As I became more aware of my surroundings I could hear the unmistakable crackling nearby. I quickly jumped out of my bed and opened my curtain to see my front yard on fire, the flames reaching high into the sky. I ran to call the emergency services from our wall mounted home phone in the kitchen, a number I was all too familiar with by this point. After being assured that they were on their way, it was time to wake my mother. It was much easier to just fix the problem myself before having to deal with whatever state she would be in. I could hear the sirens in the distance as I woke her up to fill her in on the current state of our front yard. At 9 years old I was already so over the constant shenanigans, that it barely registered in my voice much more than an annoyance that I was awoken at such a ridiculous hour. I was positive in some way my mother had brought this burning inferno to our front yard. I didn’t know how yet, but this was no accident, and this was some sort of message or attention grab to my mother. The fire brigade arrived by the time my mother had made her way out to the loungeroom. The firemen immediately tackling the fire before it spread to our house or the neighbouring ones. Police were now in our loungeroom trying to piece together what had occurred, asking my mother if there was anyone who may want to hurt or scare her in some way. The police towering over my tiny mother barely over 5 ft tall, seeming so sweet and innocent, the eternal victim who everyone wants to save. Seemingly confused at how something like this would possibly happen to her, everyone loves her, how could they not. The usual feelings of exasperation and bewilderment I’m sure are very evident on my face. And maybe it would have been easily noticed if everyone wasn’t always fawning over my mother. The sound of the home phone cuts through her Oscar worthy performance of a damsel in distress. This wouldn’t have made everyone stop in their tracks if it wasn’t 2 o’clock in the morning. There was a beat of everyone staring at the phone and then staring at my mother as if to say, “are you going to answer that?”.

Slowly picking up the phone with a slow “hello”, I saw the confusion across my mother’s face. What I can only imagine was a casual question of “what are you up to?”, my mother’s sarcastic response of “what do you think I am doing? I am doing the laundry! My fucking front yard is on fire!”. It was obvious to everyone in the room that whoever was on the other end of the phone was our lovely arsonist of the evening. I can’t quite decipher the delusion of why he thought calling her was a good idea. Was he calling to see if no one answered? Had we burnt to the ground? It was obvious to me who was on the other end of the phone, my mother’s on and off again older boyfriend and sometimes stalker. He had been terrorizing us for months, depending on the status of their odd relationship. My mother in her late 20’s at this point and this man in his 50’s, it was a strange pairing. And he wasn’t one of those older men that had gotten better with age, often reminding me as an old man gnome. He also gave off those strong predator vibes and teamed it up with driving a van. It is safe to say I did not like this man, and he was very aware of it, not that I ever tried to hide my disdain. Why he decided to light our front yard on fire is still a mystery. It was one of the many things he had done to try and scare us. But the first one where it felt like maybe he wanted to really hurt us this time. It seemed he finally took it too far and he was ordered to stay away from us. Whilst he didn’t necessarily do anything to us from this point, his van seemed to be around every corner, or somewhere behind us following us down the street. I could never work out how he always knew where we were, was it just that he was always waiting? Did he not have anything better to do? I still get a visceral reaction when I see a van that looks like his, even though its many years later and far away from me. I imagine he is dead by now, well and truly rotted into the soil somewhere. A tombstone never visited, other than by strangers wondering the grounds. I guess that gives me some solace.