Ellipsis

by Nikki Dudley

  “It was too hard to talk about”. She shrugs.

  “Don’t you know who their fathers are?” Thom taunts her unfairly. She instantly throws his arms off.

  “Of course I do”, she spits.

  “Well which one of them has a different dad to Uncle Peter?” Thom leans against the table, looking at her sideways. She tears at her hair, which has become unloved and clumped together.

  “Daniel”, she confesses in a whisper.

  “Shit”, Thom twitches. “Can you imagine how heartbroken he must’ve been? He probably thought he might be saved and then he finds out that they weren’t real brothers”. Thom shakes his head. “And more than that, it meant life and death for him”.

  Thinking about Daniel, he wants to sob on his behalf. Thom wants to tear the cupboards from the walls, pull out the pipes and let the water spray out like punctured vessels.

  “Did you tell him who his dad was?” Thom asks, not able to look at her. He turns and stares outside the window into the garden. He sees the chair where he sat after finding the notebook, the notebook that said terrible things and claimed he wrote them.

  “I told him”.

  “And how did he react?”

  “He went crazy”, she whimpers, “but I didn’t expect any less. I deserved it…” she trails off, too traumatised to cry. She locks her eyes on an indistinguishable spot on the wallpaper and begins to sway.

  “You should’ve told him but it’s not your fault for being with someone else”. Thom tries to comfort her but his words feel like wood being eaten from the inside, ready to crumble at the slightest touch. Thom slides into the chair next to her, feeling slightly dizzy.

  “I wish it was that simple”. She finally turns to look at him. With a small toss of her head, her whole appearance seems to have changed. Her face is still and not wet with tears for one of the first times in weeks.

  “There’s still something else, isn’t there?” Thom narrows his eyes. “I can’t even fathom what it might be, but there’s definitely something…” Thom ventures. He wonders if Daniel’s father is violent or a murderer or some obscure relative of Aunty Val’s.

  “You’re such a clever boy”. She smiles, forgetting the situation for a brief reflex. Similarly, Thom bathes in it for the millisecond it lasts.

  “Daniel’s dad, well it’s complicated… he and I weren’t in a relationship”.

  “That’s not that complicated”.

  “No Thom”, she stops him. “This is important for you too”. She is staring so violently that Thom has to look away.

  “How is Daniel’s dad important to me?”

  “Daniel’s dad is important… to you… because…” Her voice shows her weakness again. It sounds like a radio losing reception. “You have the same father”.

  45 The Red Threads

  The house is sinking. To everyone else, it looks the same as it always has but I know the truth. Its insides are rotting and crumbling. The imploding ceilings are striking them all on the heads so they leave the house feeling dazed and detached from everyday life. Soon perhaps they will be stuck inside because all the doors will be blocked and the stairs a pile of dust, shaved down by pressure.

  When I’d been falling apart, I didn’t see this all clearly. I saw their grief painted on their sullen faces, their ragged clothes and ragged skin, in their diminishing forms. Yet with the house, only the edges of the wallpaper had begun to peel and fall off. The red paint on the front door had begun to crack, the grass in the front garden grown wild and unshaven.

  Looking at the house now, even in settling darkness of night, it looks like a person slumped over. How can it be saved? How can I push the bricks and windows back up so they are standing as they should be once again?

  I wonder if Thom is in there now, what they are saying to each other, whether they will ever understand each other post-Daniel’s death. Will Daniel’s ghost ever release the house? He has removed himself from that room but the house won’t forget. The people inside are connected to him with an invisible thread that will follow them for years, through their daily lives, in relationships with others, during sleep. Just as the scarf has never quite released me, they are trapped forever.

  The vain part of me thought I could save them. Yet I am the one who needed saving and still do. I have managed to get a hand above the ground but I am still buried in the past and all the things I have done. If I stay near them too, I will never get away from Daniel and what he made me do.

  But Thom... I think I love him. I can’t help thinking about him, letting him press his lips against mine, letting his madness fester in front of my eyes. It must be real love if you can still love someone when they are losing themselves. Or is it blindness? Can you really love someone if they don’t know their own feelings?

  The questions are infinite now. Before this, I have no recollection of what I thought about all day. What flashed through my mind as I walked down the street? Or whilst sitting in my bedsit? What did I dream about?

  It seems when you died; my life was severed. And now, I have been severed from the life I have been leading since then. I’m no longer who I was the last few years, but I’m no longer who I was before you died either.

  If I just tell Thom the truth... Maybe he can understand? No. He does understand what Daniel can do to a person but murder... why should he understand that? Either way, whether coerced or voluntarily, I killed that man.

  If I tell them all, will it really help any of them anyway? It isn’t the fact that he is dead that pains them the most; it is the confusion and the unanswered questions. Thom looks so helpless sometimes, when all he wants is someone to tell him why Daniel left all these things behind. They don’t want to know how he died, but why. Maybe it would help if I could tell them why he made me push him. But I don’t know that. And if I did, could I put myself on the line for them? Would Michael put me back in the hospital and never trust me again?

  All the questions make me wish I could recede into my madness, yet madness makes no sense to me now. I see it flaring up in Thom and I don’t know what to do to rescue him from its grip. I hope his family will do that for me, as Michael rescued me. When I met Thom, I asked myself how I could’ve hurt this man for no reason. Now, I ask how could Daniel hurt his own cousin, and why and why and why and why?

  46 Reverberations

  Thom doesn’t know how it happens but the next time he is aware, he is sitting on the kitchen floor. His elbow is throbbing. A chair is lying beside him. Aunty Val is peering over the table at him but doesn’t move to help.

  “Did you hear me, Thom?”

  “I’m not sure”, Thom mumbles, cradling his elbow with his other hand. He wants a sling so everyone can see there is something wrong with him. How will people be able to tell that he has been split in half when there are no signs on the outside?

  “You and Daniel have the same father”, she repeats. Her voice keeps slicing through him like a glacier.

  “But that would mean he and I were…” Thom can’t even say that word, though it is only two syllables.

  “Yes, brothers”, she finishes.

  “But that doesn’t make any sense”. Thom heaves himself to his feet, supporting himself with the table. He retakes his seat.

  “It makes sense if you know the details”, she tells him and pushes her chair back, the scraping of the chair rupturing his insides further. She walks past him, her familiar smell touching him in the way she can’t now, and opens a cupboard behind him. She places a set of papers on the table and steps back.

  “What is this?” Thom demands, focussing on her lips, hoping they will lie.

  “Read it, Thom”.

  Thom reluctantly obeys but it takes him several seconds to focus on the words at the top. Finally, Thom sees them: Contract of Surrogacy. As soon as his eyes absorb these words, his eyes instantly blur again. “What the fuck…” Thom mumbles, the word ‘surrogacy’ repeatedly crashing against his forehead.

  “Your mother and father co
uldn’t have kids together”, Aunty Val says quietly, as she sits opposite him again. The table sits between them like a mediator. “After years of trying, they finally got tested and found out your mother was infertile”.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Thom snarls.

  “The truth, Thom”.

  “How could my mother be infertile? And what the fuck does this have to do with me and Daniel having the same dad?” Thom thinks he should faint but instead, he feels like he has seized up, ready to attack.

  “They came to me one day and they asked me if I would consider being a surrogate for them”, she says, a brief smile passing over her lips. Yet, they quickly darken with a guilty frown. “After thinking about it for a while, I decided I would do it. I just wanted to help my sister, that’s all”.

  “So you’re some saint are you?”

  “If I were a saint, I would’ve told you years ago”. She bows her head.

  “What exactly are you telling me?” Thom slams his hand against the table and winces as discreetly as he can when it begins to throb. Aunty Val grabs it, squeezing it hard to enforce the words that follow; “I carried you. You were twins”.

  Thom rips his hand away from her and jumps from his seat, wrenching the table upwards and launching it across the kitchen. Aunty Val stays in her seat, as though she is expecting the table to return and she can once again lean her elbows on it. Thom doesn’t move again. Inside his mind, moments and words are gathering together like a puddle at the bottom of a gutter.

  When he entered the room after the wake and Aunty Val turned white…

  The way Sarah seemed so fascinated by him instantly and kissed him…

  How Daniel left him clues to make him question everything and everyone...

  The number 11 on the lock up door...

  Why hasn’t Thom realised? Daniel has been trying to lead him here from the moment he died. In the face of leukaemia, Daniel discovered something so hurtful that he didn’t want to live anyway. And through these clues and his departure, he wanted to show Thom how similar they are, so similar because of a genetic bond neither of them knew about for most of their lives.

  Thom shakes himself. “So who is the woman?”

  “What woman?” Aunty Val says, sticking to the chair. Thom paces around her as though he might swing an axe and behead her.

  “The woman who gave her egg for my dad… you know, to put in you”. Thom feels like a child again.

  “Thom, I thought you understood”, she says in a high-pitched tone. Thom stops in front of her.

  “Understood what?”

  “Your mother asked me to do it, so it wouldn’t be some stranger. I’m the one”, she tells Thom, cowering, shaking. Thom sags into nothing. He once again finds himself being looked down on, staring up at her from miles away, her face shivering behind a curtain of tears.

  “You are not… you’re not…” Thom splutters and crawls away backwards. “How can you say you are, when I already have a mother? You’re just sick and lonely and you want to keep me here because Daniel’s dead”. Thom pushes up against the wall. “Well, I’m not staying here with you, no matter what lies you tell me”. Thom doesn’t take his eyes from her as he heaves himself up near the kitchen sink.

  She edges closer. Thom glances at the back door, trying to gauge how far away it is. He also stares at the hallway behind her, wishing it would chew her up. Yet nothing happens and he doesn’t escape. In the few seconds he has been thinking, she is only inches away and when he realises this, she has already grabbed him.

  “I am your mother”, she declares. “I’ve tried to tell you so many times but it’s been so hard. Your parents kept promising they’d tell you and then they died and I didn’t know if you’d be able to cope with it. I didn’t want to take their memory away from you… I’m so sorry, Thom”.

  “Say this is true…” Thom begins, nauseated by the mere notion, “If you gave birth to us, why did we get separated?” Thom feels smug; sure he has discovered the minute snag in her claims. Yet she remains in the same position, with the same expression and his hopes begin to plummet.

  “If you read the contract, you’ll see. We changed it after you were both born. We only found out it was twins much later in the pregnancy and when I gave birth, I just couldn’t let you both go...” She is sobbing.

  “Your parents weren’t happy and it took a lot of talking and thinking but we decided – well they agreed, to let me have one of you”, she pauses, a sour smile on her lips. “It’s scary and terrible and I don’t think either of us were truly happy with it but thankfully, they understood how terrible it would be to have to give up two babies at once”.

  “I can’t believe this. You said I was early, that’s why we were both born then...” Thom shakes his head violently. Then his attention turns, “How did you decide anyway? Did you flip a coin? Did you play highest card draw? How exactly did you choose a baby to give away?”

  Her shoulders are slumped, her eyes red and soggy, her mouth a drooping flower that cannot be revived. “You don’t understand, Thom”, she cries, sobbing and moaning, “If you knew what it’s like to give up a child, let alone two…” Thom swivels his arms and grabs hold of her by the arms, shaking her.

  “And you think being lied to your whole fucking life isn’t hard?” he screams, his spit jumping out and clinging to her skin. “How could you do it, Aunty…?” Thom demands and instantly feels like a fool. “Or whatever the hell you are”, he adds, starting to sink once again but she holds him up.

  “I didn’t want to give either of you up but we’d agreed, Thom. I couldn’t back out because even if I’d tried to take them to court, the lawyers said I would’ve lost”.

  “Daniel and I deserved to know”.

  “I couldn’t tell him without you being told too and your parents kept saying ‘when the time is right’ but then they weren’t around anymore”.

  “You’re blaming them? I guess that’s convenient for you now they’re dead”. Thom feels like his blood is boiling in his veins. He looks at the back of his hands to check bubbles aren’t rising underneath his skin. However, his skin retains the normality he can no longer see in this kitchen, in his ‘Aunty’, his whole stupid lie of a life.

  “I think your mother felt very hurt she couldn’t even provide an egg. I think she couldn’t bear to tell you she wasn’t your biological mother”.

  “You won’t take her away from me”, Thom tells her firmly.

  “I never wanted to, especially after they died. I didn’t want to take those memories away from you, you’d lost everything else”. She tries to pull him into a hug but he pushes her back.

  “I hadn’t lost everything then, but I have now”. Thom drops her arms. He moves away from her towards the door but before he can reach it, he bends over and vomits. His body convulses violently as it forces its way out of his throat. Thom can’t fight it, he lets it overpower him and watches it elongating on the floor below him.

  When his stomach is empty, he pushes himself up and swallows several times, the sour taste of vomit lingering. He remembers having the same reaction after finding the note. He remembers the guilty sick stain on his sleeve that he stared at throughout the funeral.

  “You haven’t lost me, Thom”, Aunty Val says, placing her hand on his back without looking at his indiscretion on the kitchen floor.

  “What am I supposed to do, Aunty? Start calling you mum?”

  “No, Thom. Not at all. But we can sort this out”.

  “Daniel didn’t think so”.

  “I hoped I wouldn’t lose both of you because of this”. She shakes her head sadly. Thom can’t help looking at her now. When he considers her features properly, he can see the truth. He can see the shape of her mouth that he and Daniel shared, and he remembers the shade of her natural hair that matches his unkempt mop. He has never seen her properly before. He has spent his life with foggy eyesight, his beloved Aunt elevated so high that he could never see the frightening similarities
.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Thom’s face crumples. He looks down; ashamed to show her how she has torn him apart. “Why has everyone been lying to me?”

  “Who else lied, darling?” She cuddles him. He is tempted to resist her again but he is too weak. He lets her hold him up, like he did for her on the day of the funeral. Somehow telling the truth has made her stronger, for the both of them.

  “Sarah. You. The only people that matter”, Thom muffles into her shoulder.

  “Sarah matters to you? What about Emma?”

  Thom pushes back. “Is it really your place to be grilling me?”

  “No, of course not. I just didn’t know”. She touches his unshaven cheek and scratches his beard playfully. “I miss talking to you Thom”.

  “I’ve missed you too”, Thom admits, “but we can’t just go back”.

  “I love you, Thom. Please work at this with me”. She leans her forehead against his. He stares into her eyes, his heart clunking. He wants to ask her thousands of questions, he recounts times when she started telling him something but then changed her mind. Why hadn’t she ever finished the sentence?

  In the next moment he thinks about the last time he was here. He thinks about how he told her that Daniel knew he was going to die and how she collapsed. Had she been afraid he’d found out about the leukaemia? Or had she been afraid he had found out they were brothers?

  “How did you choose, Aunty? How did you pick?” Thom presses his head into hers until he thinks he hears the bones crack. The words poke her in the eye. She blinks several times.

  “There was no decision, I took one baby and your parents took the other”.

  Thom shoves her away. “That’s it? A lottery to choose which child you take?”

  “It would be more horrible if we’d had some criteria, don’t you think?”

  “That’s why he hated me”, Thom says suddenly.