Let Her Go

by Let Her Go (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  The next morning, she walked into the kitchen. Her parents looked as if they hadn’t slept – their eyes were red and puffy, with dark shadows. Lou could feel the air of defeat surrounding them both. She watched them for a moment until they suddenly realised she was there. Her mum stood and rushed towards her. ‘Lou —’

  ‘Don’t.’ Lou held up her hand. ‘I need to see Nadia, I want to talk to her myself.’

  There were no protests. ‘OK, darling,’ her mum said. ‘I’ll call her.’

  Lou nodded, looking at the floor, and watched as a tear splashed on the tile next to her toe. She turned around and walked out again.

  * * *

  Lou hadn’t slept, even for a moment. She knew this for certain because she had watched the digital clock next to her bed change, minute by minute, until she heard the clunk of the pipes that meant her dad had turned on the shower. She waited ten minutes until she knew he’d be finished, then went into her bathroom and showered too. If she was honest, she didn’t really want to go any more, but she had to. She’d made such a fuss about it, caused so much hurt, and now everything had been arranged. Zoe was scared, Lou could tell from her desperate hugs, as if she was clutching onto Lou to stop herself from falling. She turned away to hide her tears, but Lou could see traces of them on her face.

  Once she had dressed, Lou went through to the kitchen. Her dad was already there, wearing jeans and a checked shirt, freshly shaved. He was sitting at the table, eating toast spread with marmalade. There was a crumb at the corner of his mouth, shining orange in the light from the pendants hanging above the table. Lou wanted to reach over and flick the crumb away. Instead she smiled a little, then pointed to the corner of her own mouth. Her dad quickly wiped his face.

  ‘All gone?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘All gone.’

  ‘Did you sleep OK?’

  ‘Yeah, not bad.’

  ‘Can I get you some breakfast?’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ She walked to the pantry and scanned the plastic tubs filled with different cereals, then chose the muesli. The last thing she wanted to do was eat, but if she didn’t he’d know how uncertain she was about doing this. What did she really think would happen? She wanted some answers. But to what questions? What could she ask that wouldn’t make her sound selfish? ‘How could you do this to me?’ That would make it sound like her mum and dad were terrible parents, and Lou knew that really they weren’t. She needed to find where she belonged amongst all this confusion, but she was frightened of pulling too far away from her parents in case she stretched their relationship so far that it broke.

  ‘Is Mum coming?’

  He sighed. ‘No, I don’t think so. She – we – thought it might be better to give you the space to do this without worrying about her feelings.’

  ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘Yes, darling, she’s fine. Don’t worry about her, or me. We’re grown-ups, we know today is important for you, and we knew it would happen one day.’

  Lou took the yoghurt from the fridge and added two dollops to her bowl, then sat down opposite her dad. Without looking up, he lifted the business section out of the paper and slid the rest over to her, then raised his eyes a little and smiled at her. Lou grinned, then looked down at the table to hide her sudden tears. She stirred her muesli, then brought the spoon to her mouth. She felt sick. Would it have been better not to know? If she hadn’t broken in to her mum’s work all those months ago, this would never have happened. She had been so stupid; she should have said no to Theo when he asked her to get the drugs. And where was he now? Funny how quickly people deserted you when things got tough. She wished she could go back to that day and, instead of telling him to pull into the car park of the practice, make him take her home. Then she would never have found out. But even as she thought it, Lou knew she didn’t really mean it. She had to go through with today, because even if she’d never uncovered the truth, this secret had always been there, drifting around the house, and ever so softly slipping between them. The only way to bring them close together again, to make herself whole, was to clear those spaces by finding out the truth.

  * * *

  They arrived too soon. Lou wasn’t ready. They had driven without speaking; she hadn’t even complained that her dad had listened to an AM talkback show, because she knew that neither of them really cared what it was as long as it filled the silence in the car. She had thought it would take longer, thought that each moment would stretch out and she’d have plenty of time to work out what she was going to say. But the city was already behind them and they were climbing over the scarp, high into the hills.

  Nadia had moved back to Western Australia just over a year ago. Lou hadn’t been to visit her aunt at all, but she knew that Zoe had. Lou had overheard her parents whispering about it, about how Nadia had moved into a run-down old house in the same street that she’d lived before, when Lou was a baby, and that Eddie had stayed in Sydney. Lou also realised that it was when Nadia moved back that the fights between her parents had started. And when she herself had started to unravel.

  The car shuddered as they drove up the long dirt driveway. The single-storey house ahead of them was made of timber, surrounded by native bush. Gum trees towered over the roof, cluttering the gutters with clumps of leaves. A wooden deck surrounded the house, with a faded red hammock swaying between two of the supporting posts. Cerise blooms of bougainvillea clambered over the fences, and puffs of yellow wattle flowers littered the few steps up to the house. The deck was dulled with dust.

  Her dad switched off the engine, and the car ticked while Lou sat motionless in the passenger seat. ‘Here we are.’

  She nodded, then undid her seatbelt. Her dad did the same and got out of the car, then came round to her side and opened the door for her. She took a deep breath, swung out her legs and stood up.

  He hugged her as they stood beside the car, looking at the house. ‘I’ll come up with you, then I’ll go for a drive,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long, I’ll just give you some time to yourselves to talk. Call me if you need me back sooner.’

  Lou tried to smile at him. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Her foot slipped a little as they trudged up towards the house. Just as they started to climb the wooden steps, the front door opened. Nadia was dressed in dark blue jeans as worn and soft as her face, looking far older than Lou remembered; but then again, it had been years since she’d seen her. Her fair hair was tied back in a ponytail with wispy grey hairs around her temples, and she held onto the door as if she might fall without its support. Lou stopped moving, unsure what to do: shake her hand, kiss her politely on the cheek, or run to her. She looked up at her dad, who put his arm around her and walked with her a step closer. As she looked back into her aunt’s eyes, she saw Nadia’s chin begin to twitch, and she no longer had a choice. She ran up the steps into her embrace.

  * * *

  Lou sat on the edge of the dining chair and looked around. A potbelly stove was in the centre of the space and the smell of years of woodsmoke lingered in the room. There was no television. In one corner of the room were two wicker couches on either side of a wooden coffee table. Beside one of the couches was a tall bookcase, the old-fashioned type with locked glass doors at the top. It was crammed with books, horizontal stacks piled on top of the vertical rows. Two frayed rugs covered the floorboards: one under the coffee table, one under the dining table where Lou now sat. Nadia fussed behind her in the kitchen, which was small, with wooden cupboards. Utensils, blackened around the edges, dangled from a row of hooks above the old oven.

  Nadia walked over and put two mismatched side plates down on the dining table, then returned with a white teapot and two mugs. ‘I made a cake,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know if you’d be hungry. Do you like tea? I did buy some lemonade, if you’d prefer. I didn’t know what you liked …’ She smiled sadly.

  ‘Tea is good, thanks.’ Lou squirmed in he
r seat.

  Nadia was back in the kitchen now. ‘I hope it tastes OK, the cake. I just iced it but I think it was still a bit warm so I’m praying it hasn’t run too much. Hopefully it still tastes nice, anyway. It’s lemon. From the garden. I always have so many lemons and limes and I don’t know what to do with them all. When your cousins …’ She paused. ‘When Harry and the girls were little, I used to make them homemade lemonade. But now … it’s not the same on my own. But I like the quiet, you know. Your uncle Eddie, he needs to be in the city for work. That’s why he stayed in Sydney, he’ll visit when he can …’ She looked out the window.

  Lou nodded. ‘I’m sure the icing will be fine.’

  Nadia brought the cake over on a plate, then sat down opposite Lou. ‘Would you like some?’

  ‘Please.’ The last thing she wanted was cake, but she could see how hard Nadia was trying.

  Lou watched her cut a big slice. She knew she wouldn’t be able to eat it; her mouth was dry. She watched Nadia’s hand as she gripped the knife, then looked down at her own, searching for similarities, shared imperfections. The way Nadia frowned as she tried to lift the slice of cake onto the small plate without dropping crumbs was the way she herself frowned. How could she not have noticed it before? Because her parents had kept her away from Nadia so she couldn’t work out the truth. As her anger resurfaced, although she was no longer sure who she should be furious at, Lou twirled her ankle then tapped her foot, her ballet flat wiggling. How dare they all keep this from her?

  ‘Here.’ Nadia slid the plate towards Lou, then cut herself a slice. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Do you remember our old house?’ Nadia said suddenly.

  ‘No,’ mumbled Lou.

  ‘No. You wouldn’t. It was close to here.’ Nadia gazed at Lou with sad eyes. ‘Louise. I never wanted it to be like this, you know?’

  Lou shrugged. ‘It’s not your fault. Mum never wanted me to see you.’

  Nadia shook her head slowly, then took a small piece of cake from her plate with her fingers and stared at it. ‘It was hard. Hard for us all.’ She suddenly raised her head. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  Nadia stood up again, disappeared briefly down the hallway, then came back with a while muslin bag, tied with a ribbon at the top. ‘Here,’ she said, then sat down again.

  Lou looked at the bag, then untied the ribbon and looked inside. There was a solid silver chain-link bracelet, laden with charms. Lou frowned, and looked up at Nadia.

  ‘On your first Christmas, I don’t know if you still have it, but I gave you a present, a bracelet with a charm on it.’

  Lou nodded, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Yes, it’s always been in my mum’s – Zoe’s – jewellery box. It’s too small for me now, though.’

  Nadia smiled. ‘It would be. You were so tiny then, I got the smallest bracelet I could. I bought you a new charm every Christmas; there are another sixteen here. I was worried I’d lose them so I put them all on a new bracelet for you. I should have sent them to your mum and dad every year, but …’ Her voice trailed off.

  Lou’s eyes filled with tears as she handled the heavy, cool charms. A teddy bear, a horse, a little house with a door that opened. She spoke in a hoarse whisper as Nadia helped her fasten the bracelet around her wrist. ‘Did Mum tell you not to contact me?’

  Nadia’s voice cracked. ‘No, no. This wasn’t your mum’s fault. She tried to keep me involved, sent me pictures and videos of you, said I could come and visit you. It was my fault.’

  Lou spoke loudly now. ‘Don’t defend her. She should have told me. I heard her, she told Dad that she wished they’d never done it, that they’d never had me.’

  ‘Oh, Louise.’ Nadia leaned over the table and put her hand on Lou’s. ‘She didn’t mean that. I’m absolutely certain she didn’t mean that. This … situation has been so hard on us all. There are so many things I regret – and I’m sure your mum feels the same – but you are not one of them! We could have done so many things differently, not been so naive. I … I thought I could just detach myself from you, think of you as my niece, myself as a babysitter. But as soon as I was pregnant, that was it. I just couldn’t stop myself thinking of you as anything but my child. The day I had to hand you over …’ She sat back again, held her hands palm to palm, then shook her head. ‘That was the most devastating moment of my life. Letting you go.’

  Lou looked up to the ceiling and tried to blink back her tears. ‘Then why? Why did you? I hear you say that but all I know is that you just shut yourself off from me. I saw the court order – you had the chance to see me, for us to have some kind of relationship – the court said we could spend weekends and holidays together, I could have known you, known Charlotte and Violet and Harry instead of having no one.’ She looked back at Nadia, into eyes fringed by fair lashes like her own. ‘But you didn’t. You gave me up again and I don’t understand why!’

  ‘I didn’t want to!’

  ‘But you did! You ran off to Singapore and never came back! You had me, then you let me go, then you had me again and then you did it all over again! No wonder Mum and Dad hate you! You shouldn’t have done this to me, to us!’ Lou stood up and gripped the edge of the table, still looking at Nadia. ‘You have no idea, do you, no idea what you did to me.’

  ‘Oh, Louise, you were just a baby …’

  Lou gritted her teeth. Did she really not understand? ‘I don’t even know why I came here!’

  ‘Louise —’

  Lou’s face was streaming with tears now. ‘Did you think that we could just pick up where we left off?’

  ‘I didn’t … You were the one who wanted to see me! I would never have barged in and expected anything from you, I would never have disrupted your life like that if you —’ Nadia’s face was full of panic, and Lou could see how desperate she was to explain, but Lou didn’t understand.

  ‘So it’s my fault?’

  Nadia stood up and came round towards her. ‘No, no, of course not, that’s not —’

  ‘Don’t come near me!’ Lou screamed. She could barely breathe; her chest was tight and she felt the familiar tingle around her mouth and in her fingers that told her she needed to get away, to calm down. Nadia’s face loomed, distorted, and the space around it blurred. All Lou could hear now was the sound of her own blood whooshing in her ears, and the air whistling into her lungs and rushing out again too quickly. The room began to spin. She staggered backwards a few steps, then turned around and wrenched open the front door. She had to get out of here, away from the lies and the self-pity. She heard Nadia shouting, ‘Louise! Come back! Where are you going?’

  Lou jumped down from the deck; without thinking about what she was doing, she ran down the driveway, avoiding the fallen branches and tree roots that jutted into her path. Nadia was still calling behind her, but Lou wasn’t listening any more. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to clear the tears that continued to pour out. At the end of the driveway she turned right, away from the direction her dad had driven them from the city. Where had he gone? They had all passed her around like a doll, a toy, pushed her and pulled her, and they were still doing it, even now. Lou kept running, though her calves and hamstrings burned on the steep road. Her flat shoes flapped and threatened to slip off as she ran. When she reached the top of the hill, she turned a corner and saw a clearing in the bush ahead of her. She stopped, gasping for breath.

  She knew where she was. It was the place from the photo. Mundaring Weir. The dam where the body on the news was found, floating in the still, calm water.

  Trying to catch her breath, she began walking towards the lookout on the hairpin bend ahead of her, listening to the loose dirt grinding under her shoes, the cries of the birds around her, and the vast, watery silence ahead. She reached the lookout and leaned on the railing. Below her, the water was still, and it stretched out across and along the valley. The massive concrete wall of the dam seemed much bigger than in the images she’
d seen. The water level was low; the sheer wall, stained with water levels from years before, dropped away into the lake. Lou thought about that man, the one whose body was found here, wondered what he was thinking before he fell. Or jumped. She looked along the length of the dam wall, the round white building in the centre, and the flimsy fence on either side.

  She turned and walked quickly away from the lookout, down some steps and onto the path that formed the top of the wall, the same path that she’d been on with Nadia in the photo. Where was the exact spot that it had been taken? It seemed important to find it. She kept moving, looking around for something she recognised. She had stared at the photo for so long that it was etched in her mind, impossible to forget.

  ‘Louise!’ The cry echoed around her in the still air. The birdsong paused as her own name repeated and faded in the vast hollow of the dam. Now she felt it again. The memory of being here.

  ‘Louise!’

  Lou looked back. Nadia was running along the path towards her, and behind Nadia was Lachlan. Nadia must have called him as she ran after Lou.

  ‘Go away!’ she yelled. ‘Just leave me alone!’

  ‘Come back. Please, Louise, just stop, stay right there!’

  Lou covered her face with her hands and screamed. Why did they do this to her? What did Nadia care? She hadn’t cared enough before, she had just disappeared with her other kids, her other family, and forgotten about her. And her dad, he was no better. Lying to her, along with the woman who called herself Mum, who hadn’t even bothered to come out here with them and stand up to Nadia and fight for her daughter. She’d had it, with all of them. With her friends. With Ross and counselling. This wasn’t her fault. They had done this to her. They all said that everything they had done had been for her, for Lou. But that wasn’t how it had started. At the beginning, she was just an idea, a whisper of an imagined person. A dream. When did her story even begin? Her story began not at her birth, not even at her conception, but before that, at a moment of grief, at the agony of loss. And what was ever in it for Nadia? People didn’t do things out of altruism, not really. People were selfish, Lou knew that. Nothing they ever did was completely about someone else, never mind an unborn child: that was just something people told themselves so they wouldn’t have to admit their real reasons. Even saints did things because, ultimately, they wanted to end up in heaven. Nadia did it to prove something, to gain something. To be a martyr.