Our family line has been ruined. I have given birth to a wayward daughter who refuses to follow traditions. Where did I go wrong? Was it this cruel, callous and yet so inviting world that pulled her away with its promises and twisted pleasures? That’s got to be it, because our family traditions are as solid as they can be and it can’t have been from within the family.
Well, I’m still casting a suspicious eye on her uncle Jamie. Oh, he followed the traditional call to become a nurse, sure enough, but I’ve always gotten the impression that he didn’t enjoy it all that much. And then there was the family Christmas where he stunned the entire dinner table by posing a hypothetical scenario where he became a doctor instead of a nurse. Granny almost had a heart attack right there and then.
What does Alyssa hate so much about being an electrician? We got her Melbourne’s best ute toolbox for her birthday and everything, along with a starter set of tools. That’s about as traditional as it gets in our enclave, with the sixteenth birthday marking the day the females go and become electrical apprentices. I jumped at the call, my mother jumped at the call, and her mother before her did the same, all the way back as long as we could remember. I can see it clearly as day, my sixteenth birthday all those years ago. We didn’t have toolbox central locking back then, nothing quite that fancy, but my toolbox was still a thing of beauty. I looked at it and saw an abundant future filled with electrical work. And yet there’s Alyssa, wasting her money on flying lessons and constantly dropping hints that she wants to break the mold. Granny would toss and turn in her grave!
I’m having a serious chat to Jamie, just to get to the bottom of this. Maybe he’s been filling her head with ideas. I mean…it’s such a nice toolbox. Such a full and useful set of aluminium accessories. And she’ll be inheriting my ute, with custom under tray draws and everything. I just don’t understand who’d pass that up!
-Adelaide
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