The Perfect Family

by Samantha King

  “Are you kidding? I’m not sure looking after two babies is going to be a walk in the park. You did listen some of the time in those antenatal classes, didn’t you?” I teased, trying to get comfortable on the wooden chair; my back was aching after all the standing around chatting and celebrating with my friends. Max had actually been the only guest Dom had invited.

  “Of course I did!” Dom mimed a massive yawn and laughed. “I can’t believe there are only five months to go.”

  “Um, I hate to break it to you but I think it’s nearer four,” I said, although the midwife had seemed puzzled by the dates of my cycle when I’d had my booking-in appointment. I was never very good at keeping track of those sorts of things. The bump felt enormous already, though, and was pressing down heavier with each passing day.

  “We’d better make the most of being newlyweds, then, hey? Let’s go and check out the upstairs,” he murmured, bending over to nuzzle against the nape of my neck, cupping his hands suggestively around my hips. “But first . . .” He opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of champagne, two glasses and a basket of luscious-looking strawberries. “Here’s one I prepared earlier,” he said with a slow smile, deftly popping the cork and pouring the sparkling wine without spilling a drop. “I nipped round yesterday,” he explained when I gasped in happy surprise. “Go on, half a glass won’t hurt. Here’s to us.”

  “To us. And our new family,” I added, clinking my glass to his.

  * * *

  For all he joked about nodding off in the antenatal classes, I knew Dom would make a great dad. He was working every hour there was to make a go of his management consultancy, and when the time was right I was confident he’d support me getting back into teacher training. Everything was perfect, and we were going to be the perfect family.

  Perfect but small.

  The birth was difficult and there were “complications,” the doctor said, offering me a tight smile. There would be no more babies.

  “Your twins are perfect, though, Mrs. Castle. Congratulations.”

  “Look, Mads, this one’s eyes are open.” Dom’s deep voice squeaked boyishly.

  He actually held the twins before I did. They were so tiny, so fragile, that I could hardly bear to leave them. Dom was the only person I would trust to take care of them, and he held them both for two whole hours, hardly moving, hardly breathing, just sitting alone with the miracle of new life in the darkened delivery room while the doctor wheeled me off to see the surgeon, to be put back together and stitched up.

  “That’s your daughter, Mr. Castle. Gorgeous, isn’t she?” The pretty young midwife smiled as she watched Dom proudly, wonderingly, stroke his brand-new baby girl’s velvety forehead.

  “Happy birthday, darling Annabel,” he said, touching the tip of his nose to her tiny one. Her sleepy blue eyes opened a fraction, capturing all our hearts before she closed them again.

  I tried to lift my head to peer at my son, my second-born, feeling anxious about him being forgotten, overlooked in favor of his bewitchingly beautiful sister who came out first, cried first (died first) and drew all eyes to her from her very first breath. I vowed there and then that there would be no favoritism between them. They were twins but each was unique; I wouldn’t expect them to be carbon copies of each other. I would encourage their differences, and I’d love them equally. Tearfully I made this promise to them both as I was trundled out of the room like a piece of meat on a butcher’s trolley, straining for one last glimpse of my little family—so new but already so precious.

  I would have no more children, so, brimming over with a need to nurture, I took up gardening. I planted the roses that autumn, and as the years passed I filled the garden with flowers, wind chimes and cute wildlife statues to amuse the twins and create a peaceful sanctuary. I called it my tranquillity garden, and Annabel and Aidan bought me a chubby bronze Buddha one year for Mother’s Day. It was one of my greatest treasures: a gift of peace from my children. But the roses struggled, only blooming properly for the first time this year.

  Just in time to hide Annabel beneath their flouncy skirts.

  I look out of the French windows now, watching the breeze catch the delicate white petals, making them shimmy in a silent dance.

  Keep her safe for me, until I can see her again.

  * * *

  Something shifts in the back of my mind, nudging at my awareness, another memory just out of reach. I stretch to grasp it but it slips away from me. I look up and realize I’m alone again in the living room. What time is it? I glance at the grandfather clock and notice it isn’t ticking, the hands frozen and the pendulums hanging like paralyzed limbs. I’m surprised Dom hasn’t noticed; that clock is second only to his golf clubs in his ranking of precious objects. I look towards the bay window and see that the heavy green velvet drapes are closed. Is it dark already?

  What time is it? I wonder again, panicking now. Dom was taking Aidan to the park, wasn’t he? Or were they going shopping, heading into Kingston? Or was that yesterday? I feel dizzy. My head is muzzy and I can’t think straight, can’t even see clearly. Suddenly I can smell roses and it reminds me that Annabel must feel cold, so cold. I must ask Aidan if he’s done his homework yet—but where is he? And how can I ask him anything when he won’t even look at me, when every time I look at him the words die in my throat?

  I’m numb, mentally and physically, lost in the middle of a frozen wasteland. And with every day that passes, Dom and Aidan drift further away from me and I feel more alone—barely a wife and only half a mum.

  SIX

  “Hi there, you. Hug?”

  I’m on the landing upstairs waiting anxiously for Aidan to come home from school, mentally counting the steps from the bus stop at the end of our street, when I hear Lucy’s voice in the kitchen.

  Lucy March has been my best friend since we met on the twins’ first day at primary school, when Lucy’s son Jasper was starting in the same reception class. We clicked immediately and since then she’s become like part of our family. I missed seeing her at the school gates after we defected to the posh prep school, but Lucy continued to pop round whenever she could rope in an extra pair of hands to help out at Lucy’s Place, the organic deli she owns in Teddington. In the past she used to let herself in through the back door and flick on the kettle before calling out to announce her arrival, then we’d spend a happy hour or so catching up over a cuppa while the kids did their homework together, Aidan and Annabel complaining in recent times that they had far more to do than Jasper.

  I shake my head to clear my hazy thoughts as I realize I can’t actually remember the last time Lucy came round. Instinctively I know she’ll have been a huge support to me lately, and I feel tearful with gratitude without knowing exactly what she’s done. I just can’t remember. Any of it. But she’s here now, and I feel a smile spread across my face. I make my way downstairs only to freeze when I hear Aidan’s voice in the kitchen. He must have let himself in through the back door too, I think, but how is he home so soon? Or is it later than I realized?

  “Are those cookies for me? Thanks,” I hear Aidan say.

  “No probs, hon. I put in extra chunks of white chocolate especially for you.”

  “Wicked. They’re awesome.”

  I peep round the corner of the banister, reluctant to interrupt them; it’s the most relaxed I’ve seen Aidan in ages. I watch as Lucy ruffles my son’s hair, wishing I could trade places with her, wishing I could be more like her and bound in to my own kitchen, hug Aidan and start chatting away.

  I’ve often wished I could be more like Lucy: strong, easy-going, effortlessly glamorous. She’s raised her son Jasper all by herself, abandoning her bullying first husband in Devon and fleeing to London with Jasper soon after he was born. Useless waste of space, she always calls her ex, and Lucy doesn’t do waste. She crams more into her days than I’ve ever managed in a week, running Lucy’s Place and qualifying as a yoga instructor in her spare time, yet still managing to look immaculate as s
he turns up bang on time for the school run. She organizes every fundraising cake sale, every school fair, almost single-handedly, and half the dads at the school gate are in love with her.

  Lucy must really have turned heads today, I think, watching her glide between the worktop and the kitchen table. Only a teenager should look that good in skinny jeans, and her long silky hair falls like a golden curtain around her slim shoulders. Guiltily, I remember that when I first saw Lucy dash across the playground, with her long legs and perfect tan, I assumed she would be at best slightly vain and at worst a stuck-up yummy mummy. But I’ve never heard her utter a bad word about anyone. I’ve probably spent more time with her over the last few years than I have with Dom, the two of us waiting endlessly outside classrooms for the kids to be released, or hunched together on low benches in the school hall, waiting for Annabel to twirl on to the stage while Aidan and Jasper skulked towards the back row of the orchestra with their violins. So much waiting, but Lucy’s relaxed chattiness always made it fun.

  I realize how much I’ve missed our school-gate chats, and I recall how she was the only one to give me a tearful hug on the twins’ last day at the primary school they loved and Dom despised. His words float back to me from a year ago.

  “We can do better for our kids. What am I working so hard for if not to give them a step up in life? You’re too complacent. Second best just isn’t good enough.”

  I remember the row and am niggled by a sudden sense that there were others. What did we used to argue about? Was it always about the twins’ education? What else could have provoked discord in our happy life, our nice ordinary home in our nice ordinary street—the fulfilment of everything Dom and I had both dreamed of? I watch Lucy and Aidan sit together in companionable silence, and I think back to the first time I can remember feeling the cold edge of my husband’s disapproval.

  * * *

  It all started with my walks. After the difficult birth, I wasn’t able to go running for a long time, so I lost the habit and started going out walking instead, not only to burn off the baby fat but also for the sheer pleasure of seeing the twins look at the world around them and know that they were part of it.

  “But where do you go?”

  “Oh, just around. Nowhere special.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, the twins love Bushy Park. There’s a sandpit there, and a café—”

  “So you just wander around. For hours. Every day.”

  “I do other stuff as well. Clothes don’t wash themselves, you know. And funnily enough this isn’t a self-cleaning house. But it’s good for the twins to have fresh air, and—”

  “Look, I know we agreed you’d put work on hold for now, but I thought you might do something a little more productive with your time than hang out in the park all day.”

  “Where do you suggest I hang out with two lively toddlers?”

  “Perhaps you could join some kind of . . . oh, I don’t know, club, or something? Baby group. Coffee mornings. Isn’t that what stay-at-home mums do?”

  “Perhaps you could try to be just a little more patronizing?”

  I remember my prickle of irritation; I remember thinking that Dom had no idea what it was like being at home with the babies all day. It took every ounce of my energy to look after them; there wasn’t a lot left for anything more productive. Productive. What did that even mean? What was more productive than teaching our children to eat, walk, talk, play with other children and—

  “Just being honest. You’ve changed, Maddie. You even look different.”

  “I’ve become a mum. What did you expect?”

  “A little adult conversation every now and then? You know, about something other than baby milestone charts and weigh-ins at the health center. Which reminds me, I thought you were ditching those smock tops now you’ve stopped breastfeeding. I thought you’d been dieting,” he said bluntly.

  “We don’t all get to spend our evenings playing golf or going to the gym,” I said, trying to remain upbeat but pulling self-consciously at the supposedly loose-flowing tunic top that was still clinging too tightly. I caught sight of myself in the mirror over the mantelpiece, acknowledging that my heart-shaped face was rounder these days, that my new, practical shoulder-length bob needed a trim, and I couldn’t remember when I’d last worn jewelry, perfume or make-up. I’d swapped my favorite dresses for leggings and hadn’t worn anything on my feet other than Birkenstocks or soft Ugg boots for months.

  “Sure. Well, just so you know, I took on two new clients last week. Booked us a holiday in Cornwall next month to celebrate.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” I said, giving him a quick hug, overlooking his hurtful digs in my excitement. This would be our first family holiday.

  “Let’s hope so. I’ve found a hotel right opposite the beach. Five star. It’ll do us good to get away. Do you good to get back out into the world a bit.”

  * * *

  I put Dom’s cutting remarks down to worry about me being lonely, but I was far from it. Somehow I seemed to have lost touch with my old uni friends since getting married. Gabrielle had come over for our wedding, but she’d returned to Paris immediately afterwards, becoming immersed in her career as a translator, and Dom always raised an objection to anyone else I suggested inviting round. I got the feeling he wanted us to mix with different people now. I teased him about wanting to reinvent himself, but I was so busy adjusting to being a mum that I didn’t argue too strenuously. The twins were my focus, and teaching them to be part of the world around them made me happier than I’d ever been.

  “Sky. Tree. Flower. Dog. Ha, yes, woof woof,” I remember saying, laughing as Annabel sat up in the double buggy on one of our walks and did her best puppy imitation. She was always a little performer, right from her very first word lisped into the cool evening air as I wheeled the twins out for a last stroll: “Star!”

  “Yes, darling, it’s a star! Just like you.” I laughed again as she waved her hand, stretching her tiny fingers in imitation of a twinkling star.

  I laughed a lot in those early days. Life was perfect; and then suddenly it wasn’t.

  After Dom’s comments, I hesitated to mention to him that I was beginning to struggle. I called the health visitor, thinking she’d brush it off as a bout of delayed baby blues and tell me not to worry. Instead, she said that my increasingly frequent hallucinations of bad things happening were undiagnosed symptoms of postnatal depression—that the nightmarish visions of death and disaster that began to grip me every time I took the twins out were just nature’s way of helping me to rehearse what might go wrong, to prepare for potential dangers around me: a bus driver that might plough into the buggy, not seeing us crossing the road; a passing stranger who might steal the twins if I turned my head for just a split second. All I knew was that every time I looked at my children, I started to feel terror instead of love. For a time, the outside world became a place to be feared.

  I remember that dark place; I feel like I’ve gone back there now. Baby steps. That’s what the health visitor taught me. “You’re very young, you got married in a whirlwind, it’s all happened so fast—give yourself time! Just walk to the end of the road, to the post box at the end of the street. Then, tomorrow, go a little further. Maybe visit a friend for a coffee, buy a newspaper and sit in the park, let the twins enjoy the sunshine.”

  Obediently, I complied. Without telling Dom. Or was it that he didn’t ask? He was so busy preparing endless business plans for expanding his consultancy, and stalking round the house when he got a phone call saying his latest client pitch hadn’t been successful. He was preoccupied dealing with his problems, and I just dealt with mine. I didn’t want to see that look of disappointment on his face again, the one that said: I married a strong, happy woman, and now you’ve turned into a frumpy, frightened mess.

  Then, one day, weeks later, I wasn’t frightened any more. The worst thing imaginable had happened on that first family holiday in Cornwall. Annabel and Aidan, fascinate
d by their first experience of the sea, toddled away from our picnic blanket and within seconds fell face down in the waves rippling on to the shoreline. The twins were only small, but they were fast. I saw them jump up; I reached out, too late to grab them. I couldn’t prevent their excited headlong charge into the foamy white froth that beckoned irresistibly; my frantically grasping hands weren’t quick enough to stop their tiny bodies being swallowed by the cold water that tossed them around and filled their lungs, turning their skin a mottled blue in seconds.

  Dom had barely put his mobile phone down for the entire week, but for the first time in days I was glad of it, because the ambulance arrived within minutes of us scooping up the twins and working desperately to massage life back into them. They had almost drowned, but they’d survived. I’d survived. I’d stared tragedy in the face and defeated it. My hallucinations stopped overnight. It was as if, having been a whisker away from real-life tragedy, my fears evaporated. Having survived my worst nightmare, I’d banished it. I pulled myself together, enrolled the twins in swimming lessons, and vowed I’d never let them go beyond my reach again. And with each swimming trophy they won, each increasingly confident step they took, I relaxed and trusted that lightning wouldn’t strike twice.

  But falling face down in the sea is one thing; a masked killer shooting my ten-year-old daughter is a lightning strike, thunderbolts and earthquake all rolled into one. Nothing can make that go away. Somehow, I have to live with it—Dom and Aidan have to live with it. And they need me. They need me. The reminder pricks my conscience: I must try harder. Yes, I really should try to leave the house. Do the school run once in a while. Walk in the park. Maybe that would help. The park—the twins always loved it . . . Sitting on the swings, flying down the slide . . .

  For a moment, I feel stronger, almost up for the challenge, and then I look at Aidan’s slight body and shadowed eyes as he sits silently next to Lucy, building his Lego model at the kitchen table, and I feel fear crushing me once more. I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want anyone to come in. I don’t want visitors, not even Lucy. I just want my children back: the one who stared into my eyes as she died, and the one who lived but refuses to look into my eyes ever again.