The Answer To Everything Part 4

Dear Answer to Everything, My wife is have trouble conceiving. Can you give advice? Reply me immediately? [email protected]

Drew

h.e.l.lo, I've been kind of depressed lately. My job sucks and I don't have a girlfriend. I have a club I go to when I can afford it and when they let guys in alone, but it's not the same and it's pretty expensive. It's not working girls at the club, by the way. It's real people who want to get together. It's all controlled and very clean. But it's only once a month that they let men in without a partner. I'm saving up to get a condo and a proper girlfriend, but my job is terrible and the real estate keeps going up and it seems like I'll never get out of this place, which I hate.

I live in a room in a house at Jarvis and Gerrard. I have my own fridge and hotplate, and I bought a small chest freezer to save money on bulk purchases, which was a good idea, since it's already paid for itself twice over. I have to share a bathroom, though. And the people here are pigs. Total depressing pigs. If I didn't clean the sink, it would never get cleaned. Seriously. I did an experiment once to see if anyone else would clean it if I stopped doing it. No. Of course not. I finally broke down and cleaned it after three weeks. I couldn't stomach it anymore. You should see the hair slime I have to pull out of the drain every couple of months. Disgusting. I asked the girls not to comb their hair over the sink, but they still do it, even though they claim they don't. I pull the evidence out of the drain every six weeks, so I know they do it. They won't even flush properly. You have to flush the toilet two or three times sometimes because the plumbing is bad, but they don't wait to do it. They're too selfish to wait for the tank to fill up. It's sickening. Depressing. The worst one isn't even the crazy alky or the working girls. It's the Ryerson student. Griffin something or other. Ironic. The guy who's taking journalism lessons and comes from some upper-cla.s.s household. The working girls flush more than he does. Not only doesn't he flush properly, he buzz-cuts his hair in there and covers the whole place in tiny black hairs, which he doesn't clean up properly and which end up in my room, stuck to my socks and whatnot. The super doesn't care. He barely speaks English. I have to do the cleaning, and I have neck and shoulder pain, which is getting worse all the time. I'll be so glad when I can get out of this place. Which is who knows when, given the rising real estate market. The more I save, the higher it gets. I can't catch up. I work for Blood Services, at the call centre. I'm not selling anything but people still get peeved when you call them. Plus my employers can't seem to get it straight who to call. Half the time I'm supposed to call someone to tell them about a blood drive because it says they haven't given blood for over a year and they're like, "p.i.s.s off, dude, I gave blood last week, get your records straight." So it's depressing. My mom thinks I should move back to Brampton, where I could get a nice condo for a lot less, but I don't want to. For one thing, my mom's there. Ha ha. I love her and all, but she's a plus-size lady and not mobile and I'd basically be her personal slave if I went back. Also it would be even harder to find a proper girlfriend or job in Brampton. And there are no clubs like the club I occasionally go to. I'd rather not go to the club but sometimes I break down. I love Jesus Christ and I hope your signs are about Him. I think they are. I'd like to come for a meeting sometime. Please let me know if you ever have any. Sometimes I go to the Jarvis Street Baptist Church, because it's close. But I'm not a Baptist. I tried to go to St. Luke's but it's screwed up. It says United on the sign, but there's always a different congregation in there. And usually not English. Filipino or whatnot. I think they just rent it out to different foreigners, which is fine but doesn't work for me. Anyway, let me know if there are any meetings. I've been feeling kind of depressed lately, so it would be good.

Ibrahim

Dear Answer to Everything, We are doing all things you say. Thank you. Thank you for putting her predicament to the top of group prayer agenda. You are very kind. I would make a donation. Advise please where to send?

Heather

I guess part of me wants to talk about this, but not to anybody I know. And part of me thinks that seeing your sign the other day was an omen. It was on the post at the end of my street and must have just been taped there, since we had rain all morning. I went out about an hour after the storm and there it was. Perfectly dry. Since it was the first time I'd left the house in over a year, it felt like it had been put there for me. And so I've decided to continue on. Or at least try.

I'll start when things were good, when I got pregnant again and we were so happy. I had been pregnant before, twice before, but it hadn't worked out. Both times I had miscarried in the tenth week or thereabouts, so when we made it to week sixteen that third time, we finally let ourselves get excited again. Paul really wanted a son. And I really wanted a daughter. I guess that was the first sign of trouble, but we didn't know it. We used to joke about it. Paul would talk about all the things he was going to do with his fine boy-make a rink out back for hockey, go snowmobiling on the trails, build stuff in the workshop. And I'd sa.s.s back with all the things I was going to do with my sweet girl-make a playhouse in the yard and decorate it, have tea parties with homemade squares and cakes, design clothes for her Barbies. I used to sew quite a bit. I made all the drapes in our house, and lots of pretty doll clothes for my nieces. Paul was sure we were going to have a boy. He wanted to paint the nursery blue, but I wouldn't let him. He said blue was good for a girl too. But I said no, we were keeping it white until the baby was born because I wanted pink if it was a girl. Then the five-month ultrasound was coming up. We agreed that we still didn't want to know and asked the technician not to tell us. But after, Paul was acting all c.o.c.ky and smug. He wouldn't stop smiling. And he played the drums on the steering wheel all the way home, I remember that, the sound of his wedding ring tapping the wheel and him singing to the radio, which he never did. It was that song "Good Day Suns.h.i.+ne."

At first he wouldn't tell me why he was acting strange. But that night in bed he apologized and said he accidentally looked at the ultrasound screen and saw we were having a boy. He said he saw his "thing." I didn't believe him. Even if he thought he was right, I didn't think he could tell. I had also peeked at the ultrasound screen, and all I could see was hazy grey shapes. You could hardly even tell it was a baby, let alone a girl or boy. I thought it was impossible to tell with just one look. And it bugged me that the very next day he painted the nursery blue even though I asked him to please wait. And that's when I made the second biggest mistake of my life. That's when I got all prideful and went against my husband and nature. That's when I went into the nursery after Paul was asleep and got down on my knees beside the little pine cradle and prayed with all my heart for G.o.d to please, please give me a girl.

My first big failure.

My second biggest mistake.

I'm sorry. This is much more difficult than I thought it was going to be.

Tyson

Atheism = Satanism. Jesus battled Satan in the desert and we are battling Satan in the streets, in the schools, in our homes and hearts. Repentance, faith and obedience can save us. We must not fall from felicity to misery. Prayer is what we need to stand firm. Make no mistake. This is a war. This is a war with the great deceiver, the insidious schemer who will leave no soul untempted. I recognize the fullness of G.o.d in your posts. I would like to join you in spiritual warfare against the beast and his malicious and devious devices. Tell me where and when and I'll be there with the armour of G.o.d's love and the sword of faith held high.

Catelyn

Your posters are so great. Thanks!!! I'm a single mom and it's hard right now. I have some savings from working at s.h.i.+eld a.s.surance Company and things were going good, but then I slipped up with an ongoing situation and got let go. I'm back on track now, but they won't hire me back and I can't look for new jobs with my daughter to take care of. I can't just leave her with anyone, because we all know how that goes.

My ex's mom was supposed to take care of Staci when I went back to work, but then she had to get a job because her boyfriend split to go work with his brothers on an oil rig. Staci's dad doesn't pay support because he's unemployed. I don't think he's trying so hard to get a job. He's a drummer and wants to start a new band. He says he's going to get famous and rich and buy a house for Staci and me to live in. That would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. I support his dream and all, I just wish he would take a part-time job to help out. His mom watches Staci sometimes and makes dinners when we go over, but she can't help with support. Todd says he can't watch Staci during the day because he has to practise and look for work. It's true that he's practising, but I don't think he's looking. I told him he could probably get a training position at s.h.i.+eld a.s.surance to do what I was doing, underwriting a.s.sistant, but he says he'd rather kill himself than work in the insurance industry, which isn't very nice considering that was my career. I've been paying for everything for the last three years and I didn't hear him disrespecting the insurance industry then, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, your posters are a wind beneath my wings whenever I see them. I do feel like I'm struggling. And it's hard to stay positive. I have had troubles with substance abuse, but I'm trying to stay clean for my daughter's sake. I'm good now. But it's rough. I go to meetings but half the time the meetings make it worse if this guy is there. There's this old guy in group who is always going off about all the bad stuff in the world, like talking about how all the food we eat is genetically modified and the companies don't care if we get cancer so long as they can make more money and put the real farmers out of business. And about how all the bees are dying from pesticides, so there won't be any food in the future anyways, and forget fish because the oceans are full of oil spills and the chemicals to get rid of it and nuclear waste from j.a.pan, which is making all the fish toxic and all the shrimp deformed in the Gulf of Mexico. He said there's a garbage dump of plastic water bottles swirling around in the middle of the ocean that's bigger than an entire nation. I don't know if I believe that one. I mean, why would they end up all together in one spot? And then yesterday he was saying how the USA is releasing killer viruses in China to test them as weapons, like a special bird flu that will end up here because even Chinese from remote villages fly to Toronto quite often. And he was going on about antibiotics that don't work anymore and how, if you go to the hospital just to get st.i.tches, you'll end up dying from germs they can't cure that are starting to spread into gyms and the subway, on the poles and such. Then he said it won't matter anyhow since the Arctic ice is melting and underneath is the same poison gas that killed the dinosaurs, and all the humans are going to die out much sooner than scientists thought. So it's really messed up and scary and really hard to stay positive. But you have to stay positive for your kids, right? I have to be hopeful for the future and for my daughter. And your messages are helping me stay hopeful. They're like a whole other side to the story. So thanks!!!! :)

Wayne

I became interested in your messages and started tracking when they appeared, to see if there was a pattern (at first I thought they appeared randomly-once every six to eighteen days). Then just by chance I noticed a rather stunning correlation between the appearance of a new message and a doc.u.mented UFO sighting somewhere in the world. For example: MONDAY, 19th: New posters along Bloor between Dufferin and Christie. UFO sighted over Lipetsk, Russia (disrupts traffic over airport, according to unnamed official).

FRIDAY, 30th: New posters on Bloor between Ossington and Spadina. In Mexico City, a large rotating sphere (Mothers.h.i.+p), orange in colour, releases dozens of white spheres and is captured on digital camera by Antonio Ruiz and multiple Mexican citizens.

TUESDAY, 10th: New poster at the Bloor/Gladstone Public Library. Ngunguru, New Zealand-mysterious light formation sighted in the skies above Tutukaka.

I could go on with further examples, but I'm guessing that I don't need to point out this "coincidence" to you. Suffice to say that I am extremely interested in learning more about your organization. Please get in touch at your earliest convenience. You can learn more about me through my blog: www.disclosureblog.net.

Marina

I'm not a spiritual person. I never have been. My parents took me and my brother to midnight Ma.s.s once a year out of a sense of tradition. I don't think they enjoyed it, and we certainly didn't. I stopped going as soon as I had a choice. Church gave me a headache. The stuffiness of it. The old-lady perfume. But over time, as everything has fallen away-family, friends, employment, roommates-as my body deteriorates and I sink deeper and deeper into a state of constant pain or worse, agonizing, incessant itching, I've had to open myself up to alternative ways of thinking. It used to be ciggies and beer. Now it's pine bark and bleach baths. I used to have a fast-paced job at Research In Motion. Now I live on disability cheques, and volunteer twice a week at the Humane Society. It used to be rock 'n' roll and hanging at the Horseshoe. Now it's fibro research or Morgellons chat rooms. All of this is to say that your messages seem somewhat relevant to me. I'm not gonna drink the Kool-Aid, but I wouldn't mind finding out more. I'm pretty much at the end of my rope. Maybe you could get in touch?

John

Some people will believe anything, anything you care to tell them except perhaps that humans evolved from apes, although there's ample evidence for that.

There's no evidence whatsoever that alien scientists from another planet came to earth and created all life, but fifty thousand Raelians believe it. They believe that Rael, formerly known as ordinary guy/race-car driver Claude Vorilhon, was visited by aliens, who took him in a flying saucer to their planet and showed him how-a mere twenty-five thousand years ago-they created humans from the DNA of aliens. The aliens then taught him that he is a prophet who must preach the gospel of immortality through cloning.

Members of the No No Hana sect believed that their leader, Hogen f.u.kunaga, was the reincarnation of Christ and Buddha. They also believed that he could read people's feet (at nine hundred bucks a pop) to diagnose their illnesses. He had a tendency to diagnose cancer and then charge thousands of dollars for his healing services. Hmm.

Mormons believe that G.o.d visited their leader, Joseph Smith, in western New York in 1820, and that a few years later he was visited by an angel named Moroni, who divulged the location of a buried book of golden pages on which was written the everlasting gospel.

The Nuwaubians believe that blacks are a supreme race and that whites were created only to serve as slaves in a killer army to defend them from other invading races. They also believe that their leader, Dwight York, formerly known as ordinary guy/singer in the group Pa.s.sion (now known as a convicted child molester) is an extraterrestrial from the planet Rizq. They believe that women were created long before men, and that each of us has seven clones wandering about. Sounds plausible.

Members of the Ant Hill Kids believed that their leader, Roch Theriault, was the reincarnation of Moses-even though Moses never killed a follower and then tried to resurrect her by sawing off the top of her head and masturbating into the cavity.

Followers of Bhagwan Rajneesh had no trouble believing he was a supreme spiritual guru despite the fact that he'd regularly glide by them in one of his ninety-three Rolls-Royces.

I probably don't have to mention the countless who believe the world was whipped up in seven days, that woman was made from the rib of man, that the son of G.o.d was the product of a virgin birth, conceived by a woman and a holy spirit, and that he died and was buried in a cave but then came back to life and emerged from the sealed cave and subsequently ascended to a happy land above the clouds.

And how many believe that injuries and illness, including incurable diseases, can be prayed away? How many believe that thinking positively about events will change their outcome? All of it is absolutely fantastic. So why wouldn't people believe that my grimy, sweet across-the-hall neighbour Eldrich was a prophet or even a G.o.d? Of course they would believe it.

The only question was, could I get Eldrich to believe it?

Amy

John received an astonis.h.i.+ng number of responses to the flyers. Total strangers would go to the website and bare their souls. It was crazy. Not surprisingly, theanswertoeverything.org attracted its fair share of interesting individuals-everything from a conspiracy theorist/UFO enthusiast to a self-trained exorcist. There were a few New Age granola types and some sad cases who just needed someone to talk to, but also a reasonable number of seemingly normal humans, people with jobs and friends and families who were obviously looking to fill some kind of void. John, of course, thought it was a big joke and disdained them all. He didn't even bother reading most of the posts. He wasn't interested in their comments, confessions or stories, even though he had solicited them. He was interested only in collecting their contact info and getting them to the point where they would show up for a "meeting." He figured that once they had gathered to hear Eldrich speak, his little Church of Eldrich would be born and he could start collecting t.i.thes.

I think he purposefully didn't read the posts because it helped him keep his distance. I read them all. I'm a curious person. I found them fascinating. And while I couldn't relate to most of the people who wrote in, I did feel empathy for them. There were a few I especially felt sorry for. Like this one woman, Heather, who was in a lot of pain, and who I came to really like. It was Heather's posts that prompted me to write one of the flyers and paste it up around town. John uses this to paint me as some kind of cynical early partner in his escapades. But it was never my intention to take advantage of these people. I wanted to help them!

You can be Forgiven You will be Forgiven Open Your Soul Pour out your pain Allow That s.p.a.ce To fill with Peace &.

Absolution Open Your Soul To Me Now theanswertoeverything.org

Heather

Well, I'm back. And since I've come this far, I guess I'm going to tell the rest. Then I think I'll sleep for about three days. OK.

The first six months were normal. Perfectly, wonderfully ordinary. We had a healthy baby boy with all his fingers and toes. Seven pounds, two ounces. We called him Thomas Owen, after Paul's maternal grandfather and my dad. The breast-feeding was tricky. I couldn't make enough milk and we had to supplement with formula, but that was the worst of it. Even the fatigue wasn't so bad. Thomas was a good little sleeper. And I remember it as being an entirely calm and joyful period. We were surrounded by friends and family, and both Paul and I were over the moon with happiness and pride. I think the overriding feeling was just complete and utter contentment. We finally had our sweet little baby. A real family of our own. Life was going to get better and better, and our love would grow stronger and stronger.

Then things started to change. I noticed it long before Paul did, just in the things that Thomas reached for or even looked at. It sounds ridiculous but n.o.body knows a baby like its mother, and Thomas wouldn't even look at the toy cars and trucks that the other baby boys were so keen on and that Paul kept buying or building for him. If you put a toy car in his hand, he would drop it and reach for my necklace or earrings. Even before he could speak and tell me in no uncertain terms who he was and what he wanted, it was plain to see that he preferred pretty things, girly things-jewellery, dolls, anything frilly and especially anything pink. He wouldn't even look at Bob the Builder when Paul put it on, but if Angelina Ballerina was playing, he would stare, mesmerized, at the TV. And he preferred the company of girls. Right from the beginning. In the park or with the neighbours' kids he always gravitated to the girls. As soon as he could crawl, he'd crawl to the girls. He had no interest in the boys at all. Paul, of course, hated all of this. He accused me of "sissy-fying" our son. That's the term he used. He said I was making Thomas gay, although the word he used was "h.o.m.o." As if you could make a toddler that way. Thomas was who he was when he was born. I wasn't encouraging him to like the things he liked. But I wasn't depriving him of those things, either. If he wanted to play with my necklace, I let him. If he wanted to crawl over to the girls, I didn't stop him. Secretly I thought that's what it was with Thomas. That he was going to grow up to be that way. But that was before he could talk. As soon as he started talking it became clear to me that something else was going on. Long before anyone else sensed or acknowledged it, it became obvious to me that G.o.d had heard my prayers and answered them. G.o.d had given me the little girl I'd asked for. But as some kind of cruel rebuke, He had put her in the body of a boy.

Of course, Paul didn't want to accept it. He didn't believe me when I finally broke down and confessed to him about my prayer in the nursery that night. He said it was nonsense and that I was crazy. He said I wanted Thomas to be a mama's boy, that I was trying to make Thomas gay. If only Thomas had been gay! Everything would've been so easy. So different. I'm sure that over time Paul would have come to accept a son who was that way. He loved Thomas more than anything in the world-at least his idea of Thomas. But Thomas was not gay.

He started talking early. At six months he was saying "Dada." At ten months, "Mama." By the time he was sixteen months old, he had quite a lot of words and could make simple sentences. I remember that right from the beginning when I would say "Good boy!" Thomas would say "No, Mama. Good girl." He insisted from the time he could speak that he was a girl, and anybody with any sense could see that it was the truth. Before he was even two years old he would get cross and sulky when we referred to him as "he." He used to unsnap his onesies so they would look like dresses instead of pants. He would sit under the dining-room table and hold the tablecloth over his head to pretend he had long hair. He'd do that with his bath towel too. And make skirts with it.

Of course, Paul despised this behaviour. Over and over again he would explain to Thomas the difference between boys and girls. Boys had p.e.n.i.ses; girls didn't. Case closed. When Thomas realized that this was true, that he had "the wrong body," he became very sad and withdrawn. Imagine waking up tomorrow with your own brain in the wrong body. That was how Thomas woke up to the world. It confused him. And it made him very unhappy. It was horrible to see. He just didn't quite believe it. I think he really believed that it was going to change. When I asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said he wanted Santa to take away his p.e.n.i.s. I would find him clawing at it, trying to tear it off. It was crazy and scary. And the older he got, the worse it got. I was afraid he was going to get his hands on a knife. I couldn't watch him every single second. But I had to. There was no more grabbing a quick shower during the day anymore, or even running down to the laundry room. I was too nervous.

We took Thomas to his pediatrician. I won't say his name, but everyone in the community loved him and thought he was the best. He was my sister's kids' doctor. She adored him. And to be honest, for the first couple of years when everything was run-of-the-mill-vaccinations, colds, ear infections-he was perfectly fine. He told us that Thomas might have a condition called gender ident.i.ty disorder, and that Paul was right, that we had to convince him he was a boy. He said it would be easier for Thomas in the long run if we could get him to accept the biological fact that he was male. He said that most kids with this condition come to their senses and grow out of it, but that if their parents indulged their delusion, the kids would just be worse off and confused beyond repair. He told us to get rid of anything girly that Thomas could get his hands on, and to only allow him boy toys and clothes, and boy TV shows. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about and I trusted him.

Do you want to know how to make a child miserable? Take away everything that child loves, including the playmates of his choice. Then, if you'd care to see complete misery lapse into depression, weight loss, sleep disruption and self-mutilation-biting up and down the arms was how Thomas expressed frustration-tell the child they have to behave in a way that is entirely unnatural to them at all times. This was Thomas's life in the months after Doctor X's proclamations. It was horrible. Punis.h.i.+ng. I couldn't bear to see Thomas suffer, and I couldn't bear the anger and tension and rage that had taken over our home. Paul and I were constantly at each other's throats. I would hiss at him for being too harsh. He would hiss at me for being too lax-which was any time I wasn't treating my four-year-old son like a macho construction worker. Every time I snuggled Thomas, I was glared at as if I were doing something illegal and harmful. It was horrible. And I came to the conclusion that it was wrong. It was just plain wrong. Depriving Thomas of everything that he naturally wanted was depriving him of something vital that he needed. Paul didn't agree. He would say, "You don't give a kid ice cream for supper just 'cause they clamour for it. You give them what's good for them, 'cause you know better." It sounded reasonable on the surface, but it wasn't a proper comparison. It wasn't like we were depriving Thomas of some bonus thing like candy or treats; it's like we were depriving him of all nourishment. And, anyway, if your child refused to eat what was "good for them" and was starving to death before your eyes, you would give them ice cream for dinner. You'd give them anything to keep them alive.

But I was an idiot. A fool. I was under the thumb of the doctor and my husband and my sister, and I wasn't thinking clearly. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have been proactive. I would have done research. And I would have left. I would have taken Thomas to Toronto and started a new life. In Toronto we would have been OK. But I didn't do that. Instead, I started sneaking around, sneaking around with my own son. When Paul was out of the house, I would let Thomas be Emily-the name he had chosen for himself when he discovered that "Thomas" was strictly a boy name. He learned this from Thomas the Tank Engine, on TV. Emily was the girl train. So Thomas wanted to be Emily. And because I couldn't stand to see my child wither away before my eyes, I decided to let Emily be herself for short periods of time when n.o.body was around. At first it was just an hour a day. I'd let her call herself Emily and allow her to play openly with some of the things we had hidden away. But after I saw what a difference it made to her physical health, I started giving her more and more time. It was like watering a plant that's been neglected. I saw my child coming back to life.

Eventually, I decided to let Emily be herself whenever Paul wasn't around. It was our little secret. The secret world of me and my sweet daughter. The best moments of our lives. I bought her a Barbie doll and started making clothes for it. I taught her how to knit. We would hide everything in the bottom of a garment bag that hung in the back of my closet. For Emily's fifth birthday, I promised I'd take her to get a dress-a real one, not one of my blouses tied at the waist with a bathrobe belt. There was a terrible snowstorm the night before, but she was so impossibly excited that I decided I would dig out the car and we would inch our way to Walmart. Of course, she picked the pinkest, frilliest dress they had. And I bought her matching pink shoes. I can tell you honestly that I've never seen a person happier about anything in my whole entire life. As miserable and withdrawn as Thomas was, that's how joyful and exuberant Emily was-equal and opposite. She was practically bouncing out of her car seat on the way home. And the second we got in the house and made sure the coast was clear, she jumped into her outfit and ran to the mirror, where she stayed for the longest time, staring at herself. Her honest self. It was a big moment for her. She wasn't playing dress-up with Mommy's clothes. This was the way it was supposed to be. A little girl, dressed like any other little girl. And with her soft curls and dainty features, she looked just like any other girl, except even sweeter and more beautiful.

She said, "Mommy, take a picture of me!"

She wanted to preserve it. She wanted proof of the thing that was being denied. The real and true thing. And so I did. And then we heard the front door open. Paul's noon inspection was cancelled because of the storm. So we stripped off the dress and shoes, and I jammed them in the closet while Emily pulled on pants and a sweater. Then we flew downstairs, where Paul was waiting with a special birthday present for Thomas-two NHL steel hockey nets for the backyard rink. And he tried not to look totally peeved when our child just scowled at the gift, and he bundled up Thomas and took him outside to help shovel the snow off the rink, even though Emily really wanted to help me bake the birthday cake-an activity that was, for her, obviously prohibited. And the rest of the afternoon was the typical tense charade, and I expect everything would have gone on as usual if I hadn't forgotten to erase the photo of Emily from the camera. But I was fl.u.s.tered and I did forget. And when I carried out Thomas's birthday cake-white and blue icing only, no flowers-Paul was waiting in the dining room with the lights dimmed and the camera in his hands. And he turned it on and saw what was there.

"What is this?" he said, fiddling with the camera b.u.t.tons, breathing hard. I stopped moving. "What the f.u.c.k is this?" he screamed. "Are you out of your mind?" He threw the camera across the room and as it sailed by my head I flinched and pulled the cake against me. It slid to the floor and Thomas started wailing.

"It's OK," I said. "It's OK." I tried to go to him but Paul blocked me. "No, it's not OK!" he shouted. "It's not f.u.c.king OK!" I'd never seen him so enraged. "What are you trying to do? Are you out of your head?" Thomas was screaming for me and trying to get to me, but Paul s.n.a.t.c.hed him up and carried him upstairs. I chased after them, but Paul slammed and locked the bathroom door before I could get there. I heard Thomas shrieking and Paul yelling at him to hold still. I pounded on the door and said I was calling the police. I ran to our bedroom, grabbed the cordless and ran back to the hall. I was dialling 9-1-1 when Paul came out of the bathroom and knocked the phone out of my hand. He was holding the big scissors.

"Where is it?" he said, dragging me toward Thomas's room. He's a big man and I'm a tiny woman, but I scratched and bit my way free and ran back to the bathroom, where I saw my sweet child on the floor, sobbing, covered in all the hair that Paul had chopped from her head.

"It's OK," I said. "It will grow back." I just almost had my hands on her when Paul grabbed me from behind and pulled me away.

"No. It won't grow back! You have defied the doctor and you have defied me! YOU ARE DONE WITH MY SON!"