CHAPTER ONE
THE TAXI
Too often, the future seems predetermined—a giant book full of written pages, and we’re just reading through them. There was a time in my life when the pages were still blank, ready for me to pen my own story.
Five years had passed since I spent Christmas at home with my family. Five years had passed since my parents divorced. I was twenty-three when they called to tell me. I completely taken aback. There were no warning, no fighting. They seemed totally happy—totally content with one another. I guess I was wrong. I guess they were good at hiding their issues—or I was just too naïve to notice.
My father told me: “We waited until you had moved out.” My parents figured that if I was out of the house, it would have no negative impact on me, emotional or otherwise. “This way,” my mother said, “you aren’t a child of divorce. You’re an adult whose parents happened to divorce.”
After the divorce, my mother went to live in Sweden. She met a man there and never came back. We haven’t heard from her since. My dad couldn’t care less.
My mother was always an impulsive person, so her fickle disappearance did not surprise me much. Throughout my childhood, she changed careers a dozen times. When I was very young, she was a painter. When I was a teenager, she was a chef. When I turned eighteen, she was applying for aviation school. She wanted to fly stunt planes. God knows what she is up to now, in Sweden—if she even is still in Sweden.
Unlike my mother, my father surprised me. He remarried within three years. This was a surprise because my father was practically a hermit. He retired when I was very young—too young to remember. I can remember no more than a dozen times my father left the house. He was an anti-social man. He didn’t speak much. He watched baseball all day and hockey all night. The television never changed from Sportsnet.
I had not met the woman that my father married after my mother. I knew that her name was Patricia—or Pat, as my father called her. I knew she had two sons of her own from a previous marriage. Otherwise, as far as I knew, she could have been a Nigerian Princess, or maybe a Great Dane.
It was the first day of December when my father called me. He asked me to come home for the holidays—to meet his new wife, his new stepsons—his new family. Fast-forward twenty days, and there I was, sitting in a cab after a six hour flight. With me was my boyfriend James.
James and I met six months before. In a way, I have my parents to thank; if it wasn’t for their divorce, I would never have met James. I was at a bar with a friend, talking about my parents’ unexpected split. James was sitting nearby and overheard. He too was the child of an unexpected split. He was twenty when his parents filed for divorce. The peculiar coincidence got us talking. We soon realized that there was another peculiar coincidence. Like my mother, James’ mother was a fickle woman. She took off after her divorce and James never heard from her again.
James had two brother and two sister. They all hated their father. He was always drunk and occasionally abusive. James made no effort to keep in touch with his father.
James was a tall, handsome man. He was thin with short, dark hair, which he liked to wear slicked back.
“Excited to meet your new mom?” James said with a grin. Since the start of December, James had used that same like over one-hundred times.
“Oh God, just stop reminding me,” I said.
“Don’t be so nervous. It’s not like it matters. It’s not like she’s actually going to be your mom.”
“I feel sick.”
“Don’t feel sick. She’s just another lady. You’re just going to meet another lady. I’m the one who should be sick. I’m meeting your whole family for the first time,” James said.
“I’m meeting my whole family, too,” I said.
“Well you already know your dad—so it’s really like you’re just meeting his wife and her
THE TAXI
Too often, the future seems predetermined—a giant book full of written pages, and we’re just reading through them. There was a time in my life when the pages were still blank, ready for me to pen my own story.
Five years had passed since I spent Christmas at home with my family. Five years had passed since my parents divorced. I was twenty-three when they called to tell me. I completely taken aback. There were no warning, no fighting. They seemed totally happy—totally content with one another. I guess I was wrong. I guess they were good at hiding their issues—or I was just too naïve to notice.
My father told me: “We waited until you had moved out.” My parents figured that if I was out of the house, it would have no negative impact on me, emotional or otherwise. “This way,” my mother said, “you aren’t a child of divorce. You’re an adult whose parents happened to divorce.”
After the divorce, my mother went to live in Sweden. She met a man there and never came back. We haven’t heard from her since. My dad couldn’t care less.
My mother was always an impulsive person, so her fickle disappearance did not surprise me much. Throughout my childhood, she changed careers a dozen times. When I was very young, she was a painter. When I was a teenager, she was a chef. When I turned eighteen, she was applying for aviation school. She wanted to fly stunt planes. God knows what she is up to now, in Sweden—if she even is still in Sweden.
Unlike my mother, my father surprised me. He remarried within three years. This was a surprise because my father was practically a hermit. He retired when I was very young—too young to remember. I can remember no more than a dozen times my father left the house. He was an anti-social man. He didn’t speak much. He watched baseball all day and hockey all night. The television never changed from Sportsnet.
I had not met the woman that my father married after my mother. I knew that her name was Patricia—or Pat, as my father called her. I knew she had two sons of her own from a previous marriage. Otherwise, as far as I knew, she could have been a Nigerian Princess, or maybe a Great Dane.
It was the first day of December when my father called me. He asked me to come home for the holidays—to meet his new wife, his new stepsons—his new family. Fast-forward twenty days, and there I was, sitting in a cab after a six hour flight. With me was my boyfriend James.
James and I met six months before. In a way, I have my parents to thank; if it wasn’t for their divorce, I would never have met James. I was at a bar with a friend, talking about my parents’ unexpected split. James was sitting nearby and overheard. He too was the child of an unexpected split. He was twenty when his parents filed for divorce. The peculiar coincidence got us talking. We soon realized that there was another peculiar coincidence. Like my mother, James’ mother was a fickle woman. She took off after her divorce and James never heard from her again.
James had two brother and two sister. They all hated their father. He was always drunk and occasionally abusive. James made no effort to keep in touch with his father.
James was a tall, handsome man. He was thin with short, dark hair, which he liked to wear slicked back.
“Excited to meet your new mom?” James said with a grin. Since the start of December, James had used that same like over one-hundred times.
“Oh God, just stop reminding me,” I said.
“Don’t be so nervous. It’s not like it matters. It’s not like she’s actually going to be your mom.”
“I feel sick.”
“Don’t feel sick. She’s just another lady. You’re just going to meet another lady. I’m the one who should be sick. I’m meeting your whole family for the first time,” James said.
“I’m meeting my whole family, too,” I said.
“Well you already know your dad—so it’s really like you’re just meeting his wife and her
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