by Nicole Trope
Rachel
Rachel rubs at the back of her neck and then stands up, walking over to the window where condensation coats the glass. In the garden of the hospice, the liquidambar trees are bare, their grey branches stark against the blue sky. Dry, brown leaves scatter and flip in the whistling wind. In the garden she can see Luke, battling to hold down the pages of his book. She cannot help but smile at his stubbornness.
Outside the apartment where she and Ben used to live, she would watch the bare branches of the trees all winter and into spring, waiting for the green shoots that foretold the coming summer.
She swallows and wipes a stray tear away. Her mother won’t be here next summer. She won’t be here for spring either. Rachel cannot quite conceive of how her life will look without her mother in it. She has always relied on Veronica’s quietly wise advice, her thoughtful way of expressing herself that never felt like too much.
She hears movement from her mother’s bed and turns around to see that Veronica has opened her eyes. ‘Mum!’ she exclaims, and rushes back to her chair. She gently takes her mother’s hand, hope flaring inside her. Could this be a sign? Miracles happen, anything is possible.
‘Rachel, sweetheart,’ says her mother, her voice whispery soft.
‘Do you want some water?’ Rachel asks, grabbing the plastic cup with the straw that she empties and refills every few hours, hoping that her mother will wake up and ask for some.
Veronica nods weakly and Rachel positions the cup so she can take a small sip, just enough to wet her lips.
‘What time is it?’ she asks.
‘It’s just after two o’clock.’
‘And what day is it?’
‘It’s Wednesday. It’s July and freezing outside. Do you want to sit up? Do you want something to eat?’
‘No… no, sweetheart. I’m not hungry but maybe… could I sit up a little?’
Rachel presses the button on the control to raise the bed. A slight flush of colour blooms into her mother’s face and Veronica smiles at her.
‘How are you, sweetheart?’
‘I’m… I’m okay, Mum, I’m okay.’ Rachel begins to cry, even as she admonishes herself for spoiling the moment, but she is overwhelmed to see her mother sitting up with her eyes open. She cannot believe what she is seeing.
‘Oh, don’t cry… don’t cry, my darling. It’s okay.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum… it’s just… I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much.’
Her mother reaches over and grabs her hand, holds on tight. Rachel squeezes back, but not too tightly. The bones feel too light for her to hold on tightly.
‘I need to tell you something, Rachel. I need to tell you something before it’s too late.’
‘I need to tell you things too… I don’t know how to even begin. But we have time, Mum, don’t wear yourself out.’
‘Listen to me… Rachel, you have to listen to me… There isn’t enough time,’ she says and her chest heaves with the strain of having to speak.
‘I’m listening,’ says Rachel, rubbing the skin of her mother’s hand. She decides instantly that she will not tell Veronica what has happened, will not tell her that he’s found them both. Her mother doesn’t need to know that or about Ben losing his job. Rachel takes a deep breath, wondering if her mother has heard anything she has been saying to her as she drifted along in her morphine-induced sleep.
‘Are you in pain?’ she asks, hoping that her mother will say no. She doesn’t want to send her back to sleep again.
‘A little,’ says Veronica and her brow furrows, and Rachel knows that she’s in more than a little pain.
‘I can call Sam. He can raise the level of morphine,’ she says, even though it would devastate her to send her mother back to sleep. She longs to hear her speak, to listen to her voice.
‘No, darling, not yet. I need to tell you… I need to tell you the truth.’
‘I’m listening, Mum.’ Rachel nods.
‘Your father… he…’
‘Yes…?’ she says and Veronica looks at her.
‘You need to know… you need to know that he found us after we left, that he kept finding us,’ says her mother.
‘He… found us? I don’t understand. How did he? How could he have found us? We kept running. We kept moving.’
‘I don’t know but he did. He always did. Every time we moved, it… it was because he had found us. He would just turn up at my work and just… just stand there. And then I would… we would run but he always found us… always.’
‘You’ve seen him?’ Rachel gasps. ‘All this time I thought he didn’t know where we were, but he knew? He always knew?’ She cannot quite comprehend what she’s hearing as she realises that it has not just been her and Veronica lying to the world but Veronica lying to her as well. ‘So, when you told me we had to leave,’ she says slowly as she thinks back on their years of running, ‘because people were asking questions… it was because you saw him… you actually saw him?’
‘I… didn’t want you to be… frightened. It was easier… easier to tell you that I thought he had found us… than to tell you he had. You were so… so scared of him.’
Anger flares inside Rachel. She thought he had just found her after all these years but she and her mother have never been lost to him.
She should have been told. Maybe if her mother had told her, she would have made a plan to leave the country. But even as she thinks this, she knows it’s not the truth. She would never have left her mother but she still wishes that she had been better prepared for his re-emergence in her life.
‘He never… never came near you. I left as soon as I saw him. We… left… we always left.’
Rachel opens her mouth but she has no idea what to say as the images of her mother pulling her out of school more than once come to her. ‘Pack up now, Rachel, we have to go!’ her mother would yell, her voice filled with panic and fear. She remembers her picking her up from a friend’s house one day in the middle of summer with the car already packed full of their stuff. Rachel was eight years old. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked. Not ‘what’s happening?’ because by then she knew what her mother was doing. ‘I don’t know,’ Veronica replied. It went on for years. When Rachel was ten and eleven and twelve, she would wake up some mornings and find that her mother had spent the whole night packing as she slept. And all she could do was sigh and drag her old suitcase out from under the bed she was sleeping on.
‘But why did you agree to stay in Sydney then when I was sixteen? Why did you sign the lease on the flat for two years?’
‘I hadn’t seen him. I hadn’t seen him for months and I thought he was done with us because you were so much older then. I thought… I hoped… that he had found someone else.’
‘But if he kept finding us, why didn’t he make contact with me? He would have known where I went to school. He would have known everything. Why didn’t he try to talk to me?’
Rachel swallows the fear her child self would have felt at seeing him standing outside her school or outside the door of whatever flat they were living in. She feels her heart race at the thought.
He has not just found her. He has not been looking for years. He has only been watching. Watching and waiting. Rachel turns her head quickly, looking out of the window, expecting him to be standing right there. Her skin prickles.
Her mother’s face scrunches up and then she tries to take a deep breath but can only manage a shallow gasp. ‘I… I wrote him a letter after we left. Just after we… left when you were only seven. I wrote and told him…’ Her mother closes her eyes, her breath coming in pants. Rachel strokes her hand as Veronica recovers her breath.
If she had been aware, she would have prepared herself for his return. She would have told Ben about him so that they could keep themselves safe, could keep Beth safe. The image of the baby troll doll assaults her. A baby, her baby. She shudders.
‘We should have talked about it, should have planned what to do…’ she says and then she stops talking. She k
nows she is not going to tell her mother about the dolls, about him making contact with her in his own sinister way. In her last moments, she doesn’t want her mother to be frightened by the monster she has been frightened of her whole life.
Her mother’s eyes flutter open again and Rachel wants to just talk about something else, anything else, but she needs to know everything now. She cannot stop herself asking. ‘What did you tell him when you wrote to him? Why did you write to him right after we left?’
‘I knew he would find us no matter what… I knew him… but I told him that if he left us alone… if he left us, I would never… never contact your brother. Never.’
‘You wrote and told him that right after we left?’ asks Rachel. She doesn’t understand what she’s hearing, how such a thing could be possible, how any of it is possible.
‘Yes.’
‘But if you promised not to contact him, why did you keep saying you wanted to? Why did you keep talking about him?’
Veronica shrugs her thin shoulders. ‘He was… my son… I loved him.’
‘He was like his father,’ she whispers fiercely.
She wonders at her mother’s ability to write a letter like that, to trade one child for the other. She cannot imagine it of her and yet there was no way she would have survived him being in their lives. He was like her father. He was her tormentor and she was sure that her fear of him was the reason Veronica never spoke to him again. But now she understands that there was another reason. She gave up her son to save her daughter. She is the one who was saved, so how can she be angry?
But despite that, she feels a moment of profound disappointment in her mother.
‘It was to keep you safe, Rachel, so he didn’t… didn’t come near you. But he would turn up… just turn up and then I knew I had to run. I think he… he liked that I was always afraid and worried. I think he liked that. I’m so sorry, Rachel,’ her mother pants and then her face contorts. ‘Oh… oh,’ she says. Her hand flies to her stomach, claws at her pink flowered nightdress, sweat covers her brow.
Rachel leaps up off her chair and goes to the door. She looks frantically up and down the hall. ‘Sam!’ she calls and is relieved to see him come out of a room a few doors away.
‘Coming, love, coming. What’s wrong?’
‘She’s… she’s in pain. She opened her eyes and sat up and she’s in pain.’
‘That’s all right, Rachel, I’m here now. Hello, Veronica, look at you, sitting up… well done, you… but maybe it’s time for a little more rest. You’ve done very well.’
Veronica nods weakly.
Sam fiddles with the drip and then he strokes Veronica’s arm, his voice low and soothing. ‘It’s wonderful to see you up. Rachel’s here every day, sitting with you. You’re lucky to have a daughter like her, Veronica. You are a wonderful mother.’
Veronica nods. ‘I made… I made a lot of… of… mistakes,’ she mumbles, almost asleep and lost to Rachel again. No matter what she has just said, what she has just revealed, Rachel cannot let her mother close her eyes thinking she was anything except a wonderful mother.
‘You didn’t make mistakes, Mum,’ says Rachel. She sits back down in her chair and gently takes Veronica’s other hand. Her disappointment has disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Her mother sacrificed everything for her. As a teenager, she can remember wondering why Veronica never dated or showed any interest in finding a relationship. Veronica was a beautiful woman until the cancer sucked everything away, and Rachel knows that there were men who had shown an interest. A sports teacher named Adam had called her once or twice a week for a few months but nothing ever came of it.
‘Why don’t you go out with him, Mum?’ Rachel, who was fourteen at the time, had asked.
‘I don’t need anyone but you, sweetheart. I have no interest at all.’
Veronica dedicated her life to raising her daughter and keeping her safe and yet, when Rachel began to chafe a little at her boundaries, her mother quietly stepped back, allowing her the freedom she needed. Rachel has never given much thought to how lonely her mother must have been since retirement and her daughter’s marriage. But she knows that there must have been some silent nights when Veronica questioned what had happened to her life. She cannot be angry at her mother for keeping this secret. She will not let anger mar this moment.
She watches as the medicine starts to work and Veronica’s breathing slows and calms.
‘There now, that’s better,’ says Sam.
‘I wanted… to protect you, sweetheart. I didn’t want you to be scared of him finding us. I didn’t want you always looking over your… shoulder. I wanted to…’ She doesn’t finish the sentence. Her eyes close and her hand holding Rachel’s slackens and then she is asleep.
They watch her for a moment, a deep sleep engulfing her. Rachel can see the question in Sam’s eyes. He would like to know what Veronica was talking about but he will not ask. And she cannot begin to explain it all.
‘It’s good she woke up, right? I mean, it could be a sign of something… a sign she’s getting better or something.’
Sam shakes his head. ‘Rachel, I don’t want you to get your hopes up. It’s common for people to rally a little before… before the end. It’s nearly time, love, you should prepare yourself.’
Rachel nods, too numb to cry, too confused to think straight. After squeezing her shoulder, Sam leaves her sitting next to her mother’s bed, despair enveloping her.
An image comes back to her – black-red blood against a white tile floor. Her mother’s horrified face, her own determined one. She hears the sounds of hurt and pain and relives the smell of fear, of sweat. He has hated her all these years, has watched her grow up and has been planning this – whatever this is – all along. His revenge. He has been planning his revenge.
The only reason he did not come to get her before is because her mother promised him her son. But soon her mother will be gone.
She rubs her forehead and then looks at her watch. It’s time for her to fetch Beth, time for her to be a mother now. She is so tired, so incredibly exhausted, but it is time for her to be a mother.
She stands up and leans over, kissing her mother’s forehead. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, Mum,’ she whispers.
In the car she opens the window, hoping the rush of cold air will help her think, will revive her a little.
She is going to have to tell her husband the truth, but she cannot think of where she should start, and Ben is struggling himself. She knows that he is desperately searching for work, following up leads and calling everyone he knows in the hopes that someone will be able to help. She wishes she could take some of the burden away from him but she can’t.
Taking a deep breath, she finds a parking spot near Beth’s school.
As she gets out of the car, she looks all around her in case another doll has somehow materialised. She has no idea what to do, no idea how to tell Ben the truth. She wonders what the police would say if she went to them and explained about the dolls. She fears they would laugh at her but then they have no idea about who her father is and what he’s capable of.
Her mother opened her eyes today but Rachel cannot help her. Her husband has lost his job and Rachel cannot help him. Her father is threatening her and she cannot stop that happening. She cannot do anything.
As she walks towards the school gate, she tries to refocus her thoughts.
‘Time to be a mother,’ she mutters, because right now that’s the only thing she can get right.
22
Ben
Ben uses a knife to slice open a box of books and begins placing them on the shelves in the living room. He would like to play some music or have the television on to make this whole exercise less boring but he is listening intently for his phone, for the ping of an email that could be the offer of an interview or an email from someone he’s reached out to. He’s only been home for a few days now, but he feels as desperate as if he’s been here for months. And the pile of boxes seems to be
growing rather than shrinking, and each time he finishes one and collapses it, he wonders what on earth he’s doing it for since it’s likely that he will have to repack them again very soon.
‘You’re doing everything you can, and you’ll have a new job soon enough, I know it. Maybe just enjoy a little time to reflect,’ Rachel said last night.
‘What am I going to reflect on, Rachel? On how quickly we’re going to lose this house?’ he shouted. He regretted it immediately as he watched her green eyes darken with tears and her face flush.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, ‘I was just trying to… I don’t know.’
He muttered ‘stupid’ at himself and left the room, feeling sorry for himself, angry at himself, ashamed of himself, for upsetting her when she was constantly on the verge of tears anyway. He opened his third beer for the night. He knew that was a bad idea but he didn’t care. She was trying to help, searching for the right thing to say, but the only thing he wanted to hear was, ‘You’re hired.’
He hates that he’s making Rachel even more edgy than she needs to be. He should be able to shoulder this burden alone, and to top it off, this morning he made things even worse by asking Beth about the picture. He thought Rachel was in the shower. He had sat down next to Beth at the kitchen table with the photo in his hand.
‘What’s that, Daddy?’ she asked as she swallowed the last mouthful of cereal.
‘This is a picture I found in my office. I think it must have fallen out of my briefcase and I know that sometimes you like to leave things for me to look at in my briefcase.’
‘I left you a picture of me and Charlotte on the climbing frame at school,’ she said smiling.
‘You did and I put it up in my office.’
‘Why aren’t you at your office?’
‘I’m taking a little break but, Beth, what I wanted to talk to you about is this picture,’ he said, showing her the torn image, ‘because I know you may have been doing craft or something but it’s a photo of Mum and Nana and she will be sad to know that you’ve torn it.’