La Dame d’Obscurité

I met the love of my life the spring of 1995, I was 38 years old. Not one for recalling dates, wedding anniversary included, without the aid of an electronic calendar I worked backwards from the year I got married to figure that out. I finally have this fixed in my mind, 1996, because my son was 16 and it was the year before that my future husband and I met. And, may I add that I now have the actual date fixed in my mind finally, after 16 years of wedded bliss and much poking fun at my lack!

It all started as a kind of dare, at least that’s how I remember it. We all have a story in us, some parts fiction. some parts massaged. This one’s mine so I’ll tell it as I see fit. You’ll have to take my murky word for it that it was a dare.

My very dear friend was meeting men through a telephone chat line which she felt would be a fantastic way for me to leave my hermit ways and meet a man. Suggestions along this same line emanated from my fathers’ lips and in earlier years my grandmothers’ with the advice to take up a hobby. Now there’s a dear.

Not too long before these encouraging words were spoken by my friend I had come to the conclusion that perhaps I could share my life with a special someone on a more permanent basis, so what part dare and what part willingness is unclear.

So, it began. I would call into this chat line and listen to the men describe what they were looking for on their personal recordings and had the opportunity to chat live with a few gentlemen. After being stood up on the only two dates I made using this chat line I decided this wasn’t for me. The desires were a bit risque and included such items as S&M and adulterous engagements, not exactly what I was looking for as a lover was easy to come by. However I had noticed a recorded advertisement for an alternate chat line where the people engaged were interested in anything from casual dating to long term relationships. What the heck let’s give that a try!

The only person I actually spoke with on the Telepersonals chat line is now my happily married husband, no matter what he might tell you.

We spent hours on the phone getting to know each other and decided we should meet. I had his phone number and dialed *69 before dialling his number so he couldn’t get mine. We made a date to meet at Tim Horton’s on a Saturday morning. On the Tuesday before he left a message on Telepersonals to say he was on his way to Bowling Green, Kentucky and wasn’t sure he’d make it back for our date to which I replied, “just peachy, know that I have your number and can track you down!”. Seems a little creepy now that I see it in print but I was thoroughly disillusioned by my previous experiences and I was pretty good at tracking people down using phone numbers and address fragments.

I left him my phone number so he could call me Friday night to let me know what was happening. Happily he called to say he had returned and would see me as planned the next day.

What a date is was! I don’t mean it was particularly romantic nor did we dine in expensive restaurants or enjoy haute cuisine, hardly a worry at your neighbourhood Timmy’s, but it was the longest “date” I’d ever been on and I knew the minute I lay eyes on him I was going to marry him. Our 10 am coffee meeting turned into lunch, then he had some errands and I accompanied him followed by fours hours lingering over dinner and late night chatting sitting in his car before I left to go home. Then someone called the other (can’t remember who) and we chatted some more.

Not only was this the longest date I’d ever been on but the topics of discussion were astonishing. Neither of us had ever been married, though yours truly had lived with several partners (serially), we both believed that if one screwed around on the other there’d be no second chances. I enhanced this with “you’ll be dead so no worries in that department”. Do I sound a bit dramatic, do take note! I had had a tubal ligation so there’d be no more issue from my womb so if he wanted children he should look elsewhere. We agreed (my idea) that certain dalliances would have to wait for at least 6 months to ensure there was a solid relationship (a first for me, but definitely, somewhat, at least partially committed). There were many other topics like religion, politics, etc. which we don’t need to explore.

Months later when he finally caught up and we all agreed that, yep, this was it and we would marry I told my two closest friends, the one whose dare sent me down this path in the first place, and another who has known me since my late teens. Neither of them believed me. The one thought I was joking around and the other felt the relationship was ill-fated and maintained that view until the day she died. The, “you’re joking, right?”, friend asked me three questions based on her intimate knowledge of my core being. Does he dance? Well, he has no rhythm, so not really. Does he sing? He can’t carry a tune. Is he on the same spiritual plane as you? A guffaw was my first response and then a firm “no”. She then asked why on earth are you marrying this man?” to which I responded as anyone besotted does, “because I love him”!

The friend who passed within a year of our wedding and stood as my maid of honour was not around to see our relationship grow and flourish which saddens me. I was led to the alter by my just turned 16 year old son who cried “Mummy, are you ready yet?” from the bottom of the stairs (in our townhouse) which made my friends chuckle. Imagine a 6’2″ man-child.

Once we moved to the new school the following school year it wasn’t long before my sister started running away and fighting against Dad with all her might.  Apparently one time Dad found out where she was and went to get her and she all but broke his arm trying to get away. It was all he could do to wrangle her home. Thus began a tumultuous road for my sister.
She went from being the crown jewel in our family to a ward of the crown. That’s a huge change. The way Dad tells it, if it wasn’t for him the foster parents would have taken my sister and only my sister. So imagine for a moment being the baby and treated like gold your entire life.
From my perspective it seemed to me that everything revolved around Gwen. However it is not uncommon for the “baby of the family” to be catered to. Anyone with a younger sibling will likely tell you the same, but then pair that with the fact that they don’t want the older sibling in the first place and everything gets magnified just a little.
When Dad and I had one of “the talks” he stated that Gwen and I would be treated fairly and equally. That’s when I put Dad on a pedestal that he didn’t get knocked off of for quite a few years.
Whew, I will be treated fairly and equally. Great for me, or at least so it seemed on the surface. Unfortunately, I was so well trained to receive punishment, warranted or not, that I just continued to keep my own counsel on what “really happened” when an incident occurred. And when punishment was delayed until we got back from the cottage, I’d develop a fever and be sick to my stomach the whole weekend. I remember Dad asking me why I didn’t just tell him what happened! I guess he just didn’t get it. Telling a kid they’ll be believed and will be treated fairly when their entire life experience in no way bears this out doesn’t exactly result in an about face.
Imagine for a moment what this must have been like for Gwen. She was no longer the golden child. She was getting punished for things, which in the past, would have been passed off as my fault. It must have felt like nobody loved her anymore, no one was on her side.
That had to be one hell of a shock, so no surprise she started rebelling an never let up.

After grade 6 at Northlea where we bussed to and fro for the rest of the year, we went to a neighbourhood where I met Mr. Parks and Cathy.  All the girls, or at least all that I remember, swooned in the presence of Mr. Parks, me included.  I couldn’t tell you what he looked like, but imagine a group of prepubescent girls being taught by Hollywood good looks and you’ll get the picture.  And that, readers is the sum total of what I remember of Grade 7 with the exception of Cathy.

Cathy was a classmate that for some reason, forgotten by me, took an immediate dislike to me.  Not sure why, but a little voice in my head is saying jealousy, not sure where that came from.

Somehow, after school one day, I found myself in the hydro field facing off against Cathy. She had challenged/threatened to battle or beat me up on my way home.  I don’t remember if I fought back or not, but something must have happened to Cathy’s attitude about me because all of a sudden the hostility turned to friendship. So from then on I hung out with Cathy who was a scrapper. She had matured more quickly than the rest of us and had a boyfriend. We were walking to the strip mall one day, the three of us when I was informed that I was homely by the boyfriend.

It’s interesting that that’s the thing that stuck with me through the years, I was homely, which I internalized as ugly.

Seven years later  while working at Access TV in Calgary the receptionist was mystified by the fact that I wasn’t aware that every time I walked the halls for any reason I was ogled. I thought she was making it up. She challenged me to be more aware. I still didn’t believe her.  Sort of the same thing when I found out I was smart at 32. Really, huh!?!?!

The home we lived in while living with the foster parents was a self contained unit built inside a barn. That probably sounds a bit odd, but we lived on what used to be farmland, Sunnybrook Farm to be exact, which was about 154 acres acquired by James Kilgour, President of Canada Paper back in the early 1900s. In 1928, Alice Kilgour, James’ widow, donated Sunnybrook Farms to the City of Toronto to be used as park land and then was later transferred to the Government of Canada with the heirs approval to build a veterans hospital on a portion of the parkland.  The Christie Street hospital had reached maximum capacity during the war and had no way to grow.

Sunnybrook Hospital was built, on what was the Kilgour homestead, to provide medical services to veterans during and after WWII.  The hospital is now call Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre which still cares for veterans in the “Kilgour” wing.  Sunnybrook is an academic health sciences centre, a regional cancer centre, trauma centre and is reportedly the largest maternity hospital nationally.

Aside from my recent experience at the regional cancer centre, my memory is of one rather long skinny yellowish building which had a two lane driveway into and out of my residence down in the valley, which we called Divadale valley. When I was “not” focusing on cancer last year, distracting myself with the history of the area where I grew up, I didn’t find a reference to Divadale, but now I see that the school I went to, Northlea Public School, was built on the old Divadale estate which belonged to William Lea for whom the area, Leaside, is named.  Explains why residents called where I lived Divadale Valley.

At any rate, back to the barn we lived in.  During my first trip to Sunnybrook for testing my friend and I wandered about a bit afterwards. There were parks and rec employees in the building now and the main floor of the “contained with the building” house has been converted to change rooms and such, but the manager onsite allowed us access to nose around which was fun for me.

Later on, the manager and I got talking about the buildings that were here and how they were still unsure about the purpose some of the buildings (locations evidenced by cement slabs).  He showed me a picture and I didn’t recognize it.  But then as we were walking away and down this little incline (our toboggan hill) towards the creek, it came back to me.  The picture he showed me was the “haunted house”.  It was a dilapidated old building with broken boards and windows that my sister and I “just knew” was haunted.  We were told not to go inside! Like moths to a flame, that old building became even more inviting.  We just couldn’t get there fast enough!  It’s funny though, I don’t actually remember entering the “haunted house” though I’m 100% sure I did.  Maybe we were so filled with dread and fright nothing sunk in.  We used to bet on who could get the most speed to get the toboggan closest to the haunted house.

The noisy ghost  used to visit us regularly. There was the desk blocking a doorway at the end of the hall on the second floor of our “contained” home.  On the other side of that door we could hear “it” making weird sounds and just about every night at the same time we’d be scared to death listening to it’s footsteps and then some clicking sounds.  Years later I realized, based on tidbits of information I had including there being an air pilot training center in the area during the war and the description of barracks, and the hourly visits by a “ghost”, as well as the veterans coming down to the other part of our building to create poppy wreaths for Remembrance Day, there must have been a night watchman which I thought was related to Services in some way.

Now that I know the history of Sunnybrook Farms a bit better I now know that the building, our “contained” quarters lived inside of, was was once a horse stable.

So our noisy ghost was just a night watchman that punched a clock every hour on the hour and guess where that clock was placed in the building.  You guessed it, the other side of the desk protected door.

If you’re wondering how it was we came to live on City of Toronto parkland, well my foster father was chauffeur for someone at Sunnybrook Hospital so I surmise we got living quarters as part of the bargain.  That’s something I’d very much like to find out.  Must be records somewhere.

When we moved from the apartment to the first rental house at the outer edge of the city I discovered boxes of books in the basement. I was always looking in cracks and crevices for things of interest.  So much so that both my sister and I were admonished to not go into our parents room, EVER.  This after we had been in there nosing around.  I found a book about JFK but couldn’t say anything about my knowledge though I was dying to look at it and maybe even read it.

Back to the boxes of books.  They were bodice ripping harlequin romances and Agatha Christie mysteries. I’m sure there were other more substantial reads but I was mesmerized.  I’ll never forget Labour of Love, I mean what a great title for a 13 year old to get her hands on.  Talk about developing “man on a white horse” delusions!

Then the mysteries, how I love mysteries still to this day.  I love trying to figure out who dunnit. It’s not that I consciously say to myself hmmm, I wonder who dunnit, it’s just my brain working in the background putting it all together.  This is a trait my husband found endearing when we were dating and now not so much.  I suppose for him he’s perfectly happy to let the story play out while I’m downright jubilant when I know who dunnit and the show is only half way through.  If they didn’t make the shows so formulaic, I mightn’t be so quick figuring things out. In my head I can hear those of you who know me saying, yeah right!!!

The point is I love the cerebral activity and my husband and many people I know just don’t have a brain that is forever twirling on a muliple number of streams of consciousness. It must be exhausting for them to be around me sometimes.  Ah well, that’s the price you pay for my genius and charm.  There’s always a dark side.

Coming back to the books.  Finding these boxes of books opened a whole new world for me.  I don’t remember ever reading before this, nor there being anyone around me who cracked a book for any reason.  I was academically backwards from the school’s perspective so I’m pretty sure it’s accurate that no one really pushed me very hard to do much of anything. So this was a new experience for me and I was voracious in my appetite for more. I think I read every romance novel twice and ran through the mysteries in no time.

To this day I have at least a couple of books on the go at any one time.  Currently it’s two business related books but just the same it’s still a couple and an electronic stack in my “For Later” list at the library.  I have been known to buy books, a lot of books.  Hard covers, soft covers, big, small, it doesn’t matter. I had a trunkful of books, a travelling trunk that I still have from when I moved from Toronto in 1974, which the mover refused to pick up and had to be repacked into smaller boxes. These days, unless the library is closed and I’ve got nothing to read, a trip to Shopper’s to pick up a paperback or Chapter’s is fairly rare occurrence.

My neighbour gave me a bag of books she got from a friend who was up for visit. It had some “historical romance” novels which I’m not the least bit interested in anymore.  In fact, once I discovered the mystery I never really went back to romance novels.  I tried a couple of the “historical” variety but it didn’t turn my crank.  I’m still enslaved by mysteries, espionage, psychological horror, some “literary”, and anything that is compelling.  I was recently introduced to Harlan Corban, for example, whom I really enjoyed.

I can only read the same author for so long as their stories begin to sound the same to me which makes sense as it’s the same voice writing the darn thing after all.  So a round of Dan Brown or Kathy Reichs or anyone really will result in a period of abstinence from that author so I can slowly forget the standard elements that always show up.

Another bonus of Dad marry my new Mom.  WooHoo!  Music and books give me an escape nothing else has ever come close to.

My new mom is so beautiful. She has “curled” brown hair, big brown eyes, the best laugh and beautiful skin.  She is 7 years older than me and so smart.  She can do multiplication of any two numbers in her head.  She also wrote all the ledgers samples in an accounting textbook and was a child model.

From an eleven year old child’s point of view she was very accomplished and as she was only 18 herself she really was. She is loyal, truthful, caring, and possesses the maturity of  an old soul.  Imagine being 18 years old and responsible for two children 11 and 9.  My father when he worked the crane had the afternoon shift.  So we’d be away at school all day and maybe see Dad before he left for work and then it’d just be the three of us. She also had the best record collection (LPs) which I listened to endlessly and she also had boxes of books that I ate up voraciously.

But there were also the arguments between her and my dad. The refrain I remember most was “it’s me or the kids”. I don’t remember the details of these arguments, but I can still feel the visceral fear of being thrown out again. I knew I had to be good and not get into any trouble because then maybe he’d choose her and we’d be gone somewhere else.

There were huge adjustments for everyone. I can only speak to those from my perspective however.

1. We didn’t understand the concept of just going to the fridge and getting something to eat if we were hungry or the constant admonishment to just let her know when we used the last of anything.  We were never allowed to go to the fridge or cupboards for food while we lived with the foster parents.
2. The idea of going out to play. We tended to watch TV with our mother when we got home from school and while I know my sister and I spent happy hours outside using our imaginations to create song and dance routines I don’t remember being forced to go outside.  With Dad and Donna we were shooed outside and were told not to come back until suppertime, lunchtime, etc.  She actually locked us out. “Kids should be outside playing” was the prevailing theme.
3. Punishment.  I was used to being relegated to my room without dinner, however with Dad on afternoon shift most of the transgressions happened while in my new mom’s care but punishment was deferred to when Dad got home.  You can imagine that this didn’t work out so well.  She eventually had it out with Dad that punishment should be an immediate consequence and not something meted out on weekends or when he got home early on a Friday night just before they got ready to go bowling.  My new mom’s argument went like this, “how can you punish a child on Friday for something they did on Tuesday, they won’t even remember what it was they did wrong by that time”.

Another note about punishment.  As I said I was used to being punished for any and all transgressions even after Dad told me that my sister and I would be treated equally and fairly. Invariably my sister would do something she shouldn’t like invite a friend over while we were babysitting our baby brother, or calling someone long distance, etc. So when the hammer came down and we were asked to own up “it wasn’t me” was the standard refrain. Isn’t that always the case no matter how many children there are.  A poltergeist did it!
When neither of us would own up to it, we would both be promised a “licking” when we got home after the weekend, or Sunday night or some other span of time. This would send me into a tailspin of fever and feeling sick to my stomach which I recognize now was probably anxiety attacks and I’d end up in bed the whole weekend or disappear into one of my hideyholes if we were at the cottage so no one could find me and I couldn’t get into any trouble if no one knew where I was, or at least that’s what I thought.
Sunday night we’d get home and we’d both be on our beds with our panties down, face-down on the bed waiting for the strap.

On more than one occasion my dad would ask me why I didn’t just tell him that my sister did it.  I don’t know that I could articulate why as I was too terrified of getting the strap to be lucid at those moments. At some point away from the pressure of one of these incidents I was asked again and I said something like, but you’ll think I’m lying.

This more than anything else is probably one of the reasons Donna held to her guns on immediate punishment rather than these prolonged periods of self torture that I went through.

Did I mention that my sister didn’t appear to be bothered by any of this?  It’s how it seemed to me at the time but I imagine that she was just as mystified by what was happening. That she would actually be punished for anything must have rocked her world.

While I don’t have contact with any of my immediate family members, the one I miss the most is my new mom.  She was there for me when Dad accused me of things I’d never done and many years later when I asked her if she was worried about me when I left home at 16.  She told me that she knew I was a survivor, therefore I’d be fine. I hope that one day she and I will be able to talk again without rancour or mistrust which I’ll explain later.

Once dad and step-mom were married and we were in our new digs, we started taking the bus to school.  I don’t know if it was by design or happy luck that we were in an apartment where we only had to take one bus to school.

I’m sitting here pondering what I felt at that time.  Was I excited by the adventure or scared silly?  No idea!

What I do know is I would often get off the bus when I felt like I was going to be sick. To this day I still suffer from car sickness on occasion in buses and cars.

The other thing that sticks out in my mind is the pervert that I had the dubious pleasure of sitting beside on one of these bus rides.  You can’t ride the buses or subways in a metropolitan area and not be “exposed” to some rather unseemly behaviours.  If I recall correctly he was having a bit of fun with his private parts.  I believe I left rather hurriedly. Imagine an 11 year old girl’s reaction to that.  Shock and fear, I expect.

We finished off the school year travelling between Leaside PS and Birchmount and Eglinton with no other memorable moments or if there were any I certainly don’t remember them.

The foster parents were getting ready to retire to the United States.  They built a small retirement home between two small towns, Ripley and Westfield, N.Y.

They told our father that they’d take us with them, but apparently they had to have legal custody of us to do so which meant adoption.  My father was fine with them adopting us, but the foster parents wanted him to continue supporting us financially and he wasn’t so agreeable on this point.  As far as he was concerned, adoption meant assuming all responsibility.

Seems like a reasonable assumption to me.  Haven’t heard of an instance where the adoptive family receives a stipend from the biological parents, though I suppose it’s happened somewhere.

Well, this morphed into a discussion about money where my foster mother and my bio dad argued about whether my bio dad had paid his weekly support a week ahead or a week behind.  Bio dad indicating the former and foster mom the latter, which lead to raised voices and ultimately to our relocation.  Yep there and then, probably a Thursday evening as that was dad’s night to visit, we packed up and left.

How bio dad could argue this point is beyond me as, if you recall, he was paying money to the bio mom initially, before he got custody of us.  How could he know if they were paid “ahead” or not as we already know that bio mom wasn’t being a responsible parent and handing over the support money to the foster parents, hence the court date to get full custody. Maybe he only counted from the point where he had full custody?

I remember being in my foster mom’s room where mom and sister were crying their faces off bemoaning our departure. At the tender age of ten and three-quarters I sensed the disparity between the action (packing us up and out) and the tearful words. Mine was an instinctive, or gut level reaction in the same way that I would change the words in a sentence to make it true.   Naturally, with my ever present ambivalent feelings toward my foster mom, it’s not surprising I found the whole scene even at that age, incongruous.

My adult brain still yells “if you care so much couldn’t you overlook one week’s support payment?”

Next thing you know, we’re at my dad’s girlfriends parents’ place. We stayed with them until they got married in November of 1967. I have no sense of how long a stay it was. All I can piece together is we had to have been there at the start of the school year, so did we go to school from there.  I don’t remember going to school while we were staying with our future grandparents, but it was an emotionally tumultuous time for us, so whose to say.  I believe it was just a matter of weeks from the time we landed on their doorstep to the wedding, which was seriously pushed forward.

I don’t think I was in our temporary digs twenty-four hours before I had a raging fever. My body had a way of betraying me whenever I was in an emotionally charged situation, which seems was most of the time.  At any rate, I remember my future grandfather sitting on the edge of the bed where I was resting, leaning over and kissing my forehead, then announcing that I definitely had a fever and further stated that “they” shouldn’t have called me George and treated me they way “they” did.

At that precise moment I fell in love and became a being with substance. I don’t have the words to describe how I felt, it was like what I expect people who are born again Christians feel when they’ve been saved! He, my future grandfather, must either be telepathic or omnipotent, which aren’t mutually exclusive I suppose. He is still my hero, warranted or not!! And, I’m told that the feeling was mutual!

Every Remembrance day I think of him and cry my heart out.  He was a fighter pilot in WWII, hence the Remembrance day reference.  Not that my sentimental heart isn’t tugged at other times throughout the year.  If I could remember whether his birthday was Dec 2 or 4, that’d probably be a cry-fest day as well.  My heart swells just thinking about him and brings tears to my eyes. I think of him often.

I don’t know when I recognized that my bio dad had communicated this information to my future grandparents. I’m pretty sure I was well into my teen years or had already left home, at 16, before it hit home that dear old bio dad was well versed in how it was for me.

A philosophical aside: here is an instance where my “christian, north american” upbringing comes to the forefront evidenced by the very language I’m using regardless of my religious or spiritual beliefs.  I find it fascinating how “religion” is so inexplicably intertwined with our very being and the references we (I) use to describe things, i.e. saved, omnipotent, etc.

It’s odd that I can’t find a picture in my mind of what my foster father looked like.  Every time I try, I see my step-mother’s father whom I adore(d).

I know my foster dad made me laugh.  One of his signature things were his lean overs. He’d be sitting on the couch watching TV and then casually lean over to let go gas. As kids we thought this was absolutely hilarious. I mostly remember watching hockey together and on Sunday nights it was Lassie, Bonanza, Ed Sullivan and Lawrence Welk.

Then there’s the image of him sitting on the toilet while we brushed our teeth and got ready for school.

Him driving the red Dodge Dart which reminds me of the car accident which in turn reminds me of eating tuna salad sandwiches in the car which made me nauseous. Falling asleep in the car on the way to the States and waking up to find him “speeding” down the highway. My sense is he always drove the speed limit when we were awake biding his time ’til we fell asleep.  Weird how our minds jump from one thing to another.

He was a quiet man. I don’t remember him raising his voice or being menacing in any way. He was just a really good person. It makes me feel sad to think about him. I missed him terribly when we left the foster home.

I’ve already told you that Foster Mom wanted my infant sister and acquiesced to taking me too. I still have ambivalent feelings towards her, though she’s been dead for over 20 years. Maybe she became bitter as a young woman when she couldn’t have her own babies, or maybe she just was an unhappy person who grew up in an intolerant environment. Though just writing that, I wonder how it was she could be so good to my sister and so miserable to me. There are some things that really stand out in my mind.

She always wore red lipstick and had her hair done with “kiss curls” or pin curls reflecting the hair styles of the 50s, think Elizabeth Taylor.

Standing on a chair to wash dishes, possibly in response to the school’s advice to groom me for domestic service.

The always at hand, ever ready stick to hit you with if you did something deemed wrong or inappropriate.

The after school event where Mothers and Daughters of a Certain Age were to attend together. It was “the talk” about the female reproductive system and sex. Must have been grade 5, which for me was a grade 5/6 split. I don’t remember us having a chat about this information nor was there any reference to it at any time after that.

I do remember the phrase “when you become a woman”. Quite the euphemism for bleeding to death!! Anyway…

For frame of reference, my foster Dad retired when I was around eleven, and I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t have retired until age 65. I don’t think there was much of an age difference between Mom and Dad, so if she were between 60 and 65, that means they were in their 50s when they got us.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that she was 60 in 1966. If we cast our minds back to 1920 or thereabouts when she would have “became a woman”, I imagine, that talking about the reproductive system and “sex” was probably considered “dirty” talk. Think how she must have felt having to accompany me to this type of event. This is the one and only time that I can recall attending an event where it was just the two of us.

As an aside, how proactive and forward thinking of the school to even have this type of Mother/Daughter event.

I’ve already mentioned watching the Edge of Night and the Secret Storm with her after school.

I’ll leave the pièce de résistance for a future blog.