A Murderous Addiction

Chapter one

As a devout, born again atheist, I find being dead a bit surprising. Not that I expected to live forever, far from it. There have been numerous occasions during the past thirty three years when I felt my time must surely be up. The manner of my demise was hardly amazing either. After all, when a member of The Australian Federal Police points a Glock at you and pulls the trigger, you can't really be surprised if you end up with a nine millimetre hole through your left ventricle and a distinct lack of heart beat.

No, what I find surprising is what happened next. The being dead part as it were. The after life. As a non believer, I expected nothing more than oblivion. An indeterminable eternity of nothing. A shit load of fuckalledness, and yet here I am, twenty two days after my funeral, sitting in a nondescript room, in a nondescript building, with nothing to do and no one to talk too, except for a higher authority appointed guardian angel named Gabriele. Though considering some of the things ‘good old Gabriele’ has done over the past few weeks, angel is probably stretching it a bit.

He sits directly opposite, in an old, brown, vinyl armchair, the exact mirror image of my own, doing yet another of his inevitable crossword puzzles. I'm bored and I tell him so. If I don't get out of here soon, I say, I'm going to start climbing the walls.

He leaves briefly and goes into the kitchen. Comes back a few seconds later, carrying a folding, three step, step ladder. Knock yourself out! he says, placing the ladder next to the wall. Funny guy. I groan...Twice. He reaches behind himself, puts a hand into the inside pocket of the suit coat draped over the back of his chair, and pulls out a note book.

Why don't we go over what you’re going to say at your hearing, he suggests. It's in your interest to get your story straight. The man upstairs almost certainly won’t be happy with your decision. You’ll really need to put some effort into it if you want him to give the okay.

Alright. Where do you want me to start?

Why don't you start at the beginning?

Sure. Why not? It worked for Julie Andrews.

Chapter two

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jacob Cameron and I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been sober for two hundred and eighty six days and this time I’m going to make it stick.

Or maybe that should be ex-alcoholic. They say there are no, ex-alcoholics, just reformed ones, but my circumstances are special. I mean, all things considered, I can’t really see myself falling off the wagon any time soon. But whatever label you burden me with, the fact remains the same, booze has played a huge part in my life, and is directly responsible for the predicament I now find myself in.

I started drinking nineteen years ago, when I was just fourteen years old. Coaxed off the adolescent version of the straight and narrow by a breathtaking blonde and led straight into the warm, stupefying embrace of alcoholic oblivion. The blondes name was Suzie. My first love. A fourteen year old honey with a nineteen year olds cleavage and long, silky, sexy legs that started at her ankles and went straight up to heaven. At least that’s what I imagined.

I never told Suzie I loved her. She was out of my league. Whilst she radiated pure, teen beauty, I radiated pure, teen awkwardness. Whilst she oozed sexuality, I just oozed... well, I just oozed. Puberty is unkind to some boys and it was certainly unkind to me. A reality that twice daily facial scrubs and liberal libations of Clearasil did nothing to improve. So I never told Suzie I loved her, but I’m sure she knew. Sure she added my name to the inexorably growing, mental list she kept in her head of all the boys who were smitten with her. She knew, and perhaps that’s why she chose me as her partner in crime when she snitched a bottle of vodka from her old man's liquor cabinet, and took it down to the creek behind her house for an impromptu party.

Try some, Jake, she commanded. It’ll give you a real cool buzz.

And I did. Of course I did. I was Jake and she was Suzie. Jake did everything Suzie asked. She was my angel. My Goddess. If she had handed me a crucible of molten steel and asked me to drink, I would have gladly quaffed it down. So I gulped a massive slug of her old man's vodka and felt it burn as it coursed down my throat and into my stomach. I hated the taste but loved the effect. Loved the intoxication. Loved the slow, inexorable flood of alcoholic euphoria. This was cool man. I was cool man. Suddenly, for the first time in my life I was handsome and witty. The life and soul of the party. Or at least that’s what I thought. If only I’d known then, where that first boozy experience would lead me.

To be honest I don’t blame Suzie for my predicament. I am sure that her intentions were innocent and without malice. She was just being a teenager. A naughty schoolgirl usurping her daddy’s authority and trying to be a grown up. Besides, how was she to know I had a weakness. It would be at least ten years before my drinking became a problem. At least a decade before my hands started to shake and the rats of addiction started gnawing at my guts. How was she to know?

Suzie and I grew up together. Two kids in a tiny south west, outback Queensland town with a fluctuating population of around two hundred souls. We were next door neighbours and from my earliest memories, Suzie was my best friend. Best friend almost from birth, right up to that inexplicable age when boys suddenly find girls something to be avoided at all costs. Our friendship ebbed for a couple of years and then, without warning, resumed. But this time something had changed. My voice was starting to break and I suddenly found I had a couple of curly black hairs on my balls.

Suzie had changed too. Gone was the freckled faced, scraggy haired, dirty kneed tomboy and in its place stood a vision of young womanhood. In my preadolescent withdrawal from her side I had missed the emergence of the most sublime creature ever to have lived. Four months from my fourteenth birthday, suddenly and without warning my eyes fell upon the beautiful face of Suzie Sheldon and my heart broke. I would never be the same again.

Sadly the day of the stolen Vodka marked a new chapter in our lives in more ways than one. The inevitable discovery of the missing vodka and of our complicity in it, had dire consequences. The thrashing we both received was nothing compared to the impact of the decision made by our respective parents to ‘do something before it was too late’. Both Suzie and I were sent off to boarding school. Regretfully not the same one. I went to a school in Brisbane, Suzie to one in Cairns. Opposite ends of the state and, for all intents and purposes, opposite ends of the universe. We kept in touch by post for a few more years. Met up again at the inevitable family gatherings but eventually and I suppose inevitably, we lost touch. She’s a nurse now, recently divorced from her doctor husband and with a little boy of her own. Nothing spectacular I admit, but still a far cry from the complete and utter abortion I’ve made of my life. A life which held so much promise.

I finished school with passable grades and went on to uni to study accountancy. Yes I know, accountancy. Most people regard accountants as the type of person who would marry Penelope Cruz for her money. But I can tell you the perception is untrue. I have known many accountants who lead incredibly full and exciting lives. From within the subspecies there are mountain climbers, adventurers, entrepreneurs and daredevils. Many occupy positions of extreme importance. Most are valuable members of society. And besides, what’s wrong with marrying Penelope Cruz for her money? As long as it’s not ‘only’ for her money.

I graduated somewhere in the middle of my class and took a job as assistant bean counter to a bean counters assistant with one of Brisbane’s less auspicious financial institutions. I was there a bee’s dick less than six months before I was fired for turning up to work in a state best described as inebriated as a newt. I am ashamed to say that this scenario was to be repeated, many times over, during the next couple of years. By that time I’d had to admit to myself that I had a problem. It would be a further two years before I found the courage to stand up before a room full of strangers and admit it to anyone else.

I started my second job after a months holiday. Though to be honest, at the interview, I accidentally said that my holiday had lasted eight months and mumbled something about graduating from uni and ‘going around Australia.’ By some strange coincidence, my time spent at my previous job, the one from which I had been sacked for arriving at work pissed, miraculously and inexplicably vanished from my CV. Even stranger, the mistake I made about my holiday, fitted perfectly into the hole left by its disappearance. At the end of my three months probationary period, the CEO of the company concluded it was simply too much bother to try to find someone better and I was offered the job on a full time, permanent basis. The job paid forty eight thousand a year. In those days, for someone just out of uni, this was not an insubstantial sum. In addition, there were bonuses when applicable, plus subsidised membership at a nearby gymnasium and all the stationery I could steal. There was also an additional, optional benefit of a bright future. All I had to do was keep my nose clean, do my job, and my future was assured.

Within a matter of weeks my employment at Granite Financial Services Pty Ltd had sorted me out. It grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me around one hundred and eighty degrees and shoved me off in the direction of a strange and wonderful world I never even imagined existed. A world populated by mysterious creatures know as the socially acceptable. I took out an astronomically expensive lease on an apartment in Milton overlooking the river, furnished it with all the latest household effects from the Allen key wielding maniacs at Ikea, and began thinking about my future. Amazingly I even started contributing to a superannuation scheme. Things were looking up.

Chapter 3

Then one day, a Friday to be precise, late November, on the 7:23AM from Milton to Central, I met Louise. An elfin little cutie with a penchant for wild parties and kinky sex. She sat opposite me. All brown haired, big eyed and dressed in a barely there skirt and cropped top. She was reading Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, one of my favourite books. A fact I quickly pointed out to her. She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a sheet of A4 paper, blank on both sides and handed it to me. I looked at it, and then at her, trying to comprehend her meaning.

It’s a complete and unabridged list of everyone who gives a fuck, she explained dryly, went back to her book and ignored me.

I pulled out a pen, wrote ‘I give a fuck, signed Dr. Alfred Kinsey’ on the paper, drew a smiley face and handed it back to her. I caught just a glimpse of a grin before she dropped the sheet onto the seat next to her and again, went back to her book. Central Station was less than ten minutes away and the little spunk rat was slipping through my fingers.

I gritted my teeth and leaned forward. Look, sorry to be so pushy, I said, but a couple of years ago I met this incredibly beautiful, sexy woman. I raised my hand, pinched my thumb and index finger together to show a tiny gap. "I came this close to asking her on a date but I chickened out. I’ve regretted it ever since. I promised myself, if I ever met such a stunningly beautiful woman again I would throw caution to the wind, jump in feet first, and ask. So: Would you like to have a drink, lunch, dinner, or hot, steamy, sweaty, sex with me sometime. Louise reached over, grabbed the pen from my top pocket, picked up the sheet of A4 from beside her and scribbled down her phone number.

Lunch today in the park, the one by the river would be nice. I don’t eat meat...At least not on the first date. She smiled and her eyes twinkled naughtily. The number’s my mobile phone. Ring me if you can’t make it. My names Louise by the way. See you at one! Once again, she went back to her book. Obviously she just couldn’t put it down.

I had one at home on my bedside table. A book about levitation. I couldn’t put that down either.

I spent the first forty five minutes of my workday morning sitting at my desk, phone stuck in my ear, trying to arrange a suitable picnic hamper for my lunchtime date with the delectable and eminently fuckable Louise. Finally, I struck it lucky. The proprietor of a deli, just two blocks away, was an incurable romantic, and took my pleadings to heart. He agreed to assist me in my quest to win the affections of my currently possible one true love by knocking together a basket full of goodies post haste. The final menu comprised of smoked salmon, crusty bread, an assortment of cheeses, crackers, olives, various salads and a platter of fresh fruit. Liquid libations were limited to a half bottle of dry white wine with mineral water as a backup just in case Milady didn’t drink. Though in reality, if that proved to be the case, I’d probably just walk away in disgust.

At first, I worried about the salmon. I was fairly certain the munchable little munchkin wasn’t joking about being a vegetarian. But in my admittedly limited experience, most human herbivores seemed to regard fish as non-meat. Besides, there was always the cheese. An old blanket to throw on the ground was needed and as luck would have it one of my workmates had one in the back of her car. It was stained, wrinkled and stank of dog, but beggars can’t be chooser's and I gratefully accepted her kind offer.

All this might seem like an incredible amount of effort to go to for what was, after all, only our first date. But then perhaps I forgot to mention that Louise was drop dead gorgeous. Add to that the fact that at the time I was only twenty two and you may understand my actions better. At that age most men cannot live by bread alone. They must also have a great deal of crumpet as often as possible. Deny a young man his biological needs and within a very short time he will begin to exhibit strange, inexplicable behaviour. Like scouring the city for picnic hampers.

There was, I must admit, a further enticement for me to make an extra special effort in my endeavours to woo Louise the humpable hobbit. I still missed the friendship and companionship of my old friend Suzie, and I guess I saw Louise as a possible replacement best mate. From her choice of reading material, Louise obviously had a brain. Something I have found to be an invaluable asset when attempting to form a friendship with someone. She also seemed to have a sense of humour, and call me old fashioned, but I think sharing a laugh in the company of someone you care about, just has to be the best possible way to spend time while your testicles are recharging.

A few minutes before one, I took an early mark, and made my way down to the old City Botanical Gardens on the banks of the Brisbane river. I had neglected to turn my brain on earlier in the day and had failed to ask Louise just exactly where, in the gardens, we were supposed to meet. So I parked my arse on a park bench overlooking the main entrance and waited. Hoping desperately that she would turn up, and that said turning up would occur here, and not at another entrance.

Hello Dr. Kinsey. said a husky, feminine voice into my left ear. Glad to see you’re a punctual little sex researcher. I hate being kept waiting. The little minx had crept up behind me. She swung her legs over the back of the bench and slid down beside me. Without further ceremony, she dove into the picnic hamper and began to inspect its contents. So what’s for lunch Al?

Jake, I corrected her. I’m Jake Cameron. Dr Alfred Kinsey is just an alias. I’m not really the author of a nineteen forty eight survey of the sexual habits of the American male. I am, in fact, a mere twenty two years old.

Great. That means we can have sex and I won’t feel like I’m doing my grandfather. It was at this point I decided I definitely liked the delectable Miss Louise. She was my kind of girl.

Oh good, she continued, pulling the wine bottle out of the basket, you’ve brought something to drink. I’m afraid I tied one on last night and I’m a bit hung over. I could really do with a hair of the dog.

I smiled and handed her the blanket. Here, just lick this.

For the next forty eight minutes the adorable Miss Brand and I enjoyed the most delightful of picnic lunches. We talked. We laughed. We ate. We drank. We soaked up the sunshine and we inhaled the ambience of freshly mown grass, intoxicatingly fragrant flowers and scrumptious edibles, all subtly overlain with the pungent odour of eau de Dachshund emanating from our borrowed blanket. Our first date together was, in a word, absofuckinglutley perfect.

She had plans for the following day but was free on Sunday, so I invited her to accompany me to the beach up the coast, and mumbled something about borrowing a mates car and going to Alexander Bay.

Jake. You do realise that Alex Bay is a nude beach don’t you? she asked.

I reached out, took her hand gently in mine and looked deep into her eyes. Yea, of course, I replied solemnly. But I want you to know that my intentions are perfectly dishonourable. We’re going there for scientific purposes. I want you to assist me in proving my hypothesis that a working model of a sundial can be constructed using nothing but the male human body.

She smiled, dragged me behind a tree, wrapped her arms around my neck, drew me towards her and kissed me. Deeply, passionately. That definitely sounds like a worthwhile experiment. Looks like I’d better get my nude beach swimsuit waxed and trimmed, she said. And she did. The day at the beach was even more perfect than our first date and the sundial experiment proved to be a climactic experience for us both. The naked Louise had a body like an hourglass. Perfectly proportioned, curvy, narrow waisted and, after sixty minutes, with a bottom full of sand. Two weeks later Louise moved into the flat at Milton.

Chapter 4

Living with the diminutive republics Louise Brand was simply great. We enjoyed each others company immensely and soon discovered we had lots of common interests. Louise was a student. Modern Literature no less and she was currently working on her PhD. A document grandly titled: Influential European Authors of the nineteenth century. Dostoyevsky was, of course, both European and influential and featured heavily in Louise’s tome as did Tolstoy and Charles Dickens.

In addition to sharing a love of great writers, our taste in music, movies and nightclubs were similar. We were both apolitical and firmly committed to a secular way of life. Thank God. There were also similarities in our choice of favourite tipple. Vodka, and lots of it. Most nights were spent out and about. Either at a night-club, dancing till we dropped, or at one of the seemingly endless array of parties thrown by friends. At each and every occasion we would join forces, pitting our skills and experience against a bottle of Smirnoff. Most battles ended in humiliating defeat, but still we soldiered on gallantly. Drinking until we passed out or our hosts asked us to leave. Or both.

I had always been a happy drunk and thankfully so was Louise. So we invariably had a good time. Some of my favourite memories are of the times my beautiful Louise and I spent together. Laughing and giggling absurdly at the most inane things, pissed out of our brains and totally oblivious to the concern we were causing our friends. We didn’t know and we didn’t care. We were young, invincible and we were having fun. In our minds we felt it would never end. The foolishness of youth blinded us to the reality of life. Soon our utopia would collapse but for now we were happy and nothing could stop us.

After a month together we pooled our resources and bought a car. An old white and ferrous oxide coloured, 1982, Datsun 120Y, complete with velour seat covers, a radio that had to be tuned with a pair of pliers and an insatiable thirst for oil. An old friend of mine, a man well into his eighties and prone to delusions, claimed to remember a time when one could still find a free car park within walking distance to the centre of the city. But those days were long gone. Sure we could have moored the rust bucket at one of the numerous multi-story parking establishments dotted around the CBD, but the asking price for a days park, was far in excess of the couple of bucks demanded by Queensland Rail for a ticket into the city. So the Datsun languished in its allotted space back at the apartment during the week and Louise and I continued to commute by train.

On the weekends though, we would fill the old beast with oil, check the petrol and tyres, load up the boot with supplies, and head for distant climes. We would stab a pin into our well used map of South East Qld / Northern NSW and head off. We were young, in love and as carefree as a tampon. The world was our oyster and in only four years we would be welcoming in a new century. It was our time. A time of indulgence and excess. Of burning the candle at both ends and of watching the world thunder by. Usually through the window of a cheap motel and the bottom of a Vodka glass.

We laughed, we sang, we made love at every opportunity and best of all, we lived. In February, I wangled a couple of weeks off work and took Louise home to meet the folks. Milady adopted the persona of supreme diplomat for the occasion and made an excellent impression on the oldies. So much so, that when she talked about Louise to her friends, my mother started referring to her as ‘my son’s fiancée.’ She went down well with my Dad too, though thankfully, in a different way to how she went down with me. She was kinky, but not that kinky.

To my complete surprise Louise, who was a dyed in the wool city girl, loved the bush. We spent many blissful hours hiking through the country side, swimming in the crystal clear creek that ran behind my parents house, or making love in the hay barn. During our holiday, Louise found something of interest in almost every thing we did. She was enthralled by the country way of life. Here time slowed perceptibly. The world spun slower and things simply happened at their own pace. The adverb ‘eventually’ applied to just about everything in the country. When my mothers’ sewing machine required a new part she simply went down to the one and only store in the high street and ordered it from the city. It would take seven to ten days. Everything ordered from the city took seven to ten days. There was no use creating a scene. No point in racing around trying to find an alternative source. The delay was inevitable and accepted with typical country stoicism. A philosophy Louise found endearing. She also found the town itself quaint. The one shop. The servo where the proprietor came out when you drove up and actually filled the car for you, and the local boozer, with its ancient, faded posters advertising a plethora of alcoholic beverages from years gone by. On Saturday nights, the publican opened up the dance hall, filled the place with huge, two person deckchairs, hung an enormous sheet of white canvas from the ceiling and screened one of the latest movies. We sat their together, wrapped in each others arms, snug under our shiny green sleeping bag and watched in utter disbelief as Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman single handedly tamed the wild west and taught the world how to imitate an Irish accent very badly. Louise proclaimed and I must concur, the film was crap, but that you had to admit, it was a truly excellent way to watch a movie.

Sadly all good things must eventually end and so too did our holiday. On the morning of the following Friday we loaded up the old Datsun, kissed the oldies goodbye and headed back to Brisbane. Monday was the start of a new work week for me and a few days later Louise would be heading back to the first of another year of lectures. Then, just three days later, my mother phoned and requested we return the very next weekend. Carol Sheldon, Suzie’s mother, had died of a massive aneurysm. She had come down to breakfast the previous morning complaining of a head ache. Suddenly, she put her hand to her temple, clawed frantically at her head and cried out in agony. Seconds later she pitched forward. She was dead before she hit the floor. I was shocked. Totally and utterly stunned. Suzie’s mum had always been such a healthy woman. A veritable dynamo. She would race around at a million kilometres per hour organising this and that. Always making sure that everything in her world went exactly as it should and leaving nothing to chance. I can’t remember a single day when Carol Sheldon had been ill and yet now, at only fifty one, she was dead. Just like that. It was simply unbelievable. The funeral was to be held on Sunday and although Louise wasn’t able to make it, no one needed to ask if I would be there. Carol was my dearest friend’s mum. I’d be there, even if I had to crawl.

Chapter 5

My parents and I arrived at the church a few minutes before ten. Half an hour early for the service, but still one of the last groups to arrive. Carol Sheldon was loved and admired throughout the community and the tiny chapel was already packed to the rafters with family, friends and neighbours, some from as far away as Melbourne. We found vacant seats at the back, sat down and did our best to prepare ourselves for the coming ordeal. Ian Sheldon, husband of Carol, and Suzie’s dad had seated himself on a pew in front of the altar and was sitting between his eighteen year old son Patrick, and Suzie herself. To Patrick’s right sat a young woman. She was, I guessed, maybe seventeen years old, waif thin, with pale skin and equally pale blue eyes. She had long, mousy, rat tail hair and wore a black dress which was at least two sizes too big for her. She looked familiar, but for the moment I was unable to put a name to the face. I craned my neck, trying to get a better look at Suzie. She had changed. Changed a lot. But then it had been nearly eight years since we had been separated and exiled to opposite ends of the state. She cut her hair shorter now. A cute little bob that framed her beautiful face perfectly. Yes she was still beautiful. Perhaps even more so. She wore make-up now, and strappy shoes and, unless she had recently been given a bowling ball enema, she was pregnant. Very, very pregnant. The culprit responsible sat to her left. He was tall, athletically built, with a head of thick dark hair which was just starting to show the first signs of greying around the temples. He was impeccably dressed, handsome and just oozing wealth. I noticed he was wearing a pair of wire framed glasses. The specs would have made me look like a complete nerd, but somehow Suzie’s partner in propagation, looked like he had just stepped off the cover of GQ. I guessed his age to be around thirty five. Twelve years or so older than Suzie. I hated him with a vengeance.

Carol Sheldon’s coffin sat on a gurney directly in front of the altar. I remember her saying once that she hated the waste and expense associated with lavish funerals.

All that money, she had said, All that money wasted on a wooden box that’s used once and then buried in the ground and allowed to rot. This, she explained, pointing too herself, is just the packaging that God puts our soul in while we are here on earth. It’s nothing more than a container. Think about that! No matter how good the vintage, you don’t put an empty wine bottle in a lavish and expensive box, bury it in the ground and put a great big headstone over it, do you? Once the wine is finished, the bottle is nothing more than an empty, worthless piece of glass and should be disposed of accordingly. We should do the same with our bodies when we die.

Despite this philosophy, her husband Ian had spared no expense in the selection of his wife’s final resting vessel. The coffin was made from oak. It had been burnished to a blinding sheen and was decorated with ornate, polished brass handles and a pair of bronze angels ready to lift her up to heaven.

It is at this point that I must admit to yet another failing. I’m a complete sook. When I was young, I was the type of kid who cried at the movies when Lassie, having escaped from the evil property developer who had kidnapped her, limped home on bloodied paws to Timmy. Even today I occasionally have a little difficulty keeping my emotions under control. I’d promised myself, that during the funeral I would be strong. That I would be a pillar of strength for Suzie and her family in their hour of need. But predictably, my resolve lasted all of thirty seconds. As soon as the service started and the minister began to tell the congregation what a wonderful person Carol Sheldon had been, I fell apart. The thought of how much my dear friend Suzie must be suffering after the loss of her mother was just inconceivable. I blubbered like a baby.

I couldn’t see the faces of the Sheldon clan from my vantage point at the back of the church but they were clearly distressed. Half way through the service Ian’s head slumped forward and his shoulders shook violently as the grief he felt, finally became more than he could bare. He reached out to his children. Wrapped his arms around their shoulders and drew them to him. Hugging them, consoling them, and at the same time, drawing what little comfort and strength there was to be had from their presence. Patrick’s waif suddenly found herself alone. He sat away from her now, enveloped in his father’s arms. From her body language, she was clearly distressed and as I watched she became more and more agitated. Wringing her hands in her lap or picking nervously at the hem of her dress. Suddenly she let out a soft cry like some tiny, frightened animal and bolted from the chapel.

I don’t really understand why, but I felt I should follow her outside and make sure she was alright. Patrick needed to be with his father right now, and the waif, whoever she was, was obviously important to the Sheldon clan. I wasn’t exactly part of the Sheldon family, but I figured I was the next best thing. So I followed her outside.

Her name was Lydia, Lydia Sharp, and there was a reason she had looked familiar to me. I knew Lydia when Suzie and I were in grade six. She wasn’t a teenager as I had surmised but was, in fact, only two years younger than I. Her sister Michele, had been in my class and I remember Lydia was always trying to hang around with her big sister after school, frequently being the pain in the arse that all younger siblings inevitably become if given half a chance. She recognised me immediately and seemed glad I had followed her outside. So we found ourselves a tree to sit under and swapped ‘since I last saw you stories’.

The world had not been kind to Lydia. Sometime during the last nine years, her parents had divorced, and her mother had moved away to the