When One Door Closed

Chris had always loved all creatures great and small, and many of the early stories he shared with me involved animals. He once told me that when he was a boy walking home from school, a little red squirrel he called Spike would leap from the acorn tree onto his shoulder and stay there with him until twilight.

That gentleness stayed with him throughout his life. At only ten years old, he once stood protectively over a large snake crossing the road while villagers gathered nearby with sticks, preparing to kill it. Chris refused to move until the snake had crossed safely into the grass beyond. He later told me he was certain the snake glanced back at him before disappearing. As a child, he also kept homing pigeons with his father, and in the years ahead I would come to know those pigeons very well myself.

The early years of raising our firstborn were joyful, exhausting, chaotic, and tender all at once. Like so many young parents, we were learning as we went, balancing work, home, finances, and the endless anxieties that seem to accompany every cough, rash, or fever in a child. In those days, illnesses like measles, mumps, and chicken pox felt terrifying to me, and more than once I was convinced Craig was gravely ill. Yet children are often far more resilient than their anxious parents. Before I knew it, he too was ten years old, and I found myself wondering where the years had disappeared.

By then, Chris and Craig were rearing homing pigeons together, and their favourite pair were Percy and Matilda.

Life at Mother Marge and Papa Stan’s rambling house and garden was usually peaceful, though never entirely without comedy. One particular birthday celebration for Papa Stan remains vivid in my memory. Mother Marge was cooking up a storm in the kitchen while Chris and Craig were outside near the pigeon pens with Spike. It was racing season, and Chris was preparing his birds for one of their longest competitions with the Hunter Valley Pigeon Club.

Meanwhile, Papa Stan had climbed an oak tree to trim branches. Suddenly there was a loud crash and an almighty yell as he tumbled directly into a thorn bush below, sending pigeons flying everywhere and Truman into complete hysteria. The scene that followed became family legend. Papa Stan lay face down across the bed while Mother Marge patiently removed thorns from his backside with tweezers and rubbed oil onto the scratches, all while the rest of us tried, unsuccessfully, not to laugh. Even Truman seemed determined to join the drama, running in excited circles while tea was made and sympathy was only partially offered.

Yet before everything unravelled at Belle Femme, where I was then Head Beauty Teacher, another important chapter of my life unfolded — one that, looking back now, quietly changed my confidence in ways I did not fully recognise at the time.

I had been accepted into an international teaching diploma course in London, an extraordinary opportunity for me then. The thought of travelling overseas alone for three months both thrilled and terrified me. Until that point, my life had largely revolved around marriage, motherhood, work, and home. Suddenly the world felt much bigger.

What made it possible was Chris.

Without hesitation, he encouraged me to go and stayed home to care for Craig while I completed the course. Looking back now, I realise what an act of love and support that truly was, particularly in those days when such arrangements were far less common.

He never made me feel guilty for leaving. Instead, he wanted me to grow.

And so, nervously but excitedly, I boarded a plane for London.

For the first time in years, I felt expanded by life.

London in those years felt alive with energy and possibility. I immersed myself completely in the course, studied diligently, explored the city, and revelled in the independence of moving through the world on my own.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I felt not only like a wife and mother, but fully like myself.

One of the more entertaining aspects of the diploma involved stage makeup and special effects training. We learnt how to create bruises, burns, scars, ageing effects, and realistic wounds for theatre and television work. I found it fascinating and threw myself enthusiastically into the assignments.

One afternoon after class, I decided to leave a particularly convincing “injury” on my forearm while travelling home on the Underground. The makeup artists had created a deep gash effect with darkened blood, torn flesh, and swelling so realistic that even I had to look twice.

As I sat quietly on the train, I gradually became aware of people staring at me with increasing alarm. One woman looked positively pale. Another gentleman kept glancing nervously between my face and my arm as though unsure whether to intervene.

I sat there trying not to laugh.

By the time I arrived at my aunt’s home, I had completely forgotten I was still wearing the makeup.

The moment she opened the door and saw my arm, she gasped in horror.

“Stephanie! My God! What have you DONE?”

Before I could answer properly, she was already bundling me toward the car.

“We have to get you to hospital immediately!”

“Auntie, wait — ”

“No, don’t argue with me! Get in the car!”

I was laughing so hard by then that tears were streaming down my face, which only seemed to convince her further that I was in shock.

“Stephanie Roberts, this is NOT funny!” she cried, gripping the steering wheel in panic.

When I finally managed to explain between fits of laughter that the wound was fake and part of my stage makeup class, there was a stunned silence.

Then she slapped me smartly on the arm.

“You wicked girl!” she exclaimed. “I nearly had a heart attack!”

We both dissolved into laughter after that, though I noticed she kept eyeing my arm suspiciously for the rest of the evening.

It remains one of my happiest memories from London.

But beneath the humour and adventure, something more important was quietly happening during those months abroad. I was growing in confidence professionally and personally. I was beginning to realise that I possessed abilities, resilience, and ambition beyond the smaller life I had imagined for myself as a young woman.

I did not know then just how much I would soon need that confidence for what lay ahead.

One crisp autumn morning, with leaves crunching beneath my feet in shades of gold and brown, I walked into the college feeling enthusiastic about the day ahead. I had arrived almost an hour early because I was preparing a lesson on body wrapping, which required considerable organisation and preparation.

When I entered my classroom, however, something immediately felt wrong.

The room was dark. The blinds were drawn. As my eyes adjusted, I realised my newly married boss, Ivan, was inside with another woman in a highly compromising situation.

The shock of it stopped me cold.

I quietly withdrew at once, deeply shaken and unsure what to do next. Although I tried to compose myself before class began, the incident had unsettled me profoundly. I sensed immediately that I had walked into something dangerous, not because of what I had done, but because of what I had witnessed.

Even so, I carried on teaching my class professionally. The students were practising body masks and wraps on one another, and I focused on the lesson as best I could. At one point a student developed a mild rash from a seaweed treatment, and I dealt with it quickly and correctly, reminding everyone about the importance of checking contraindications before beginning any treatment.

But underneath my calm exterior, I felt tense and distracted.

Before long, Pat, the receptionist, quietly appeared at the classroom door.

“The boss wants to see you in his office after class,” she said.

My stomach tightened instantly.

When I entered Ivan’s office later that afternoon, my fears were confirmed. Rather than speaking to me honestly or respectfully, he attempted to pressure me into silence about what I had seen that morning. Then the conversation crossed another line entirely. He shifted between intimidation and inappropriate personal flattery, trying to manipulate me into compliance.

I remember feeling both angry and deeply disappointed.

I had worked hard for that position. I was respected by my students, organised, dedicated, and successful in my role. Yet suddenly none of that mattered.

What mattered was whether I was willing to compromise my own integrity in order to protect someone else’s behaviour.

I refused.

Quietly but firmly, I stood up and walked out of the office.

That was the moment I was dismissed.

At the time, the experience felt humiliating and frightening. We had a young child, responsibilities, bills, and a future to think about. Losing my position so abruptly felt like the ground had shifted beneath my feet.

Yet strangely enough, what followed became one of the most important turning points of my life.

That evening, Chris and I sat together and talked long into the night. I remember his calmness more than anything else. While I worried about security, money, and uncertainty, he saw possibility.

“Maybe this is the push you needed,” he said gently. “Why work for someone else when you can create the college you’ve always wanted yourself?”

At first the idea frightened me. Starting my own business felt enormous and risky. But Chris believed in me before I fully believed in myself. Little by little, through our conversations, excitement slowly began replacing fear.

That period of my life also revealed something else very important to me about Chris — the extraordinary generosity and quiet faith with which he loved the people closest to him.

At the time, we were living in Perth, where there were already six established beauty colleges. After everything that had happened at Belle Femme, I knew in my heart that I no longer wanted to remain in that city professionally. The experience had shaken me deeply, and although I still loved my work passionately, I longed for a fresh beginning somewhere entirely new.

It was Chris who gently suggested Canberra.

The idea felt enormous at first. Canberra was the capital city of Australia, far away from everything familiar to us. Moving there would mean starting our lives over completely. More significantly, it would require Chris to leave the security of his stable government position in Perth — something many people would never willingly risk, particularly with a young family.

Yet he never hesitated.

“If this is what you need to do,” he said quietly one evening, “then we’ll do it together.”

Looking back now, I realise how profound that decision truly was.

Chris accepted a redundancy from his government position and, without the slightest resentment, gladly gave part of that money toward helping me establish the business. He believed in my abilities long before I fully believed in them myself.

I often think now about how much courage that required from him.

He was risking certainty, security, income, familiarity, and career stability, not only for himself, but for my future and our family’s future together.

And strangely enough, life rewarded that leap of faith in ways neither of us could have foreseen at the time.

After moving to Canberra, Chris secured another government position which eventually led him into ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, where his career progressed far beyond anything that would likely have unfolded had we remained in Perth.

I have often reflected on that over the years. Sometimes the very decisions that initially seem frightening or uncertain quietly open doors we never could have planned ourselves.

And perhaps there is also something deeply true in this:
when people give generously of themselves out of love rather than fear, life has a curious way of giving back in unexpected ways.

Together we found premises in Dundas Court at Phillip in Canberra. The ground-floor space required very little renovation, and somehow, from the moment we first walked inside, I could already imagine what it might become. The red-and-white striped awnings outside seemed perfect for a beauty college, as though they had been waiting there for me all along.

Slowly the dream began taking shape.

I designed twelve treatment couches made from solid Tasmanian oak, upholstered in thick cream vinyl with breathing holes for massage treatments and slide-out shelves for cosmetics and equipment. Gong, the master carpenter, worked tirelessly building them while Chris helped transport everything by truck. Once the couches stood neatly in two perfect rows of six, the training room suddenly looked real and professional.

Day by day more equipment arrived: magnifying lamps, wax pots, nail polishes, creams, tints, towels, sheets, and beauty supplies of every kind. I spent long hours preparing lesson plans, organising stock, and creating the kind of college I had always wished existed.

Truman inspected everything with enormous interest, of course.

When the first advertisement appeared in the Yellow Pages and the Canberra Times, applications flooded in almost immediately. Then, to my complete astonishment, a journalist arrived wanting photographs and an interview. Shortly afterwards, the new college appeared on the front page of the Sunday Canberra Times.

Within weeks, all twenty-four places for the first intake had been filled.

Looking back now, I can see that what felt like rejection at the time was quietly leading me toward the life I was meant to build. Losing that job forced me toward a life I may never otherwise have had the courage to build for myself.

Sometimes what feels like an ending is quietly preparing us for an entirely new beginning.

Next Chapter 10 of The Long Road of Love— But while the college was beginning to flourish, life itself, as I would soon learn, rarely unfolds without further tests of strength, love, and endurance.

Thanks for reading, dear friends ღ.

© Stephanie Roberts