by Nicole Trope
It was impossible for me to imagine the happy future that Jack kept predicting. All I could see ahead were bleak years where all the work I’d done on myself was undone in a haze of sleepless nights that would lead to terrible depression. It was my genetic inheritance and I believed there was nothing I could do to stop it.
‘I promise you, you’ll make a great mother… a brilliant mother,’ Jack told me. But Jack grew up in a different world to me. He grew up with his parents Ida and Lawrence in a house filled with the perpetual smell of baking. He grew up with a family dog and holidays to the coast. He grew up with the expectation that he would achieve something with his life, and the education to do that. He has no idea – no real idea despite having listened to me talk about my childhood – what it’s like to grow up deprived of all those things.
It feels far away now, my childhood. It felt far away then, when I found out I was pregnant with Isaac, but it is always there, just there.
There is a feeling I have, when I think about my life, that I exist as two separate people. I compare it to a news bulletin on television where the stories you see on the screen are mostly about local happenings – things like car crashes and fires; but if you read the thread running below, you can see all the monstrous happenings around the world. That thread that moves quickly across the screen is where you read about terrorist attacks and tsunamis and earthquakes in the rest of the world, far removed from where you are. I feel like my life is exactly like that. On the screen you can see me raising my children and eating dinner with my husband, but if you read the words running underneath, you’ll see: Alice is broken. Alice is grieving. Alice was hurt. Alice was abused. Alice is afraid. The truth of who I am.
‘You don’t have to go through with it if you’re… you’re not ready,’ Jack said when I told him I was pregnant. I opened my mouth to tell him that I wanted a termination, but when I looked into his hopeful blue eyes, I knew that I couldn’t break his heart like that.
The baby hadn’t felt real until he’d kicked. I had remained emotionally distant at the first scans, barely looking at the rapid, flickering little heartbeat, and I battled through the nausea without complaint, as though I had a bug that I would soon get over. I got up every morning and dragged myself to work at the suburban newspaper where I had earned my way to editor.
But you can’t hide a pregnancy forever, and my colleagues noticed the sickness, saw me resting my head on my desk in the afternoons, watched me as I sometimes ate a hamburger as though I hadn’t eaten for weeks. They were delighted for me and naturally everyone wanted to give advice or ask questions. Eventually I took to remaining in my office as much as possible so I could avoid the eager conversations about the gender of the baby and how I was feeling. I believed that if I started discussing it, I would inadvertently let everyone know the truth about how I was feeling. It was easy to picture their horrified faces if I told them about my ambivalence about the idea of a baby, my baby. It was better to keep it to myself instead.
And then, at eighteen weeks, I felt the first kick. I ignored the small flutter the first time, assumed it must be something I’d eaten, but that night I was sitting next to my husband on the couch as we watched television. Jack had his hand resting on my stomach and the flutter came again.
‘Did you feel that? Did you feel it?’ asked Jack excitedly.
‘Yes, and I felt it earlier as well. I think it’s just gas.’
‘No, Alice, that’s a kick. I promise you that’s a kick.’
‘A kick?’ I don’t think I believed him, but later that night in bed, I laid my hand across my stomach and felt the small movement inside me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Hello,’ I whispered, and tiny bubbles of movement answered me back. Just like that, I was completely, totally smitten.
‘Pregnancy is not an exam you have to pass, you know,’ Jack laughed when he helped me offload the books I had rushed out and bought on my lunch hour the next day.
‘I can’t get this wrong,’ I replied. ‘I have to do it right. I can’t do what…’
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he said, ‘I understand, but you’re going to be… just wonderful.’
I had no one to look to for an example on mothering, no one to turn to and say, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, can you help?’ I was so afraid of making a mistake. I was terrified of repeating history.
When my beautiful boy was born, they placed him on my chest and he squealed and wriggled, and I thought, So this is what people mean when they talk about falling in love at first sight.
‘You’re too hard on yourself,’ Jack says even now when I question how I’m doing. ‘You’re doing an amazing job with them. I’m worried for the women they will date and marry in the future because… I can’t help but think that no one will stand the comparison to their mother.’
He means to make me laugh when he says such things. I know he does.
He’s suggested I return to therapy a few times over the last couple of years but the truth is I don’t need to talk about it anymore. Some scars will always be there and some healing can never take place. I’m fine with that.
‘Right, here we are,’ I announce, pushing aside the morbid thoughts that are always bubbling just under the surface. I admonish myself to pay more attention. I have driven home without thinking about where I’m going. The boys clamber out of the car and race up the steps from the garage into the house. As I push the button to close the garage door, I catch the sweet, spicy smell of a wood-burning fire coming from the neighbour’s house. I love the idea of it but I have always been worried about children near an open fireplace. I shiver a little. It’s going to be a cold night.
I follow my children into the house, picking up Gus’s dropped school hat and two pens that have slipped from Isaac’s perpetually open school bag.
I take a deep breath as I enter the living room, embracing the calm created by warm leather and timber furniture. The chocolate-brown sofa glows in the soft light of the living room, and I cannot help but contrast it with another sofa, plastic in feel and touch and peeling from the day it was brought into our house, salvaged from the side of the road. I wrap my arms around myself. It’s time to turn on the large gas heater. I’m always surprised by how swiftly winter arrives in Australia. We seem to go from an endless summer to the chill of winter overnight with no pause for autumn in between.
In the kitchen the boys are in the pantry, having shoved their cut-up pieces of apple and orange in their mouths already. Gus has a wedge of orange in his mouth, juice dribbling down his chin.
‘Gus,’ I say and he shrugs his shoulders at me and spits the wedge into the bin, mostly eaten, I’m pleased to see. I grab a cloth and wipe up a few drops of juice on the floor. I can’t stand mess. ‘You make things hard for yourself,’ Jack says. ‘We have three boys.’ But he doesn’t quite understand the heart-racing panic I feel when things are dirty.
‘One snack, boys,’ I say as I do every day. The rule doesn’t apply to Isaac, who will eat up until dinner and then polish off his food like the hungry teenager he is. I enjoy the comfort repetition brings. I like that I know Gabe will only take one snack but Gus will try and sneak by me with an extra chocolate bar concealed in his pocket.
I grab his shoulder as he walks past me and hold out my hand. ‘You always know,’ he sighs, and I nod solemnly. ‘I always know,’ I agree and I bite down to stop myself from giggling as I hear Isaac laughing in the walk-in pantry.
The afternoon flies by in a whirl of homework and mediation. Gus and Gabe inevitably squabble over something, and I like to keep a check on what Isaac is working on. Today it’s an English essay, and I go up to his room twice, suggesting ideas, before he actually starts doing anything.
‘I’m not telling you two again!’ I shout up the stairs for the third time as my phone rings.
‘You’re going to be late again,’ I answer after I see it’s Jack calling.
‘I am… yes, I’m going to be late again,’ he affirms. I hear him tapp
ing on his computer.
‘Why do you let the secretary schedule late patients?’ Jack has a soft heart for his older patients, who sometimes schedule a visit to the doctor out of loneliness. Lawrence, his father, wanted him to be a surgeon, but Jack was always more suited to the role of a GP and the patience required of that job.
‘What can I do, love? I don’t want anyone to feel they can’t call me when they need me… and they do need me. It’s fine, I’ll be home by eight. Wait for me to eat, will you?’
‘Of course. When don’t I wait for you?’
‘Never, my love. See you soon.’
‘Is Dad going to be late again?’ asks Isaac, coming into the kitchen for yet another snack.
‘Looks like it.’
‘Do you think he’ll be able to help me with my science project? I want to do something about genetics.’
‘I’m sure, just give him some time to have dinner and then he’ll be all ears. Have you finished the essay?’
‘It’s so unbelievably boring. I hate English.’
‘Hate it all you like, Isaac, but you have to do English for the rest of your high school career, so you might as well do the best you can.’
He groans exaggeratedly.
‘Muuum!’ shouts Gus from upstairs. ‘Gabe hit me.’
‘No, I didn’t!’ yells Gabe.
‘Oh, hell.’ I grab a cloth to wipe my hands after I sprinkle the last of the cheese onto the top of the lasagne.
‘Relax, Mum, I’ll go. Hey, you ratbags, I’m coming to sort you out.’
I open my mouth to say something but bite down on my lip instead. He’s not really threatening the boys, and I know he would never raise a hand to them. Right now, the two of them are probably hiding behind their bedroom door so they can leap out and surprise him. I know that. But certain words… certain phrases will always carry more than one meaning for me.
‘A good slap will sort her out,’ I hear, his tone filled with anger and contempt, haunting me all these years later.
I pour myself a glass of wine and take a deep breath. Upstairs there is giggling and shouting and then all is quiet. It’s 5 p.m., computer time, and all will be silent for an hour.
Opening up my own laptop as I sip the wine, I read messages from the primary school about various events coming up and one from the high school about a cheese and wine evening for parents.
There’s a ‘Hello, let’s catch up’ email from Natalia, who’s been snowed under with a new job. Both of Natalia’s children are in high school, and she’s thrown herself back into the advertising world with vigour. I am only mildly jealous of my friend, knowing that every year I stay out of the workforce, it will make it harder for me to get back in.
‘You can always hire someone to pick the kids up from school so you can go back to work… a university student… or we could get an au pair,’ Jack says time and time again, but I need to be home until the twins are a little older and don’t need me as much. Children need a stable environment, and I know myself well enough to know that the stress of a job will not allow me to be the kind of mother I want to be. I overcompensate, I know I do, but it’s only because I remember. I remember everything. I’m lucky that Jack is happy to shoulder the financial load, and I will eventually go back to work when the boys are all independent. That time will come soon enough.
The last email has no subject line and it’s not from an email address I recognise. As I open it, I realise my mistake because I know this is how viruses are delivered to computers. But it’s just a single line. One sentence.
I know what you did.
The glass of wine slips out of my hand and shatters all over the floor.
‘You okay, Mum?’ Isaac shouts from upstairs.
‘Yes, love, fine, just dropped a glass, don’t worry.’ I can’t conceal my shaky voice and I sit very still for a moment, listening for his footsteps, hoping he won’t come and investigate.
Alice is mired in guilt. Alice is smothered in guilt. Alice is drowning in guilt.
I take a deep breath and poke my tongue into the hole in the back of my mouth where a tooth used to be. It’s right at the back. I lost the tooth when I was ten years old. I lost it after the news on the television revealed the depth of my mistake.
I close my eyes and see it now. I see the mangled red car wreck. I see the police gathered at the side of the road, shaking their heads as the camera moves across the horrific scene. ‘Last night,’ the reporter said. ‘Mount Colah,’ the reporter said. Right where we lived. I recognised the road, recognised the car, understood what I’d done.
As the news report ended, I shot up from the couch where I was sitting, turned around, searching for her, knowing she wouldn’t be there. I needed to leave, to run, to scream, to cry but I knew to keep quiet. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, ‘sorry, sorry, sorry,’ and then I turned around again and tripped, falling sideways and hitting my jaw on the edge of the chipped coffee table.
I woke up after a few minutes and felt something in my mouth – a tooth. I spat it out and rinsed my mouth. I immediately pushed my tongue into the space, worrying the delicate, bruised and broken flesh. You did this, you did this, the pain told me. I could have had the tooth replaced when I was an adult but I didn’t want to. I don’t want to. I need it there. I need it to always be there so I can remind myself that it was all my fault. That I am to blame.
I know what you did.
I watch my own trembling hands delete the email. I’m sure it’s just a joke, a spam email.
Unless it’s not.
Unless someone knows.
Two
Molly
* * *
Molly chews her lip as she reads, shaking her head, sighing. People are hideous. She feels her eyes well up yet again as she reads about a little boy, ‘subject A’. He has detailed his abuse through black crayon drawings. The report, ‘The Long-Lasting Effects of Traumatic Childhood Experiences’, is on a website filled with research papers on child abuse. The clinical language is juxtaposed with the boy’s childish drawings of his experience. He is a stick figure with a permanent rain of tears falling from his circle-shaped eyes. His father is a giant stick figure with shark-like teeth and a long snake-like belt poised to strike. His pictures pull Molly into his turmoil. She can feel his fear, his despair, his sorrow.
How can parents do this to their children? How can people like this be allowed to have children at all? Poor little boy, thinks Molly. She would like to wrap her arms around him and comfort him but he is no longer a child; he is an adult suffering from PTSD.
She closes her eyes, imagines herself in a nondescript room, where she sees the boy, to whom she gives blond hair and large, sad, blue eyes. An unmade bed with dirty, crumpled sheets and a box with one or two broken toys complete the picture in her head. She sees a large man coming towards the child, anger scrunching his features. She watches him raise his belt and then she sees herself step forward, grabbing the belt with one hand and landing a forceful punch on the father with the other. The little boy is safe, but when she opens her eyes, she recognises the futility of the fantasy. No one stopped this man from abusing his child, not until a teacher at school caught sight of his bruised little body when he changed for a swimming lesson. He suffered abuse at the hands of his father for years without anyone helping him at all. Molly thinks about the child’s mother, about how she allowed such a thing to happen, and she cannot help a flash of anger despite knowing from all her research that it is most likely she was being abused herself.
The old-fashioned jangle of her ringtone provides a welcome distraction, dragging her away from the disturbing images. She looks out of the sliding glass doors of her apartment that lead to the balcony as she answers the phone. The sky is a perfect cornflower-blue and outside the weather is sharp and cold.
‘Moll, what are you doing right now?’ Lexie asks.
‘Well, hello to you too. I’m doing some research for my next short story.’
‘Oh no, not more horri
ble tales of abused children?’
‘Afraid so. You can’t even imagine how awful some of them are. I know I have to finish the book but sometimes it’s just too much.’
‘Why do you have to write another brutal story, Moll? Don’t you have enough in the book? What would be wrong with something that has a little happiness and hope?’
‘This is the final one, Lex, and it has to bring everything together. The whole book centres on disturbing childhood experiences. That’s the concept the publisher bought. This is the final story and I need it to be great, but it’s not coming easy I can tell you.’
‘You know Mum and Dad are a little concerned…’
‘What about?’ asks Molly, instantly irritated.
‘I don’t know. They just don’t like your obsession with this stuff.’
Molly is not willing to get into a discussion with her little sister. The truth is she doesn’t know where her obsession comes from. She just knows that she wants to give these children a voice and this is the only way she can do it.
‘I’m having enough trouble with this story, Lex, I can’t worry about what anyone else thinks.’
‘Your muse out to lunch, is she?’ Lexie laughs and Molly grins. Her sister has always had the ability to make her smile and laugh. Even when Molly is in the darkest of moods, Lexie never fails to gift her a lighter moment. Lately she can feel Lexie working hard at every conversation, trying to make sure her older sister stays on an even keel.