HERE IT IS: THE LONG-ANTICIPATED PENULTIMATE VOLUME OF KAT WARD'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY!
Following her disastrous first year in the adult world, it's hard to imagine how seventeen-year-old Keri's life could possibly get any worse. However, as anyone who's ever been down can attest to, getting back up can often be difficult without a helping hand...
But what if all the hands around you only want to push you down further?
It was the summer of 1976, and a time when most young women were enjoying the kinds of summer loves they would cherish forever with a farewell song. Keri, however, was struggling just to find a man whose arms could be relied upon for comfort, as opposed to violence.
At the mercy of some suitably unsuitable suitors, her life had become a whirlwind of uncertainty. One minute, she found herself living on an all-male commune; the next, shacked up with a doe-eyed gent in the country. And without any money or family to support her, she knew tomorrow's pillow might always be a strange one.
Eventually though, something had to change. Chaos is the bedfellow of destruction after all. And sure enough, one day she woke up, and by the time she went to sleep that night, her life had transformed foreverοΏ½
One of her admirers had asked for her hand in marriage. Not an uncommon thing at the time, but still a bolt from the blue considering her perpetual state of flux. And despite her motherοΏ½s quite ironic misgivings about the candidateοΏ½s character and background, Keri accepted, and began looking ahead to a life of committed partnership.
Perhaps she could be forgiven for thinking that her troubles might end with the crossing of the final 't' at the registry office. After all, the role of doting wife had given structure and purpose to many a young woman's life. So was this to be the turning point she had been waiting for all these years?
Alas, no. It was never going to be as simple as that. For there was one final bombshell to be dropped on her before she lived 'happily ever after'οΏ½
When requesting her birth certificate as part of the marriage legalities, she was shocked to be informed by a cleric that as far as the state were concerned, she simply didn't exist. There was no birth certificate. No record of 'Keri' whatsoever...
And so as she stared down the barrel of a grown-up existence, she suddenly found herself back at square one again. With frozen feet and a panicked heart, her mind burned with just one question: who am I?
DISCLAIMER: This is a true story of child abuse, and as such, reader discretion should be advised. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.