Raised Somewhere Else by Colleen Cardinal

Author:Colleen Cardinal [Cardinal, Colleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9781773630205
Google: BpgTtAEACAAJ
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
Published: 2018-11-15T23:32:00.052183+00:00

CHAPTER 7

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SOBERING UP WAS NOT easy. All my friends drank and went to the bar every weekend. I couldn’t visit any friends who didn’t have beer or whiskey in their house. Sometimes anger would boil up inside of me because I felt like I was missing out on something, but nobody missed me anyways. I found a job working part-time in a second-hand bookstore called the Wee Book Inn, which specialized in buying, selling and trading used books, comics, magazines and CDs. This is when my love affair with books really took off. I had always loved reading but being surrounded by books was a dream come true, and I spent my time organizing and re-shelving second-hand books.

It was good for a few weeks but I had a hard time finding a babysitter in the evening and resorted to using a girl I didn’t really know, someone my friend Roxie had recommended. The girl showed up and seemed like she was okay to watch the kids; she didn’t seem impaired. I left the kids in her care and went to work a short 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. shift. At 6 p.m. my landlady called to tell me that my kids, who were eighteen months, three and four years old, were running up and down the hallway, had cut off all their hair and were not being watched. It took me ten minutes to walk home from work to find my babysitter passed out on the couch. I slapped her across the face to wake her up. I said, “Look at my fuckin’ kids you bitch!” They were standing in the living room with their hair cut off. Cree had cut off all of Charmaine’s hair, Charmaine had cut off Jonathan’s and Cree’s hair, and they all had bald patches on their heads.

Honestly I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I think I laughed but I was more upset that they had been unsupervised and playing with scissors, running in the hallways. I had to take my kids to a hair salon to get their heads shaved completely and Charmaine looked like a boy. I made a call to my welfare worker, telling her I had to quit my job because I couldn’t find good child care. She threatened me and said, “If you quit your job I’ll cut off your cheque.” I told her, “Listen, what am I supposed to do, leave my kids alone?” and hung up on her. She called child welfare on me and reported me for threatening to leave my kids alone. The next morning I had two child welfare workers knocking at my door. I was fed up and told them my situation and that I’d never leave my kids alone. They asked me what I needed and I told them that honestly, I needed to get out of there and go back to Sault Ste. Marie. After some bureaucratic garbage, welfare agreed to pay my way back to Sault Ste. Marie on the train.

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