He almost had me convinced, the bastard.
My father could teach today's politicians a few lessons in manipulation, as he spent Saturday smiling benignly and loading us with compliments on our home, our beautiul *things*, telling me how much it shows that Dave cares about me.
(I really need to listen to myself when the back of my mind tells the front of my mind that something is "too good to be true". So far the back of my mine is batting a million.)
It nearly broke my heart with joy when Dave hugged me in the middle of a crowded walkway at the One of a Kind show, and rather than berating us for public displays of affection, my father told me quietly and happily how hugs like that are the most important thing in life.
I thought he'd really changed.
I thought for a second that I was safe with them, that suddenly I had parents again, late but still somehow needed.
So when he caught me at five o'clock in the morning as I snuck downstairs for my precious morning serenity, I was stuck.
He asked for hot chocolate, like a frightened child who couldn't sleep, and I made it for him, brought two steaming mugs of coacoa into the living room and sat down to chat a while so that he could go back to sleep.
He hadn't slept all night, he said. He was worrying about me, he said. I'm sick, he said. Emotionally ill, he said.
Too vulnerable, he said. And the way Dave comforts me when I'm frightened or tired was a bad sign, a sign that I couldn't handle myself.
He had me believing him too, believing that suddenly he'd become a caring father, and that therefore he must have a father's wisdom and I must be doing something wrong.
On Sunday evening I felt broken and sixteen again, terrified (and sixteen again, living at home and under his influence), so touched that father and Dave had had this talk about how much they care about me that I couldn't draw the line...
...between my father's concern for his daughter, and his sick need to push all of his weaknesses on other people.
(Maybe he's why I'm so particularly intolerant of people being unable to admit when they've done wrong and caused harm.)
In any case, for a while I honestly believed that I was a sick, emotionally fucked up little girl, and then I got over it.
Especially when Aleta called to tell us that she'd be heading over soon, that she'd begun having fairly recognizable contractions.
Then there was this blur of a night, as Aleta and James and their midwife proceeded to endure the first stage of labour in our living room (we'd offered them the safe space much closer to the hospital than their home in Brampton) while we slept.
By the time I woke up and realized what was going on, they were in the car and heading for the hospital to deliver.
I waved goodbye and spent yesterday vibrating with excitement, calling the hospital every half hour.
By late afternoon I'd done all my work triple-time, and when my mother called to tell me horribly unfair things about how they've ever-so-fucking-graciously decided to "accept Dave" because he's proven himself not to be like the "other fuckups" I've dated I even managed to bite my tongue and dampen my ears against the massiveness of the bullshit.
The important thing is that they've realized they have to accept this or lose their daughter again, and they honestly seem to want to be part of our lives.
That's good.
The rest is buried under a mountain of salt and a few kilotonnes of excitement about Aleta and James and how well they did and how tired James looked and how serene Aleta looked and how HUGE one-day-old Blake is and how excited I am about seeing them tonight and doing everything we can to make their first couple of days as a family just a touch easier...
Amazing how rocking a newborn until his sniffling ceases, can affect your state of mind.
So much so, that I'm still king of the universe today -- despite the BIGGEST LOAD OF SHIT EVER that landed in my lap in the office today.
Fuck 'em. No one can stand against the keen incisive mind and proud competence of a monstre.
Now I just need to remember that even on the bad days.