Blame

by Nicole Trope

  She thinks about Walt’s dark green eyes. Perhaps he is in bed next to Cynthia right now. Perhaps they are discussing her, discussing all the things she has said, and working out how to trap her into a confession. Perhaps Walt runs his hand slowly down Cynthia’s body. Anna shivers in the heat, feeling Walt’s hand touch her own skin. She shifts on the couch. A year ago, she had noticed that her period was late and experienced a brief moment of panic before she realised that she had not had sex for close to two years. Keith had given up approaching her; she couldn’t make the leap from mother of an autistic child to lover. She had managed it every now and again when Maya was younger, but the older she got and the more violent she became, the less Anna could see herself as anything other than a parent of an autistic child, fighting to get through every day. There was no room for sex in that woman’s life.

  She could refuse to go back in the morning, she knew she could. Or she could tell Keith that she needed a lawyer and refuse to say anything else until they charged her with something. That was probably the wisest course of action but she had a feeling she would go back anyway. ‘I have nothing to hide,’ she says to the flickering television set.

  But everyone has something to hide. Anna knew that Caro had sat in the interview room with different detectives and tried to hide the level of her drinking. She must have. She hid it from everyone else, or thought she did.

  Over the years of their friendship, Anna had watched Caro’s drinking get worse and worse, especially after her most recent pregnancy. She remembers the phone call from Geoff at seven in the morning. She was grateful, at the time, that Keith had still been home, and that he had told her he would sort out Maya and get her to school, so she could go and see Caro in the hospital.

  ‘I held him as long as I could,’ Caro had said, ‘but they’ve taken him away now. He was so beautiful, Anna. You should have seen how beautiful he was.’ Anna had never seen Caro so lost. With each miscarriage, she had seemed to shrink further and further into herself, questioning everything she had done. She wouldn’t drink anything except herbal teas and only bought organic food. She turned getting and staying pregnant into her career, and Anna could see the strain on her face, on Geoff’s face, and even on Lex’s face, when their families occasionally saw each other.

  In the same way that Anna searched for cures for autism, Caro became addicted to websites where women posted personal stories of their miscarriages. When she was past the three-month mark with Gideon, she relaxed a little, and then when she was past the five-month mark and knew she was having a boy, she threw herself into decorating the blue room for him. ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ she had said over and over again to Anna. ‘If I hadn’t lost those other babies, I wouldn’t be having this little boy now. You just have to trust that everything happens for a reason.’

  It had been difficult for Anna to be friends with Caro at that time. Her face radiated joy, and even when she walked she seemed lighter, despite her heavy belly. Anna found herself feeling slightly envious. She was still searching for her own reasons why things happened, and managed to dismiss Caro’s years of heartbreak and simply think of her as ‘lucky’.

  When Gideon died, Caro was stunned. She believed she had reached a point in the pregnancy where, finally, the only outcome could be a healthy baby.

  Anna had driven to the hospital and parked her car, and then waited a moment until she could find some words to say to Caro but all that she could think, and hate herself for thinking, was, ‘Where’s your reason now?’

  ‘You’re becoming a bitter woman, Anna,’ her mother said to her every now and again.

  ‘You and I both, Mum.’

  ‘He had such tiny little hands, Anna,’ said Caro, as she lay pale and still in the hospital bed. ‘I forgot how tiny babies’ hands are.’ Her tears kept coming. ‘I wish you could have seen him, Anna. He was so beautiful.’

  ‘Oh, Caro,’ Anna had said because there was nothing else to say.

  She had seen the confusion on her friend’s face and known that Caro was trying to find a way to reason through the tragedy, and failing. It had made Anna doubly ashamed of her own unkind thoughts.

  She was unused to being the strong one in their relationship, unused to offering advice and comfort. She knew that sometimes she was so wrapped up in her daily struggle with Maya that she failed to see when her friends or family needed her, but she had tried with Caro. She had tried harder than ever on that day. She wanted to be a better person, a better friend.

  In the weeks following Gideon’s death, Anna called Caro almost every night and listened to her friend talk about her lost child. Finally, after two months, she asked, ‘Will you try again?’

  ‘No,’ said Caro. Her voice was flat.

  ‘But why? I know it’s been really . . . really hard . . . but you’re still young enough.’

  ‘Geoff doesn’t want to. At first, I didn’t want to either. It felt like it was an impossible situation and I thought that maybe I’m not meant to have another child. But lately, I don’t know, lately I am thinking about it. I mean, I pick up Lex from school, and there are all these other mothers with babies strapped to their chests and babies in prams, and I keep looking at them and thinking, “How come they’ve managed to get it right? How hard can it be?” You know?’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ said Anna because she did know. She looked at other mothers all the time, wondering at their good fortune. She looked at harassed mothers in the grocery store, with four children all talking at once, and she thought, ‘How come she gets to have four functioning children and I don’t even get one?’ But that thought wasn’t one she shared with anyone, not even her therapists.

  Anna spent a lot of time on the internet, looking at all the websites and reading all the blogs and the personal stories of parents of autistic children, and over and over again she read the word ‘blessed’. It seemed to her that every other parent of an autistic child had managed to find the beauty in raising them, the hope and the joy and the humility that came with understanding and accepting their children for who they were. All of these parents talked about letting go of what they had imagined a child should be, of accepting the differences in their own children. Some talked of faith and most spoke of gratitude for the lessons they were learning. Anna envied their peace and happiness, and she kept searching for it in different places with different people.

  She wanted her face to light up when she spoke about Maya, the same way Melanie’s did when she spoke about her son, Jonah.

  Anna had met Melanie at a local group for parents of autistic children that she attended a few times before she decided it was not for her. They met once a month, to discuss new therapies and treatments and any triumphs they had experienced. Anna had been elated when she found the group and she had hoped that there she would find people she could speak to about how hard it was. People who would understand that most days it was easier not to leave the house when their child was home. People who were scared that if they took their child somewhere, he or she might attack another child, might hit or bite or kick. She thought she would find another mother who would sit with her in her lounge room, and the two of them could watch their children spinning, or lining up blocks, or simply staring at something only they could see, and she wouldn’t need to explain because the other mother would understand. And, more than that—she would get how Anna felt, her frustration, her anger and her worries.

  She had Caro, but Caro sympathised and couldn’t empathise. Caro’s child was fine.

  At the first meeting she attended, Anna had listened patiently while the parents described the different things they were doing, and what was working and what wasn’t, waiting for someone to say something about just how hard it was, about how angry they sometimes were because they had to deal with a child with autism, but it never came.

  Instead the catchword of the group seemed to be ‘restraint,’ as one parent after another told the group about how they had managed to practice restraint in a difficult situa
tion and felt so much better for the achievement. A woman named Deborah said, ‘I walked into Benny’s room and it was the most awful sight I’d ever seen. He’d smeared poo all over the walls—oh it was horrible and the smell, I don’t need to tell you about the smell.’ A few of the parents laughed but Anna closed her eyes. There was nothing funny about it. ‘Anyway,’ Deborah continued, ‘I wanted to yell at him you know because he’s nine now and we were way past that stage—he was even wiping himself in the bathroom—so believe me I was angry. But then I remembered about restraint and I thought, “well this is as good a time as any to practice that,” so instead of yelling I went up to Benny really quietly and I said, “I think it’s hose time, Benny,” because he loves the hose and I knew he wouldn’t argue. I kind of guided him without touching his hands until we were in the garden and then I turned on the hose and rinsed off his hands and he stood there with a dreamy look on his face. When his hands were clean I gave him the hose and let him water the flowers and I went in and cleaned up and by the time I was done he was really calm and the whole day was just easy. I was so grateful that I had restrained myself instead of just reacting.’

  The group had applauded the woman and Anna had clapped along with them as she recalled a similar incident with Maya, where Maya had done the same thing in her own bedroom. Anna hadn’t been able to muster the patience Deborah had described. Instead she had locked the door to Maya’s room thinking, ‘if she wants to be surrounded by shit, let her stay there surrounded by shit.’ Keith had arrived home twenty minutes later as she had known he would and unlocked the door to Maya’s room. ‘That was cruel,’ he had said to Anna and she had not even had the energy to reply. She had cleaned Maya’s walls while Keith put her in the bath. Anna had berated herself for days afterwards, wondering at her own lack of humanity.

  More stories like Deborah’s had followed, and with each one Anna had felt her body slide further down in her seat. She wanted to put her arms up over her head and disappear, but she couldn’t leave until she had asked the question.

  At the end, she had raised her hand, almost hoping they wouldn’t realise she wanted to say something but they had all looked at her, and she had thought, ‘Here goes . . .’

  ‘Um, I just wondered if anyone sometimes felt . . . I don’t know . . . a little, um, upset about having to deal with all of this every day.’

  One or two members of the group had chuckled, and then there had been mostly murmurs of ‘no’ and ‘no way’, and Anna was sure she’d heard the word ‘blessed’.

  ‘We all know how hard it can be, Anna,’ said a man named Roy, and Anna watched everyone else nod their heads, ‘but at this group, we feel that we are best served by focusing on the positive aspects of raising our very special children. It does no one any good to complain. We’re all in the same boat here.’

  Anna had stared at her feet as the meeting broke up and people walked over to the table loaded with cake and cookies. She had made for the door but a woman with grey hair falling over her shoulders and down her back stopped her. She was dressed in a long, multicoloured skirt and she wore bracelets up to the elbow on both arms. ‘Anna, I’m Melanie,’ she said, touching Anna gently on the shoulder. ‘I wanted to tell you not to worry about what Roy said. I know how hard it can be and I’m happy to talk if you’d like.’

  ‘Oh yes, I mean . . . I have to go now but maybe another time? I would love to speak to someone who feels like I do.’

  ‘Well, we all have our moments. My son’s name is Jonah.’

  ‘My daughter’s called Maya.’

  ‘What a beautiful name. I think names matter. I was drawn to the name “Jonah” when I was pregnant, though I’ve never even read the Bible, but I think I was guided to it because my boy would need to fight harder than most. “We’re in the belly of this whale together,” I always tell him.’ And that was when her face had lit up, her eyes shining and her cheeks glowing. Anna had taken her number but had never called. She wasn’t in the fight with Maya. She was fighting Maya, each and every day.

  And she felt guilty about that. She questioned her attachment to Maya and her abilities as a mother. She knew that the only thing she should feel for her child was unconditional love, but the older Maya got, the harder it was to feel that love, and the more the resentment and anger took over. And when Maya physically attacked her, it was worse. You could leave an abusive husband but what about an abusive child—especially one who didn’t really understand that she was hurting you? These thoughts and feelings were anathema to Anna, who had always pictured herself as a better mother than her own. ‘My child won’t be scared of my moods,’ she had vowed, stroking her belly when she was pregnant. ‘I will always make sure you know how much I love you and that you are the most important thing in my life,’ she had whispered to a newborn Maya. ‘I don’t like you,’ she had whispered to Maya as she watched her sleep after an intense tantrum that had left Anna with a broken wrist, and then she had felt her face flame, and she had stood in the shower hating herself and the terrible human being she had become.

  ‘I sometimes feel like I’ve been cursed,’ Caro had said in that long-ago conversation about trying again for another child. ‘But then I think I have to be grateful for all that I have. That’s what Geoff always says and sometimes I think he’s right. Lex is great and we’re doing okay. I should be grateful.’ Caro had stopped to take a sip of something.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ Anna had asked.

  ‘A glass of wine. Geoff brought home this great bottle of red. I haven’t had any for so long, I forgot how much I liked the taste.’

  Anna’s tea is finished but she is still not tired, and she thinks about how she had watched Caro’s drinking increase over the years. She would have wine when they had lunch together, saying, ‘Might as well now that I’m never getting pregnant again.’ And she would sip wine while they spoke at the end of most days. ‘Just to unwind,’ she would say but Anna knew that it was more than that. She knew but she didn’t have the energy to help her friend, because she was dealing with Maya and Keith, and her own terrible secrets.

  ‘Don’t you think you should get some rest?’ asks Keith, startling Anna.

  ‘I thought you were asleep.’

  ‘I was, but I woke up and you weren’t there. I was worried. Maybe you should take a pill or something.’

  ‘I don’t want to sleep, Keith.’

  ‘What do you want then, Anna?’

  ‘I want to stay awake.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean now. I mean, what exactly do you want? There’s no way to make what’s happened any easier but I feel like things would be better if we could talk to each other; if we could sit together and remember her. If we could somehow be a couple again, have a real marriage again.’

  Anna slows her breathing. He makes her so fucking angry. She cannot find any space, any peace—even in the middle of the night, he is there, needing her to join him in his wallowing. ‘What would you like me to remember first, Keith?’ she says, not even attempting to keep the brittle tone out of her voice. ‘Shall I remember the time I was trying to get her into her bedroom and she pushed me down the stairs? Maybe I should remember the time I put her dinner plate in front of her and it had corn on it, because I wanted her to give corn another try, and she picked up the plate and threw it at me so it hit my head and cut me? I guess I could remember how she used to spit at me when she got angry, just before she hit me. I could remember that.’

  ‘Anna, that wasn’t her. She couldn’t help that behaviour. She loved you, Anna, she was just struggling to be in this world.’

  ‘And now she isn’t,’ says Anna. She gets up and heads towards the kitchen, leaving Keith in front of the flickering television set.

  In the kitchen, she fills the kettle again. She has said the wrong thing, she knows that. She is always saying the wrong thing these days.

  Tomorrow, when she goes back to the police station, she will have to make sure that she says only the right things.

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nbsp; ‘What do you want, Anna?’ asks Keith, and Anna turns to find him standing behind her. He is shirtless, wearing only pyjama bottoms, and she looks at him, his thin frame and small shoulders. His hair is receding, and he squints a little because he is not wearing his glasses.

  She knows that other women find him attractive. He has beautiful blue eyes and long dark lashes, and a smile that could grace a dental catalogue, but as she looks at her husband, all she can think is, ‘What did I ever see in him?’ But, more importantly than that, she wonders, ‘What did I ever feel for him?’

  She cannot help but compare him to the man she sat opposite today, and a picture of Walt and Cynthia entwined appears before her.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘I just want to be left alone, Keith. Surely you can understand that?’

  ‘I do, Anna,’ he says. ‘I get it, but what I want to know is how long you want to be left alone for. A week? A month? The rest of our lives?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Keith?’

  ‘Anna, do you think I don’t see how you can’t stand to be near me, how you don’t want me to touch you? I see it, you know. I’ve seen it for years.’

  ‘Keith, please. I don’t want to have this conversation now. I’m tired and I have to be at the police station again tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re tired. I know. I’m tired too. I lost my child two weeks ago and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sleep again, but I think that if I had a wife I could talk to, a wife I could touch and hold, then it would be easier to see a way forward, and I don’t feel like I have that.’

  Anna watches the kettle, waiting for it to boil again.

  ‘You know, Keith, sometimes when your mother’s words come out of your mouth, it feels like she’s standing right here in my kitchen, and I have to say that I would rather not have your mother here all the time.’

  ‘When did you turn into this person, Anna? You’re so bitter and angry, and filled with . . . it feels like you’re filled with hate. It feels like you hate me and sometimes it felt like you hated Maya.’