‘I made no copies, I deleted them in front of him.’
‘Only an idiot would do that, and you’re not an idiot, Oliver.’
‘He’s a schoolteacher, he doesn’t have money, this was his life savings.’
‘Give me the copies or I’ll make your mother pay.’ His eyes slid over to her. ‘I’ll do it.’
Oliver knew he would. He went into his bedroom and pulled the thumb drive from its hiding place. He felt so bad turning it over, but his mother’s safety was at stake and he’d do anything for her. He put it on the table and slid it across to his father.
Sorry, David.
24
Going inside the motel room was like walking into hell. She had seen and heard so much recently that she wasn’t even sure what to make of it all. Danni stifled a sob of pain as she opened the door to the room.
Mia wasn’t there. She wasn’t lying with her back turned to her. She was just gone.
‘Mia!’ screamed Danni, racing around the beds to check the bathroom. She flung open the door, which rebounded off the wall, and found her daughter sitting in the shower, freezing cold water cascading down her body.
She leant in and turned off the water, looming over Mia. ‘What the actual fuck Mia? Are you trying to kill yourself? There are easier ways, I assure you.’ Danni walked from the room and began to pace the small space. She had to get them out of this motel. It was doing things to her. Her temper, her rage, her pain. They were all getting out of control.
Marching back into the bathroom, she pulled a threadbare towel from the rack and threw it at Mia. ‘Get dressed, we need to talk.’ She turned from her daughter, Mia’s face still dripping. Tears or water? Maybe both.
Finally, Mia made an appearance, her long dark hair leaving a wet patch on her pale grey t-shirt. She was skinny, almost painfully so, her collar bones showing through pale skin. How could Danni not have noticed how much weight Mia had lost? When was the last time she had really looked at her daughter? When she was yelling at her to keep her music down? When she was yelling at her for fighting with her dad? When she was yelling at her just because she was angry at the world? Or when she switched off? Lost track of time again? No wonder Mia had never come to her with the David Simmonds thing, or the apparent attempted suicide. Why would she? All she had was a mother who yelled at her constantly, or who wasn’t present. Who would want that? Danni couldn’t imagine what was going through Mia’s head right now.
All these thoughts were running on a constant loop inside her brain and she had no clue how long she’d been standing there. Mia was standing in front of her, the wet patch on her top nearly dry.
Fuck!
‘Um… Mia, I need to talk to you about something. Can you sit… please,’ Danni said to the motionless girl. ‘Mia, please.’
The girl went and sat down on the bed facing her mum. The look on her face was like a blank canvas until Danni started talking, then a look of fire lit behind Mia’s eyes, making them flash and spark.
‘Talk to me, Mia. Tell me why you’re acting like this.’
Mia opened her mouth. Danni held her breath.
Mia glared at her. ‘I hate you.’ Her voice was throaty, like she’d been screaming for days. Maybe she had, and Danni was too messed up to notice.
She took two steps to her daughter and grabbed her hands tightly between her own chapped ones.
‘Mia, you don’t hate me, you can’t hate me. I love you. No matter how many times you say it, I’ll never believe it.’ Danni stood up, still holding Mia’s hands in hers.
‘Let go of me!’ Mia shouted, her voice ringing out. Danni flinched then let go of her hands.
‘Honey, please calm down.’
‘I am calm,’ she said in a quiet voice, ‘don’t you see? You’re the one who’s not calm. I don’t want to talk to you any more.’ Mia walked to the other side of the small room. There was nowhere to get away from each other, to have space.
Danni wanted to scream. She wanted to rail against the unfairness of it all. Why did Mia hate her so much? What possible reason could she have? She was grieving right along with her, having lost the same people, the same loved ones, so why were they grieving so differently? She didn’t understand.
‘Mia. I don’t care how much you hate me right now and whatever the reason is, but you will listen to me. I know what happened. Jane told me how you took those pills at that party.’
‘What?’ Mia let out a croak, a look of hurt crossing her face.
‘I know about the overdose attempt. Why did you want to die, Mia?’ she asked, trying to soften her voice.
‘That’s none of your business, Mum,’ Mia said sarcastically.
‘Don’t talk to me like that, you ungrateful shit.’ Danni wished she could take the words back as soon as she’d said them, but again, she had put her foot in her mouth. When would she ever learn that Mia kept count? She always had. But Danni had to try again, she had to.
‘Why? You owe me that.’
‘I owe you?’ Mia hissed at her mother. ‘I owe you shit. You couldn’t even keep your family safe, you fucker.’
Danni was shocked by the venom that spewed from her daughter’s lips. ‘I tried to save them, I really did, but I was locked outside, I couldn’t get in.’
‘I’m not talking about that, Mum. You just never listen, do you? I’m not talking about the fire.’ Mia was enraged with her, she wouldn’t tell her what she meant or why she was so angry with her. There was no point trying to talk to her when she was like this. Danni walked over to her bed and did exactly what Mia always did. Lay down and turned her back, trying to suppress her sobs.
25
For once the house was quiet. Noah and Alexandra had gone into the bush beyond the borders of their property looking for rabbits. Mia loved it when the house was like this. No one around, whisper-quiet, all she could hear was the settling of the old bones of the house. Her mother was at her job, which she had recently started, and God knows where her dad was. Either sleeping one off or out in the paddocks. She was supposed to have gone with the littlies, but she needed some alone time, where people weren’t always wanting things from her.
Mia felt like she had no time to breathe, to just… be. She looked out of her bedroom window, the sounds of the bush strong on the breeze. She heard the cockatoo in the tree near the edge of the back yard. He was a regular, coming to visit most days. Mia could distinguish him because he had a slightly crooked wing when he flew. He seemed to like their place, returning frequently. Mia wondered what it was about this place that kept drawing him back when she would do anything to get away.
Was it how Mum and Dad played happy families for the kids while fighting in private? Or her personal favourite, saying they were there for their kids then being nowhere to be seen when they actually needed them.
Mia needed her parents. She needed them to notice her, to notice that when they asked her if she was okay, that they should realise she wasn’t okay, not by a long shot. Oliver Marks was making her life a living hell. He was always there taking his photos with his little fucking camera. But it wasn’t even that – she was actually afraid of him. Of what he might do to her when he tired of taking photos. When he wanted to be closer to the object of his affection. In truth, Mia was petrified, living on the edge of sanity and insanity and not a damn family member had noticed.
She smiled and laughed, told jokes to keep her siblings amused, but inside, she was dying. No one noticed her smile slip just a bit, falter when asked if she had had a good day at school. No, they didn’t notice, they never did. They were too wrapped up in their own things, Mum proving she could have a job and have kids and run a household without it all going to shit, and Dad, well Dad seemed to be slipping further and further away with each passing day. The sad thing was her mum didn’t seem to notice that either, or if she did she was doing nothing about it. She loved him, Mia knew that, in fact, she loved them all, but her Dad, her Dad was the one for her mother. She would do anything for him.
>
Neither of them realised that Mia was depressed. No one knew that she struggled every day. For her, this depression was like a deep, dark hole, no light at the end, so inky she couldn’t even see the sides. If she fell into that darkness, no one would ever be able to pull her out again. She would be stuck in the dark, forever. But no one saw that. Not even Jane, not until the night at the party. When the day had finally dawned, Jane had said in a raspy voice, ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again.’
She had the house to herself. Everyone gone. She looked at the tray of strong painkillers that she’d stolen from Jane’s mum’s bathroom. They ought to do the trick. There was a bottle of water in her bag. She felt around until she found it and held it up to the light. Sunlight reflected off the water within, throwing splashes of various hues of blues onto the walls. It was pretty and Mia moved the bottle this way and that, almost enjoying the respite. She uncapped the bottle, took a long swig then put it onto her dresser. Standing up, Mia popped the painkillers out of the tray one by one and put them next to the water bottle.
Ready or not, here I come.
The back door slammed. God, couldn’t she have a moment to herself?
The first thing she heard was a raised voice, her father’s. She knew he was angry not only because of his loud volume but because he was stomping around the house. She waited to hear the small tread of her mother’s as she danced around him, trying to make it better. When she didn’t hear that or hear her voice Mia concluded that her father was not arguing with her mother. So, who was he arguing with? He was in the lounge room and she just couldn’t help herself. She crept down the stairs, for once skipping the third stair. She wanted to hear what her dad was talking about. Who was he yelling at?
He was seated on the couch, just around the corner, and she could clearly hear his now considerably quieter voice as he talked on the phone. She ruled out a work call by the way he was talking. He wasn’t swearing or anything like that, besides, they weren’t talking about concrete.
The cold seeds of doubt began to germinate inside Mia. Say something that will put my mind at ease! her mind screamed at him.
‘It’s not for much longer. We agreed I would wait until Noah was in school and she had a job. No, I haven’t gone back on my word.’
Mia shook her head, unable to believe what she was hearing. Was her father cheating on her mother? Her dad may have put distance between his family, but he had to still love her mum, right? If he didn’t, then her world just became that much worse. She needed her dad around. And by the sounds of it, this affair had been going on for some time. Mia felt sick, like she wanted to vomit but didn’t want to draw attention to herself. She needed to listen to the rest of the conversation. Knowledge was power.
‘I’m leaving. I promised you a life, and I’m gonna give that to you, you just have to be a little more patient, okay? My kids need me at the moment.’ There was a pause. ‘Oh, don’t give me that crap! He’s two years old and I see him as much as I can. But these kids need to be told first, they can’t just come home one night and find out that their dad is gone for good. That I’m a liar. You need to give me more time.’
Mia had heard enough. Her two-timing father had been having a long running affair for at least three years as he had a two-year-old child. A son. Like Noah. On nimble feet, she ran back up the stairs, missing the third from the top. She was hyperventilating, her lungs feeling like they weren’t getting enough air and her heart burning like it was on fire. She collapsed down onto the floor, staring up at the bottle of water, the white pills sitting there, waiting.
If she swallowed them, if she killed herself, she would be giving him an easy out. He’d just tell her mother that he wasn’t coping with his grief and move out. Her mother, distraught, wouldn’t have the strength to fight him. She’d let him go, hoping it was like that saying, set them free, blah, blah, blah. He would be gone and none of them would be able to get him back. Sure, for the first year or so, he’d be there for the milestone birthdays and holidays, and of course the anniversary of her death, then Alexandra and Noah would come home from his place and tell her mother that he has a new girlfriend and a baby boy who was two. She’d do the maths. She’d cry once the kids went to bed, she’d put on her wedding veil just to remind herself what it was like to be in love again. To be loved.
Then his visits would turn into ‘sorry I missed it, sweetheart’ calls, where he would hang up on his kids and Mum would be left to pick up the pieces.
No, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, do that to her family. She would not give him a way out. If he loved this other woman so much, let her come and tell their family together, like the grown-ups they were supposed to be.
Mia stood on shaky legs, opening her drawer and swiping the pills into it so they fell through the crack like lollies. She heard her dad clomping around on the downstairs flooring like a troll. Her mother had lovingly restored the floors, now here he was with his boots on inside, making a mess of her mother’s nice, clean home. Disrespecting it the way he disrespected her.
Mia closed her door but the wind caught hold of it and slammed it closed harder than she had intended. She winced, what if he came to investigate? Mia quickly put her headphones on and threw herself onto the bed and rolled over on her stomach. She heard him coming. He reached the landing, then opened up her door. Her music was down low so she could hear everything. Yet she jumped slightly when a hand reached out and grabbed her round the ankle. Startled, she pulled off her headphones and turned to stare at her father.
‘Jesus, Dad, you scared me,’ she said, not lying. She was shitting herself.
‘Uh… were you just downstairs?’ he asked, his eyes wide and fearful. She longed to tell him that yes, she had heard every disgusting word he had said, but there was a time and a place for everything. ‘No, why?’
‘Where are your brother and sister?’
‘Last time I saw them they were in the bush beyond the back fence line. Rabbit hunting or something. Why? Did you need something?’ Mia asked innocently. It was all she could do to not spit at him. The fucker had one foot out the door, why hadn’t he gone already? When would it be? A day? A week? A month?
How the hell would her mother cope? She had only just found her footing after going into to the workplace after a decade and a half of raising her children. There was no way she could do both jobs, which meant what? Mia was going to be stuck raising Alexandra and Noah? Finishing school and working in a dead-end job to help out her mum until Alex was old enough to take care of Noah? By then, Mia’s dreams would have turned to ash, burnt beyond all recognition.
‘Oh well, I guess I’ll see you later then,’ he said as he turned, dwarfing her doorway, and clomped back down the stairs.
Mia looked out the window and saw Alexandra and Noah running towards the back door. What would their life be like only seeing their father every other weekend? The knowledge that they had a half-brother out there and had done for some time. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. While it was true that she and her mum had been drifting apart, she still cared.
But the questions remained firmly on her thin, fragile shoulders: should she tell her mother what she had overheard? She could implode their world on her own or wait until they were blindsided by her father.
Noah must have passed his father on the stairs because she heard him say, ‘How’s my little champ?’
Bastard.
Noah’s little voice piped up as he talked to his father. Alexandra was next. ‘Want to go for a bike ride, Daddy?’
‘Not now, sweetheart, Daddy needs to rest.’
All that cheating, that keeping up a double life must be hard, tiring work.
Mia went to stand at the top of the stairs, passing Noah. ‘Hey buddy, what’s up?’
Alexandra stumbled up the stairs, her little pixie face shinning with innocence and love. ‘Why don’t I do something with you?’ Mia said brightly.
‘No thanks, I’ll just be in my room.’ She gave her big
sister a smile which broke Mia’s heart. She had to say something.
Mia marched down the stairs and saw her father lying on the couch, eyes closed, football on the TV, TV that he wasn’t even watching. She walked over with purpose and flicked it off. Her dad sprung to life.
‘What are you doing? I was watching that,’ he said in his deep voice.
‘No, you weren’t. Besides, the question is, what are you doing?’
A shadow of unease crossed his face before his brows lowered and his lips pressed into a snarled line. ‘Whatever you’re going to say, I suggest you think about it long and hard before you open your mouth.’
Mia stood her ground, looking him dead in the eye. ‘I—’
Her mother bustled through the door carrying two armfuls of shopping. She looked at the tense situation before her and probably assumed that they were having another bust up.
‘Can someone come and help me?’ she asked cheerfully, thereby diffusing the situation… for now.
Mia looked at her father, a promise in her eyes that this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
26
Sitting on the single bed, reading the newspaper, Danni saw that her family had finally been knocked off from the cover of the local rag. She flipped through to see where they were and was relieved to find the story buried on page six. Just as Danni was about to flip to the next page, a headline screamed at her.
Local teacher takes own life.
Danni read through the article once quickly, then again, more slowly. Mia, asleep yet again, or at least pretending to be, made no noise when Danni clicked her tongue. Mia’s maths teacher, tutor and lover, David Simmonds, had killed himself overnight. There was a suicide note and the police were not treating the death as suspicious. But Danni knew something wasn’t right. Maybe he killed himself over his affair with Mia. Danni had gone at him pretty hard. Did the police know that? There was a funeral notice at the bottom of the articles page. Danni decided to attend the funeral. It was tomorrow and Danni wanted to see who turned up. Was he a popular teacher? Did he have many friends? Family? She had helped kill him, she should at least attend. It felt like the right thing to do.
The Silent Daughter Page 17