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first Monday of each month at the mother’s – providing the day was<br />
not a holiday nor an eve of such a day. One hour in a month!<br />
The mother wanted to include a clause that a visit could be cancelled<br />
if my breath smelled of alcohol. I accepted this, for I had never been<br />
drunk on the visits. Among others, she tried to stick in the following<br />
extra rules:<br />
- Visit cancelled if my breath smells of garlic<br />
- Visit cancelled if I "bellow"<br />
These were terms I did not approve of. I felt the terms would easily<br />
develop into such forms that I and my daughter would not meet each<br />
other any more. Not to mention the power such clauses would give her<br />
to control and oppress me, which quality was and is still an inseparable<br />
part of her personality. I was not at all surpriced, when she little<br />
later hoped that I would arrive as early as two hours before the time<br />
agreed. Neither did I wonder that she did not hurry me up to leave<br />
when the time was out. Instead she wanted me to stay over the night.<br />
Just as before. Sometimes I fulfilled her wishes while we were living<br />
towards the Christmas.<br />
I moved from my lodging into a commodious appartement of a kitchen<br />
and two rooms. My scheme was to get the right to parent the<br />
child at my home, which was to happen within the next two years,<br />
nothing less than that. I could not imagine that time I have had my<br />
child in my place not one time by today, it is autumn 2004 now, when<br />
she is over 12 and I am writing this story. People who know me have<br />
neither been able to foresee this would be the result.<br />
The mother suddenly enrolled the baby into baby swimming on Saturdays<br />
and offered me an opportunity to join them. The condition was<br />
I had to come as early as on the Friday evening and I should stay for<br />
the night. I complied.<br />
She became open-minded, told me she have had dreams of me buying<br />
her an engagement ring. She dreamed of a second child, she revealed.<br />
The child recognized her father already, played with me indoors and<br />
outdoors. She learned to walk a bit earlier than to talk, her speech developed<br />
rapidly. Her talents did not go unnoticed by anybody. Later I