As I grew up, there was little stability in my life and I had little confidence in what the future would bring. My father left my mother and me for another woman when I was just two. My poor mother never came to terms with the devastation of losing the family for which she had always longed. She turned to alcohol and gambling and sought escape from the real world. Previously a successful small business owner, her enterprise gradually failed and she spent increasing time lying on the lounge or entertaining the regulars at the local hotel with her antics while in a drunken stupor.

Confused and lonely, my childhood was spent trying to cover up for Mum. I suppose I tried to be the adult. The innocent and sad part of the child I was believed that if I was “good” enough, I could fix everything and bring her contentment. By the time I reached high school, my eagerness to rectify the desperate situation had been replaced by embarrassment at the way my mother would behave in the presence of my friends and utter humiliation at the state of the public housing home we had moved to, which always seemed to be filthy, littered with bottles, cans and takeaway wrappers and reeking of cigarette smoke.

When I was 19, I met Tom. Even today he continues to be the most accepting, trusting and least judgmental person I know. Naturally, Tom thought it strange that I would resist all of his attempts to pick me up or spend time at my house and meet my mother. As we got to know each other, I would go to extraordinary lengths to concoct stories as to why I needed to meet him at his house or in the city and why it was more convenient to hang out at his place. When he did finally see Mum and my home, his only response was a heartfelt, “You’re wonderful”.

I spent extensive time at Tom’s house and grew to know his wonderfully accommodating family. It was with the Jacobson family that I learned how functional a family could actually be. I never expected to form such a close and apparently firm friendship with Tom’s sister Gina. She befriended me in a way no other female had before; she wanted to know all about me and wanted to socialise with me even when her brother wasn’t around. As I came to dispel the voices that told me I could never really belong with the beautiful Gina and her group of friends, the disgust and embarrassment at my mother and my home grew. The phone had been disconnected and notification had been received that the electricity was to be cut.

One night while out in the city, two other friends and I accompanied Gina to an ATM. We had all indulged in alcohol and Gina was laughing and dancing as she conducted her transaction. A group of young males were standing behind us and they joined the other girls and I in encouraging her behaviour, but I was pathologically drawn to her fingers as they pressed the digits of her PIN into the keypad.

The boys accompanied us to the next hotel and one of them was showering Gina with attention. Feeling quite separate from the festivities, I sat at a table with all of our bags placed in the centre. Gina’s debit card was protruding from her purse, which had been thrown nonchalantly inside her handbag. As I reached for the card and withdrew it from her purse, I could only think of how I deserved a life more like that of the Jacobson children. An uncharacteristic anger burned within me as I watched Gina dancing in the centre of a circle and thought of my home, my desperate mother, the empty refrigerator and our complete lack of hope.

Very early the next morning, the heat within me had not abated. I withdrew a considerable amount of money from Gina’s account and comforted her with Tom as she sobbed and expressed her disbelief at how the apparently nice guys we had met could do such a reprehensible thing. She felt used and gullible. I felt fake and artificial, yet I knew I would never admit to my thievery.

Two years later, I now live with Tom and Gina continues to treat me as more than a friend — she treats me as a sister. I invested the money I stole from Gina in my mother and although it is a slow process, she is getting her life together. No one has ever suspected me of the terrible thing that I did and I have joined in the condemnation of the person who robbed Gina. However, it seems having my mother slowly return to me is a twisted reward for my betrayal.

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