“Investigation?”

I screeched into the telephone and I’m almost certain I may have deafened the anonymous bureaucrat with my hysterical disbelief. But it didn’t matter how shrill my voice became, I wasn’t able to persuade the voice on the other end of the phone into telling me more information.

With more questions than answers swirling around my head, I did the only thing I could think of doing. I called my husband. With shaking hands I waited for Boo to answer the phone and before he even managed to say hello I had verbally vomited the shocking news out loud.

Boo’s reaction was a little different than mine when he heard the news. While I morphed into a rather pleasant screechy bitch, hoping to carefully extract more information out of my source. (Imagine trying to squeeze blood from a stone, peoples.) Boo immediately turned into a roided up punk, raging at the system while peppering his disbelief with colourful expletives.

“What the *insert charming curse word here* was the *curse* allegation??” Boo raged.

“I don’t know. We aren’t privy to that information until an investigation occurs.” I calmly explained. It was easy to be calm when talking to Boo. I’d save all my hyperventilating for when I got off the phone with him.

“Who the *again with the cussing* hell was the dipshit person who laid the allegation?” He huffed.

“I have no idea. Their privacy is guaranteed and protected under Albertan law. We aren’t privy to that information,” I repeated again.

“Well for *insert string of blistering expletives here*. Which damn child are we accused of *bleep bleep* harming?” he snarled.

Sighing, I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my fingers and repeated like a damn parrot, “I don’t know Boo. We aren’t privy to that information until an investigation occurs.”

It was right about then I swear I heard my husband’s head pop off and explode into a billion tiny shards of frustration.

For a few seconds we sat in silence on the phone, collecting our individual thoughts, until he whispered, “How are you holding up?”

It was the love and kindness in his voice that did it. I unraveled like a ball of twine being batted around by a kitten. Big fat tears escaped from my eyes and slid down my cheeks and I started to shake. I tried talking but I actually choked on all the damn snot I had suddenly produced.

(Classy image, isn’t it?)

I managed to gasp out that I just couldn’t FREAKING believe this was happening to us, after everything we had been through, someone would think us capable of something so fantastically horrible.

Boo sat silently listening as I sobbed out all my anger and confusion and betrayal until I was emotionally spent.

I shuffled to the bathroom with the phone pressed tightly to my ear and then mumbled to Boo to hold on while I drained my sinuses and honked in his ear.

“I’m okay. I’m better,” I half promised, half whispered.

“Good. Because I’m NOT,” Boo snarled. “What now? What does this mean for our bid for BamBam?”

I sighed loudly, wishing I had more answers than questions, wishing I could erase this and make this better for my husband. He’s been through so much already in his efforts to support my maternal desires. If I could have done anything to erase that angry broken tone to his voice, in that moment I would have done it.

“I don’t know Boo, I honestly don’t know. But I think it’s fairly accurate to assume this doesn’t bode well. I’ll do my best to find out what I can. I’ll let you know.”

We talked for a bit longer. Boo was justifiably concerned for my well-being. He knows how important my family, my children are to me and an allegation of this nature would wound me deepest. My reassurances must have sounded hollow to his ears because he was reluctant to let me off the phone.

I’m not sure if he was scared I’d harm myself or someone else but I’m fairly certain he thought he’d have to bail me out of the clink in the immediate future. In his mind yakking to me on the telephone was postponing that dismal future as best he could.

My husband was needlessly worried. I didn’t have the emotional energy to go postal at that moment. I was still swept away by the absurdity of the afternoon’s events. I couldn’t believe a few short days before I had a baby in my arms who may very well be my permanent son and now I was in danger of losing all my children.

It was a mind f*ck that is hard to wrap the ole noggin around, let me tell you. Especially when you aren’t even aware of what the nature of the allegation is.

I spent the rest of the day trying to chase down answers. I was running in circles like a dog chasing its tail. No one knew anything, no one could tell me anything, I had the wrong department, would I like to be transferred, I’m sorry Ma’am, I can’t tell you that, I’m sorry Ma’am there is nothing I can do, etc, etc.

By the end of the day I was ready to bang my head against a wall. I was no further ahead than I had been that morning except now I was even more frustrated, annoyed and worried. In other words, it was a highly productive day.

I didn’t tell the kids what was going on even though they knew something was wrong. I decided to keep them in the dark for as long as possible until I had some answers to offer them and a small measure of comfort could be found in knowing what we were up against. What would come next.

What I didn’t anticipate was just how long it would take to get any answers.

The next few days were excruciating. I spent most of my time speed dialing every darn government agent I knew, leaving voice mails in a desperate and delusional bid to end the madness. Every time the phone rang I sprang to answer it, hoping for some news, some answer to magically appear.

Every time I heard a vehicle’s tires crunch down the gravel road in front of my house I held my breath and ran to the window, wondering if the investigation was going to start.

There is nothing like the fear of losing custody of your children to get the ole heart pumping.

Still, I had no idea what complaint I was facing. Only two things were absolutely certain in this new reality I suddenly found myself swimming in. One was that every minute that spun past on the kitchen clock meant I was one more minute separated from my boy with the dimples, my BamBam and that was wholly unacceptable to me.

Secondly and even more important, was there was absolutely no way on God’s green earth I would allow my children to be removed from my custody. I was fully prepared to stand barefoot and wild eyed on my front deck while brandishing a loaded shotgun to protect Fric and Frac from being hauled off and stuck into protective custody.

There is a reason I call myself a redneck, you know.

All the while in the back of my mind I kept wondering, who did this? Who is responsible for this complaint? And what the hell was the complaining?

I worried I wouldn’t be able to take the stress of the situation. I stopped eating, sleep was elusive, nightmares a guarantee, I chain-smoked and through it all I obsessed,

Who?

To be continued…