Chapter 8 Disorientated

Chapter 8 Disorientated

A year after I quit the force I did move Tay and I to Melbourne. I just wanted to see how it would feel, if I could make it work there, if it would help me to not be so reminded of Amy every time I turned my head. But it didn't work. Being away from her memory, just as Jonesy had predicted all those years ago, was even worse. I just missed her more because I wasn't near her. We were only there four months, but in those four months I could see a change in Tahlia too. She wasn't happy there. I had thought that her being so young she wouldn't notice it. That she would be too young to be affected. But she could feel it, and became one very unhappy child. She would cry at night when I turned the lights off and often seemed to find her way into bed between me and the picture of Amy that sat on my bedside table.

I remember I thought you looked like an angel

Once she was asleep I would always take her back to her own bed, not wanting her to become too attached to someone she simply could never have.

Jonesy and Susie were beyond delighted when I called and told them we were returning to Mt Thomas. We even managed to buy back the house that we had left behind. It was like we had never left. Those four months in Melbourne were a mistake and soon just a memory. Tahlia turned into the child everyone seemed to remember her as, and she was soon taking dance lessons and riding a bike and becoming my closest confidante. I told her about her mother everyday, and never hid the pictures from her the way I had when we lived in Melbourne. Then I had wanted us to create a new life, away from the painful memories, but upon returning I knew that I just couldn't. I am still sure to this day that Amy's memory living right alongside us both will help us to keep going.

But I know she misses her mother. She keeps a photo of her beside her bed the way I do, and I have watched her falling asleep staring at it with droopy eyes. And everytime she reaches a milestone – a birthday, an achievement in school or dance or whatever – I wish that Amy could see it. She would take so much pleasure in watching our little girl be so happy.

Like her mother though, I know she is unhappy inside, but doesn't show it. Like Amy, she puts on a mask to shield herself, even at her young age. I knew that this would happen, because with everyday that passes she becomes more and more like Amy, and I had tried to prepare myself to deal with it. I knew that once she was old enough to realise she didn't have one half of the family unit she was supposed to that it would start to affect her. But when the time did come we couldn't avoid it, and I didn't know what to do. Luckily she is strong, like Amy, and she deals with it as best she can.

And it is only when I am with her, and she is with me that we feel closest to Amy. She slips her hand into mine even as we sit on the couch watching tv right now and I smile at her, knowing she will be ok, just like her mother always was.

There's two things I know for sure

She was sent here from heaven

And she's Daddy's little girl