“Never. We never lose our loved ones. They accompany us; they don’t disappear from our lives. We are merely in different rooms.” — Paulo Coelho
Things were going very well for us. My working environments were normalized and I wasn’t getting as many calls as I used to. Lynda was happy about that. We used to go to see Ruth and take her out for lunch and spend some time with her and sometimes she used to come to stay with us on the weekends. I always wanted the three of them to spend some time together. However, I never stopped nagging Maxine about her homework for the school or asking her and Adam constantly to help their mother with the dishes. Maxine was a very smart kid but she hated homework. We had a four-story townhome. Every week Lynda used to carry three laundry baskets from all three bedrooms down to the basement to do the laundry. I attempted to bribe Maxine to help her mother with the laundry but it never worked. Lynda used to vacuum every week carrying the vacuum from floor to floor but Maxine never ever helped her. Maxine and Adam used to fight constantly and we both used to tell them off. I knew that Adam in a way used to be his mother’s favourite, not because he was a son but because he was a baby.
One Friday when I came back from work, I didn’t see Maxine and asked Lynda where is she? Lynda said go get changed first, we are getting late for supper. I gathered that something must have happened and she didn’t like to talk to me in front of Adam. We used to go to a restaurant every Friday for supper where they had Spaghetti Special. It would give Lynda a break from cooking. We even used to take mom there whenever she stayed with us.
Once Adam was in bed and I read his story, I came down and sat with Lynda in our living room. She started telling me that she had a telephone call from the school about Maxine that morning. I said why? She said Maxine was sick and she needed to go to the hospital right away. Lynda took Maxine to the hospital and waited for a while with Adam to see the doctor. The doctor said Maxine was suffering from Eating Disorders and he said while the exact cause of Eating Disorders is unknown, Maxine must be obsessed over specific parts of her body or her weight. He said what Maxine complained about is that she’s feeling weakness, dizziness, and dehydration which was news to us. She also said that they wanted to keep Maxine at the hospital for a little while.
I was absolutely amazed with the findings and I didn’t know how to handle them. However Lynda was calm and composed which indicated to me that she knew something I don’t. She said Maxine always had been a drama queen. She responds to situations in a melodramatic way and she was capable of twisting the facts. She also said not to worry, everything will be just fine. I said I wish I had your confidence, my love. We were hoping that Maxine would come home in a couple of days and we would have a heart to heart to get things sorted out. To our surprise, Maxine was released from the hospital as expected in a couple of days but instead of coming home she went to stay with the Jewish Children and Family Services. We didn’t even know who they were and perhaps most importantly why they were doing this to us. Lynda got panicked. Subsequently, we found out that:
- The Jewish Children and Family Services is a government agency with a consulting group of skilled and experienced therapists who provide individual and family counselling service to Jewish children, youth, and families; and
- They got involved because Maxine had asked for help from them when she was in the hospital. According to them, Maxine wasn’t interested in coming back to live with us.
We always thought Maxine was very smart when it comes to manipulating people. Eventually, Lynda got in touch with the Agency. They didn’t want to discuss anything on the phone. They wanted us to go to their office tomorrow on Bathurst Street at 7:00PM. On the phone they insisted that we bring Adam with us. Lynda wasn’t happy with that suggestion and she protested but the woman on the phone said that Adam is part of the process whether you like it or not. Neither of us had any experience dealing with these agencies. Lynda was worried that they may have the power to take Maxine away from us. She didn’t like to lose her. As a mother, she had already gone through the process of separation when Ruth decided not to continue to live with us. But that was a different situation as she knew where she would be and her father would look after her. Maxine’s situation bothered Lynda so much that she didn’t sleep well and I felt helpless because I didn’t know how to handle the situation.
Maxine was only 12 years old.
The next day I came home early to be able to have supper and head out to meet with the social service folks at Bathurst Street at 7 PM. There were three people from their office in the room but the woman who spoke to Lynda on the phone was controlling the conversation. Initially, they asked me when did I come to Canada and what did I do for a living. The emphasis in their discussion was finding out if I married to Lynda in order to immigrate to Canada. We explained to them briefly how we met and how things developed to the extent that we started living together. The woman began talking about how it was a sensitive situation from a religious point of view and we both tried to understand that. However, it was upsetting for me when she said – It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not, your son is a Jew by birth. While it wasn’t news for me, I just wanted to upset her by saying – not according to my religion. She turned around and asked whose religion are you going to follow if you continue to live together and my answer to that question was why we can’t follow the both religions.
We met with them the next day again and it appeared to us that Maxine had provided them with very detailed information on a number of selected conversations which were very upsetting for her. They started asking us specific questions about those conversations and we had no idea what they were talking about. In the end, Lynda told them not to believe everything they heard from Maxine. Mir may have told her off for not keeping her room clean or not helping me with the dishes and vacuuming or fighting constantly with her brother but he never stopped giving her pocket money, buying cloths, having birthday parties and sleepovers or seeing her father and sister. He never ever mistreated her.
We went there several nights essentially to rehash the same points. Every night they were trying to get me to say something against Lynda. Consequently, I ended up saying something silly, controversial, and annoying to Lynda and we started fighting in front of Adam. I also showed my irritation about the whole situation which didn’t help either. Poor Lynda was totally consumed with their conversations and she wasn’t sure how to handle them. At the same time she was so annoyed with me that she stopped looking at me when she spoke.
The social worker who was leading the meeting was a nasty piece of work. At one point she told Lynda that you should have thought about your kids before you decided to marry a Muslim. Lynda got furious and I would have wanted to get up and punch her face.
What really bothered us was the fact that they insisted us to keep Adam in the room all the time when we were arguing with each other. Every single night when we went for those meetings, we didn’t get back home before 9:00 PM and it was way too late for Adam to be in bed.
The bottom line was that they were asking Lynda what’s more important to her, her daughter or her husband which was an entirely imprudent question to ask. They told her that Maxine doesn’t want to come home if you continue to live with your husband. In that case, they will have to find a foster home for Maxine as her father is not interested in taking her back either. They gave Lynda one week to get back to them with her decision. In the meanwhile, Maxine was going to stay with them.
When we got back home Lynda put Adam to bed and went to bed without saying anything to me. Obviously, she was totally infuriated with me.
I lay down on the couch in the living room and waited for the sun to rise. It was a Saturday. I got up early in the morning to take a shower and pack a few things in a suitcase. Once Lynda came down to make tea, I said to her that I better find a place to stay until you make up your mind. Once you are ready to talk, please call me at my office. She was a very proud woman. She didn’t say a thing. I recognized that instead of sticking around and facing the situation together, it was the most cowardly decision I ever made to run away and I was ashamed of myself. However, in my defence, it would provide her with the space she needed to make her decision without any interruption or influence from me.
She called me on Tuesday to ask me to come home for a chat.
