Page 149 - Reason To Sing by Kelita Haverland

Chapter Twenty-Five

By his early teens, Hudson was not only attending school
but working various delivery jobs, taking charge of his mother
and sisters and screwing around with the very-willing married
women on his delivery route! Then, at the age of 18, with
only a one-way ticket and the confidence of a prize-fighter,
he left England for his home and native land. He hadn’t
seen his father since he was 4 and he was hoping they could
begin a new relationship and make up for all the lost years.
Hudson anticipated a new life in Canada, a life which would
be supported by his very accomplished father. The man held
not one but two medical degrees!
Alas, after only a short period of time living with his father,
stepmother and toddler half-sister, Hudson was rejected by
his father once again. He felt deserted and hurt. But rather
than return to England, he decided to take advantage of his
Canadian citizenship and obtain a student loan to attend York
University.
The first and only summer I ever went back home to
Calgary, Hudson and I wrote copious love letters. His letters
kept me from going crazy back home in Mike’s prison camp.
But I was also feeling another kind of crazy. Crazy in love. I was
falling madly, and Hudson was too. Apart from the letters and
the occasional phone call, I was miserable. My job working for
Alberta Gas Trunkline kept me busy, but my heart was empty. I
started to satiate myself with food. It didn’t seem to matter that
the weight was piling on, I continued to stuff my face. I wrote
in my journal about my longings for Hudson and soon learned
how to satisfy some of my own physical longings. At least that
was new and exciting. I guess I was just a late bloomer.
One of the few things I had been looking forward to in
Calgary was seeing my sister Vian. But I hardly recognized her.
While I was away, she had been flexing her teenage muscles

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