Book Extract: Unveiled

| Greymouth Star |
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When I got off the bus, I stood there looking around, not knowing where to go next with my giant 100-year-old suitcase. As I struggled through the doors into the airport, a man came up behind me and offered me a trolley, then he put my suitcase on it for me. I stood there in shock that a man would help a woman without being asked and without there being any strings attached. Just helping because he genuinely wanted to help was something I had never experienced before from a man. Once inside, I went up to the help desk and explained my situation. From there, they assisted me through security and then someone helped me get to the correct gate. Once on the plane, I ended up sitting next to a woman and her baby. The baby cried most of the way, but somehow it was a gift in disguise as it helped to distract me from what I had just done

— and the journey I was about to go on. At the same time, seeing this baby made what I had just done hit home to me. I was struck by the reality that I didn’t know if I’d ever see my nephews and nieces again and the fact that they probably wouldn’t have a clue I ever existed. Once again, I remembered what my brother had said at the bus stop earlier that morning: ‘My children will never hear your name again.’ I’d hardly ever been in a car, so being on a plane was wild. I was just relieved that I didn’t get any airsickness. I used to get badly carsick. Just going to Greymouth, I’d vomit the whole way there and back because being in a car was so unfamiliar. After a delay and about an hour and a half in the air, the plane landed. Greymouth had always seemed big to me with its one set of traffic lights, so nothing had prepared me for Auckland. On Monday, 29 February 2016, I stepped on a bus for the first time in my eighteen years of life. My brother and my mother had dropped me at the bus stop in the main street of Greymouth. I didn’t even know what a bus stop was. I knew that the outside existed, but I didn’t know the extent of the outside. I heard my mother’s last words to me as I left everything I’d ever known. Before I got on the bus, she said sadly, ‘The decision you’ve made has damned your soul to hell for eternity.’ My brother said, ‘My kids will never hear your name again.’ That was it. The bus was there, so I got on. As the bus pulled away, I thought, ‘It has finally happened.’ It was a four-hour bus ride to Christchurch airport, so I had plenty of time to go over everything that had happened in the last three days and come to the realisation that the decision I had just made would affect me for the rest of my life. I started thinking about where I was going. I was anxious about the airport and how I was going to manage it. I felt okay as we were going through the countryside across Arthur’s Pass, but I didn’t have a clue where I was once we hit Christchurch. When we stopped at the airport, I just sat there thinking, ‘Well, what do I do now?’ It was bizarre. I was trying to carry the heavy suitcase and I didn’t really know where I was going. I knew Auckland must have been in New Zealand because I knew Mum was born in New Zealand, but I didn’t have a clue what it was or where it was. I didn’t even know that it was a city. We hadn’t been taught anything about the geography of New Zealand, probably because if we knew more about the country we’d want to go and see it for ourselves. Once on the ground, I managed to collect my luggage, but I couldn’t find Keitha and her husband Alex anywhere. I kept a tight hold of their business cards, looking for people that looked like them. I was standing in the middle of Auckland airport wondering what I was going to do if they didn’t turn up. I started to think they weren’t going to come because they didn’t want the challenge of having an ex-Gloriavale teenager to look after. I had no phone and not a clue as to where I really was. When I’d left the community, I was given $200. Up until that point, the most money I had ever seen was $5. I thought I was rich, but it didn’t take me long to know that $200 wasn’t much at all. What seemed like hours later, but was probably only a few minutes, I managed to spot Alex in the distance. On the way home from the airport, Alex and Keitha stopped in at Pak ‘n Save at Sylvia Park, a supermarket in one of the biggest shopping malls in New Zealand. I’d never set foot in a mall before. As we wheeled the trolley around the supermarket, they kept asking me what I wanted. I had no clue how to even choose what I wanted. I’d never had someone ask me, ‘What do you feel like for dinner?’ It was a few weeks before Easter, so there were loads of Easter eggs, bunnies and various other Easter-themed foods and decorations. Seeing all the Easter stuff was bizarre. I wasn’t sure why there were chocolate bunnies and chickens everywhere. I certainly didn’t link the whole thing to Jesus at all. We didn’t learn about Easter at Gloriavale because it was seen as a pagan tradition. ô Unveiled is in bookshops this month and retails for $39.99.