Chapter four.
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running towards love it was a night like any other in FREMANTLE western
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australia where my mother and her sister would sit in the kitchen their voices
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growing louder as they complained about their husbands it was a ritual kind of
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sorts a venting session that felt more like a curse than a conversation
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I was only six, but I heard it all before.
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The endless complaints, the bitterness that seemed to fill the room like thick smoke.
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My cousin was a year younger than me,
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and my little brother,
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who was about three years younger,
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were there too,
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playing nearby as our mothers droned on and on,
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seemingly unaware of our presence.
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Something in me snapped that night, and it wasn't the first time I felt the urge to escape.
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The first time I ran away, I was only four.
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But this time I wasn't going alone.
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I took my brother's hand in one of mine and my cousin's in the other and I let us out of the house.
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We were small,
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three little cuties as people would say,
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but we walked with purpose heading straight across the highway to my grandparents' house.
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I don't remember being scared.
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I felt like it was the most natural thing in the world.
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The cars stopped of course.
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Who wouldn't stop for three small children holding hands and crossing the road like
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we had somewhere very important to be.
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When we arrived at our grandparents' house,
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my heart pounded,
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not from fear,
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but from a strange kind of triumph.
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My grandfather,
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my mother's father,
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opened the door and looked down at us with a mix of surprise and warmth.
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He was a loving man.
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He was gentle in his ways that my grandmother wasn't.
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She was a bit harder, more distant, and often seemed to put him down, much like my mother with my father.
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But my grandfather never ever let it bother him, at least not in front of us.
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He just smiled, scooped us up in his arms and brought us inside.
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His home felt like a sanctuary,
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a place where the constant complaining of my mother and aunt couldn't reach us.
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As he called my mother to let her know where we were,
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I told him how unimpressed I was with the way my mother acted.
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I didn't have the words back then to describe it fully,
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but even at that age,
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I knew something was wrong and how they talked about our fathers.
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They were tearing them down little by little, and I didn't feel right.
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My grandfather listened, his eyes soft and understanding.
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He didn't say much, but he didn't have to.
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His presence was enough and a silent reassurance that I wasn't wrong for feeling that way as I did.
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That night set the stage for a pattern that would follow me into adulthood.
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Just as I gravitated towards my grandfather in search of kindness and stability,
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I would later find myself protecting my own father from the bitterness of my mother.
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It was as though I inherited some invisible role as a protector, even as a child.
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And though I didn't fully understand it,
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running away that night wasn't just about escaping my mother's complaints.
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It was about running towards the love and warmth I desperately craved and found in my grandfather.
