight so that should be good.”

The conversation went like that, her worrying about me and me assuring her I was fine. Did I need money? Was I eating? Was the door locked? I guess that’s how most single parents are worrying about their kids, little did she know I was born for big city life, I was made for Sydney.

I guess mum wasn’t technically single anymore; she had met a great guy who my sister and I loved. His name was Ray, and he was a really cool guy. They met when I was 18, at the end of my rebellious period. Even then I knew Ray was right for my mum. After my Dad died when I was just 8, it took my mum a really long time to get back into the dating world, and to be honest it took me a long time to trust that everybody wasn’t just going to leave.

At 8 you really don’t understand death, no-one should ever have to understand death, but people do. We all survived, and are a closer family because of it.
My sister stayed in our town, and my mum had lots of friends and family. But sometimes I still felt guilty for leaving her. My sister was content to stay in town, meet a nice boy and settle down by the age of 23. I definitely didn’t want that life; I thought I had a greater purpose. I am sure some people laugh, because really am I changing the world working at Radiance? Well I didn’t really know how to explain it to everyone that it just felt right.

Anyway I have got to get ready for dinner...