by Kim Lock
‘So you’ve worked this all out? Behind my back?’
‘I haven’t worked anything out –’
‘You and the hospital and your doctor, all making decisions without me?’
‘Nothing’s decided. I’m just going to talk to her –’
Ark chortled, shaking his head. ‘No, you’re not. You resigned. You belong here, now. This is your job.’
‘This?’ She flung her hand in a circle around the kitchen. Suds flew from her hands and splattered on the bench. ‘My job? Ark, I’m going out of my mind. It’s been two years. I can’t keep doing nothing.’
‘Taking care of our son, of our house, is “nothing”?’
‘You know what I mean,’ she said, snatching up a tea-towel. ‘Look, I’ll only take on a couple of night shifts, so Henry doesn’t have to go into care or anything.’
Ark was still shaking his head but Jenna kept talking. ‘I need this. I was good at my job and I miss it. I barely see any other human beings anymore, I’m cooped up in here for days at a time. I’m going crazy.’
‘Are you still taking your pills?’
Jenna blinked.
‘Are you?’
‘I don’t see what that has to do with my job.’
‘On the contrary – your mental state has everything to do with whether or not you can be employed. How can you work in health care when you’re unwell yourself?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me!’ she cried.
‘You just told me you’re going “crazy”, that you’re “out of your mind” – are you going to disclose that information to the hospital?’
Jenna threw the towel on the bench. ‘I’m going to see Marg tomorrow. At three. I’m getting my life back.’
‘This isn’t open for discussion,’ he said coolly, studying his fingernails. ‘We decided this years ago. What’s gotten into you?’
Jenna’s blood went cold. Did he know?
With a laboured breath, Ark sat down at the table. ‘I think we need to go back to the doctor and have your dosage reassessed. You’re not making any sense.’
She recoiled as though he’d slapped her. ‘You are such an arsehole.’
Ark laughed. ‘Insults. Real mature. And you think you should have a job with that kind of mentality.’
‘Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon,’ she hissed. ‘You just told me you’ll be home.’ She stalked from the room.
*
The next day, Ark left the house at eight in the morning. By 2.50 pm, he was nowhere to be found. Calls to his mobile went unanswered, and he didn’t return her calls, despite the four increasingly frustrated messages she’d left on his voicemail.
Jenna wanted to scream.
With Henry whining at the screen, she’d showered hastily. She had dressed in jeans and a silk shirt – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d dressed nicely – with Henry clinging to her calves. She had poked herself in the eye with the mascara wand while Henry pulled toilet paper from the roll and heaped it in dampening mounds onto the floor.
Steel rods squeezed against her temples as she stood in the hall. Henry was pulling at her pants and demanding something about a ham sandwich, and it was 2.58 pm and the house was closing in on her, the hugeness of it, all four bedrooms and two bathrooms and the kitchen and living rooms all with their empty promises, the eighty-two acres of grapes that gave her everything but took it all away, the sky and the billion-strong nebula of stars above her – all of it was crushing her.
And all of it had abandoned her.
Hauling Henry to her hip, Jenna picked up her keys. On her way out, she slammed the front door so hard a vase toppled from the sideboard in the hall and smashed across the floor.
*
On a play mat in the corner of the doctor’s office, Henry threaded coloured beads along curled wire strands.
‘Are you sure?’ Jenna asked, fingers mauling a sodden tissue in her lap. ‘I have to have an ultrasound first?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Doctor Jones told her. ‘But ectopic pregnancy must be ruled out before you can have the procedure.’
‘And I can’t have it done now? Today?’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘You need to be at least six weeks pregnant for the ultrasound results to be clear enough, so you have another week until then. And besides, as you know,’ he smiled sympathetically, ‘we don’t have the imaging clinic here. You’ll need to go to Mount Gambier for the ultrasound. Once you have the results, you can then book in for the procedure with the women’s health clinic there. You shouldn’t have to wait too long for an appointment, maybe another week after that.’
‘So it could be another two weeks? Maybe longer?’ She glanced at Henry and swallowed a rising dread. ‘I’m already symptomatic. I don’t want to get worse. Can’t I just say no? Sign a waiver? Then you can write me a prescription now. Mifepristone is on the PBS.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’
‘What about my right to informed refusal?’
‘You don’t have one in this instance, I’m afraid,’ he said with a sigh. ‘In South Australia abortion is still on the criminal code. It can only be done by a licensed practitioner and only after an ultrasound.’ Doctor Jones’s expression was understanding. ‘What does Ark think?’
Jenna baulked.
‘I’m assuming he’s supportive of your decision to terminate this pregnancy?’
Another two weeks. An ultrasound, all the way to Mount Gambier. And then what? How would she hide the appointments?
‘Yes,’ Jenna lied. ‘But I wish there was something you could just give me.’ Her fists were clenched so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Doctor Jones sighed. ‘I’m sorry there’s not more I can do.’ He regarded her for a long moment, leaning forwards to rest his forearms on his knees. ‘Jenna,’ he said slowly. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
Drawing herself up, she gave him a brisk smile. ‘Yes. I will be fine.’ Taking her referrals, she thanked the doctor and stooped to collect Henry’s hand.
‘Please, come back and see me in a few weeks,’ Doctor Jones said.
Jenna promised him she would.
*
Ark was waiting for her when she returned home.
Twelve missed calls on her mobile in forty minutes; the phone vibrated with messages on the passenger seat the entire seven-minute drive home from the clinic.
Henry had fallen asleep in his car seat, his head lolled to one side, a half-masticated rice cracker cradled in a grubby, slackened fist. Pulling into her space alongside the shed, Jenna killed the engine and twisted in her seat to observe him, her seatbelt digging into her collarbone. There was something there, she couldn’t deny it, but what was it? It wasn’t what other mothers had, what mothers talked about online or what it was like on TV. For Jenna it felt like . . . remorse. Guilt. Shame. She watched the child she’d brought into this world and knew she should see a whole future of possibilities and timeless joy, but she didn’t. Instead, she saw greyness. Bleakness; shackles. An endless drudgery that no one deserved. Especially not this innocent, beautiful young boy. The guilt she felt as she gazed on his sleeping face stabbed her deep inside and she covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the sob. Facing the front again, she took a deep breath and unclipped her seatbelt.
Movement caught her attention and she looked up to see Ark striding across the driveway. Glaring at him, she stepped from the car. ‘You promised you’d be home.’
‘Where have you been?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t answered my calls. I was worried.’
‘Where do you think?’ she snapped. ‘I went to see Marg. Like we talked about.’
Ark sighed heavily and rubbed his head. ‘Oh, Jenna,’ he said, so softly she had to move closer to hear him. ‘I’m so sad that it’s come to this.’ He looked at her with something like painf
ul pity. ‘There was no such discussion. We did talk yesterday about your mental illness – about how you’re unfit to work. Do you remember that?’
Anger bubbled up into her throat. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’
‘That’s not what your doctor said.’
She flinched. Had Doctor Jones called him? Could he do that? She pictured the look on Ark’s face as he answered the phone, heard the jovial camaraderie in his tone as they discussed her secrets and decided between them that they knew better than her. No. Surely not?
She said, ‘It’s just depression –’
‘Precisely, depression is an illness.’
‘I’m perfectly capable –’
‘And it affects your ability to think and make rational decisions.’
‘I’d be perfectly fine if you’d just leave me alone!’ she cried, flinging her handbag to the ground. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she ground her fists into her eyes. ‘Just shut up!’ she shouted. ‘Fuck off and let me be!’
Inside the car, Henry awoke at the sound of her shouts.
‘Marg wasn’t there anyway,’ Jenna went on, ignoring Henry’s muffled cries. ‘So I didn’t talk to anyone about going back to work.’ Her voice cracked with the lie. ‘There, are you happy? You own me, Ark.’ She held out her hands, palm up, wrists together as though he could handcuff her. ‘You control me like a dog.’
‘Jenna,’ Ark said calmly, pulling a sobbing Henry from the car. ‘You need to calm down. You’re upsetting Henry.’
Disgusted, she flung her hands in the air.
‘Think carefully about what you’re saying,’ he said, pushing the car door shut with his hip. ‘There, there, buddy. It’s okay. Daddy’s got you.’ His eyes never left Jenna’s as he patted the child’s back and Henry melted across his father’s shoulder, quietening. Ark walked towards her. ‘Think very carefully about what you’re implying,’ he said as he drew closer. ‘You’re sounding quite irrational. You think I treat you like a “dog”?’
‘I can’t,’ she muttered. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ Gravel crunched under her heels as she backed away.
‘Can’t?’ He sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘Can’t do what?’
‘This! I feel like I’m dying, Ark.’
‘Babe, listen to me. You’re sick.’
Fury shot through her. ‘I’m not sick. I’m . . . I’m . . . abused.’ The word rang into the afternoon, clashing across the cladding of the shed, the limestone bricks of the house, falling over the grapes like soot.
‘You don’t let me do anything, you don’t let me see anyone.’ Her hands curled into fists at her throat, yanking at the collar of her shirt. ‘I’ve lost my family. I’ve lost my friends. I’m nothing but an empty shell, bound to this house like I’m in chains. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep – you don’t let me sleep! I cannot do another day of this. Not another day.’ He swam before her, wavering as though in water.
‘I want out,’ she said, her breath wheezing. ‘I want to leave.’
He took a step towards her. ‘Jenna, honey. Listen to yourself. Abused?’ He looked scandalised. ‘I’ve never laid a hand on you in anything but love. How insulting for those women who are abused that you could lower our loving relationship to that.’
‘Ark –’
‘We’ve had our problems, I’ll admit. But you’re taking medication now.’ His breath was on her face. Henry squirmed between them. ‘Granted,’ Ark said, ‘I think after this outburst we’ll be getting your medicine altered for something stronger, but still. You’ve lost your family?’ He frowned at her. ‘We are your family, Jenna. We love you. Can’t you see that? Look,’ he put a hand on her shoulder and she burned beneath it, ‘I won’t deny that you struggle to feel a bond with Henry, but that’s the depression and your stubbornness talking. If you’d lighten up and stop fighting everything I suggest, you’d be much happier.’
‘No –’
‘You would. You’re not thinking rationally right now.’ His fingers squeezed into her flesh, his gaze bored into her. ‘What are you not telling me?’
‘No.’ She shook him off, stepping back. ‘No. I want to leave.’
‘Jenna, please.’ Henry began to wail again and Ark’s expression turned desperate. ‘Babe?’
A late-spring shower began to fall; slapping against the vines, drops sliding down her hot cheeks. Jenna collected her handbag from the gravel.
‘Jenna?’
She walked towards the car. Ark grabbed her arm and she lashed at him with her keys. He let her go.
‘Jenna, wait.’ His voice was shrill. ‘Please.’
She yanked open the door and he closed his hand over it but she pulled so hard he recoiled, closing his hands protectively around his son.
‘We can work this out!’ His voice was muffled through the glass. Henry cried. Ark raised his voice over the sound of the engine turning over. ‘I’m not perfect, I know. I need help. You can help me! Tell me what to do!’
The accelerator pedal eased beneath her foot. The car picked up speed. Ark slapped at the window.
‘Please!’ he screamed. Henry cried and the rain fell as Jenna drove away.
v
Her pounding on the screen brought Fairlie to the front door within moments.
‘What – Jenna, are you all right?’
Jenna struggled to regain her breath as she fell into the tiny living room. Rainwater dripped from her fingers; her nose ran and she wiped it on her damp shoulder.
Fairlie’s eyes were round. Her hair was dishevelled and sticking up at the back, a novel lay open on the couch in front of a muted television. Trying to look inconspicuous, Yodel slunk across the floor, escaping. The air smelled vaguely of cat, but also lived in, familiar.
‘I’ve left him,’ Jenna said.
‘Okay,’ her friend said slowly. Fairlie scratched the back of her head and her t-shirt rode up at the front, exposing the elastic waist of her trackpants. ‘Sit down. I’ll make coffee.’
Jenna sat. Fairlie boiled the kettle, spooned coffee granules into mugs, added milk. Jenna took the hot cup from her friend and held it between her palms until it burned. She didn’t know what to say. Should she apologise? Or should she expect that her friendship with Fairlie didn’t need apologies?
‘Where’s Henry?’ Fairlie asked.
Jenna looked into her cup. Steam rose from the murky surface. Her skin howled with pain and she finally set the cup on the floor and then looked down into the reddened insides of her hands.
‘Jen?’
‘He’s fine.’
‘He’s with Ark?’
‘Of course,’ Jenna said, curtly. ‘I might be a shit mother, but I wouldn’t leave him alone.’
The patience in Fairlie’s expression remained. Her old friend simply listened and watched Jenna with an effortless understanding and Jenna felt a yearning well up so fiercely she sucked in a gulp of air. Overcome, she covered her face with her hands and wept, messy sobs that came up like vomit.
Jenna doubled over, rocking, as Fairlie folded her in her arms and held her and rocked, too.
*
At 1 am, a full moon pushed bold, pearlescent light across the bedspread. Jenna lay curled on her side, blankets snug over her shoulders, watching a lock of Fairlie’s hair float and sink with the rise and fall of her sleeping breath. The sheet was tucked high around Fairlie’s neck like a cowl; beneath the blankets their knees pressed against each other. The pillow smelled of Fairlie’s orange blossom shampoo.
Jenna snuck her hand out from beneath the blankets and gently smoothed the lock of hair back. Jenna left her hand there, resting gently atop the heathery spring of Fairlie’s curls until her arm ached.
*
The next morning Fairlie called in sick. The rain clouds dissolved and summer boasted into the atmosphere. They spent the day in their pyjamas,
Yodel eyeing Jenna with distrust from behind the safety of the curtains. They heated a double serve of Mrs Soblieski’s beef vindaloo and ate from the same bowl, their spoons clinking together and mouths burning from the chilli, bare toes overlapping. In the shower, Jenna soaped herself with Fairlie’s bar of frangipani-and-lime soap; she left the bathroom door open when she peed and brushed her teeth with Fairlie’s toothbrush. She laughed until it felt like hands wringing out her ribs.
Fairlie asked her about Henry and about Ark. Tea snorted from Fairlie’s nose as Jenna recounted a week ago when Henry had pointed to a hardened lump of bird shit on the verandah handrail and said, ‘Bir dit.’ Jenna told Fairlie about Ark’s new clients, new stockists, newest cellar door awards. She was honest about how tired she was: that Ark insisted they never go to bed on a fight, sometimes keeping her awake into the early hours of the morning until she conceded his point of view. But she heard the stories come out abridged, lined with silver and rose-hued. She omitted that night after night Ark demanded, wheedled or coerced her into sex she didn’t want to have. Day after day, motherhood drained her to the point of a greyish, hollowed-out hopelessness but she left that out too, her stories clipped like newspaper articles missing final paragraphs.
And the ticking clock deep in her belly – she left that out, too.
Ark knew where she was. Jenna refused to turn her phone on so he had eventually called Fairlie. Stage-whispering reassurances with her face turned away, placating the man with her nurse’s tone, Fairlie said, She’s fine and I don’t know how long – how is he? and I’ll pass it on.
On the third day, Fairlie hesitantly dressed for work.
‘Are you sure you’ll be okay?’ she asked, buttoning her shirt.
Jenna reached to mute the television. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she answered, setting her coffee on the floor at her feet. Yodel bathed himself on the end of the couch.
Fairlie smiled. ‘It’s been nice, huh?’
Jenna’s hands stilled. ‘Yeah,’ she conceded, returning her smile. ‘It has.’
Her friend hesitated then, twisting her handbag strap in her hands. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I think you should call him today. At least talk to Henry.’ Fairlie slung her strap over her shoulder. ‘He’d be missing you.’