Silent Child

by Sarah A. Denzil

  I was beginning to have doubts. The duke was a sick man. He had broken the law, perhaps multiple times, but I was no longer sure that he had taken and abused my Aiden.

  I told Jake my thoughts over breakfast. We had a rare morning without any family liaison officers, as they had been called into the station for some sort of meeting. I was sure that it was to report back about us. They were spies.

  “It has to be him.” Jake pushed his glasses up his nose, as he tended to do when he was anxious. “He had all those pictures on his laptop. I bet he’s so rich he can pay people off.”

  I cringed. “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  “I can’t stand the thought of Aiden’s kidnapper out there being allowed to live his life. Free to do whatever he wants.”

  “Well, if Aiden would man up and open his gob, none of this would be going on.”

  I quietly seethed as I buttered my toast.

  “It’s true though, isn’t it?” Jake said, clearly not understanding when to shut his own gob. “All Aiden has to do is talk.”

  “I think he’s blocking it all out. I’m not sure how much he remembers at this point,” I said. “And I’m not convinced that it was the duke. He’s too old. If he did do it, he had a lot of help. Maybe someone worse used his money to set the whole thing up. Maybe it was someone in the village.” My stomach churned. I set my toast back down on the plate.

  “You need to eat something,” Jake said. “The baby needs you to be healthy.”

  “I know.” I picked off a corner of the crust and ate it. It tasted of nothing.

  “Is the nursery all set up?” Jake asked.

  “We set up most of it before… before Aiden came home. But we haven’t got all the toys and clothes out of the packaging.”

  “Maybe you can do that today,” Jake suggested. “I’ve got to take the car in for its MOT so I’ll be out and about most of the day. Besides, It’ll be a nice reminder that you have two children, not one.”

  My face flushed with a mix of shame and anger. It was true that my thoughts were mostly concerned with Aiden, but it was unfair of him to actually say it out loud. The last thing I needed was to be reminded that I was already a bad mother to the little girl growing in my womb.

  When I flashed Jake a stern glance he only shrugged his shoulders and went, “What? Sorry, love, you know I speak my mind, and I have to say that it’s all true. What’s happened is truly awful, but for how long as we going to put our lives on hold?” He stood up and cleared away his cereal bowl.

  “Are you serious?” I ripped another crust from my toast and angrily threw it back on the plate.

  “Yes, I’m serious. Look, I understand that Aiden’s investigation comes first but… but you’re hardly even the woman I married. You’re a mess, Emma. You’re strung out, agitated. Irritable. In fact, your temper is downright awful. The way you screamed at those reporters, well—”

  “You watched the video.”

  “The whole world watched the video. They all think you’re unhinged, for fuck’s sake. And the way you don’t even see that Aiden is not just a traumatised kid—”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on. You read Amy’s article. I know I didn’t know you and Aiden all that well before the abduction, but you already admitted how a lot of what she said was true. Aiden was a badly behaved child—”

  “No!”

  “You’ve ignored all the bad bits and built him up to be some sort of angel. But it’s not true, is it? He was out of control.”

  “Shut up!”

  “I would, honey, but you have to hear this. You have to wake up and realise that our house is not going to be safe while Aiden is in it. We can’t bring a newborn home with him living here! He could be working with the kidnapper for all we know. Teenagers build some weird fucking alliances.”

  “Jake!”

  “I’m sorry. I hate to say these things but they need to be said.”

  I let out a gasp. My hands were gripping the table so hard that my nail had bent back. I placed the finger in my mouth and sucked it while Jake finished rinsing his cereal bowl and moved back to the kitchen table.

  I removed my finger. “How long have you thought these things?”

  He took my injured nail in his hand, gentle as always. “Since we brought Aiden home. I had hoped he would snap out of this fugue, but, honestly, Emma, I don’t think he ever will. I think he has something wrong with him that you can’t fix. Maybe no one can. But don’t you think he should get help from professionals? Don’t you think you’re being selfish by keeping him here in your house?”

  Though my finger smarted from the bent nail, that wasn’t the pain that brought tears to my eyes. Jake went to fetch me a plaster while I sat and stewed in the sourness of his words. Was he right?

  Aiden stepped into the kitchen and silently moved around. He took bread from the cupboard and placed it in the toaster. He took the butter out of the fridge and a knife from the drawer, and he waited by the toaster staring out of the kitchen window as casually and as eerily as a sleepwalker.

  “I hurt my finger,” I said. “Jake’s getting me a plaster. Are you having toast for breakfast?” I began to ramble again, and the more I talked, the more my voice started to crack. “It’s weird without Denise or Marcus here making us cups of tea, isn’t it? They’ve gone to the police station for a meeting. They’re working really hard to figure out who took you. I wish you could tell me. You’d save a lot of people a lot of time and effort if you would talk to us. I know it’s hard, sweetheart, but you have to try.”

  The toaster popped up and Aiden calmly removed the toast with his fingers. If the bread was hot, he didn’t show it. He buttered the bread and placed the knife in the sink. I watched, with tears streaming down my face, as my mechanical son ate his toast without even acknowledging I was there.

  Was Jake right? Was I being selfish keeping him at home?

  29

  Jake’s words continued to play on my mind throughout the day. I ended up doing as he asked. I went into the nursery and I opened cardboard boxes of stuffed toys, and plastic wrappers filled with brand new baby grows. Carefully, I folded the tiny items and placed them in the shelves of the little wardrobe Jake had put together a month ago. It was only as I was collecting all the empty wrappers and boxes that I saw the doll Amy had given me.

  There it was with its perfect porcelain skin, mocking me through the plastic. The worst thing about seeing that doll was that it brought all the emotions rushing back to me. I had been so grateful to Amy for buying that present, and I’d felt so strong and so ready to have this baby. Now all those feelings were absent, leaving me with confused rage that I didn’t know how to direct. I wasn’t excited to meet my new child, I was terrified. With Aiden here the balance had tipped. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to find enough love in my withered heart?

  In a fit of rage, I drove my heel down onto the plastic and smashed through the porcelain. The crack was so sickening that I gasped and retracted my foot as quickly as I’d stamped it. When I backed away there was a tiny shard of the porcelain still stuck in the bottom of my foot. I hopped backwards and tripped, landing on my backside with a jolt. Instinctively, I reached around and cradled my bump with both hands. That was when I saw Aiden standing in the doorway watching me.

  “Help Mummy up,” I said. I don’t know why I said it like that. I’d stopped thinking of him as a small boy a few days ago when I realised he was filling out after eating decent food and getting more exercise. But the way I laid sprawled out on the ground made a sense of desperation wash over me and I guess I couldn’t help but try to endear myself to him by calling myself ‘Mummy’.

  He stared while I reached out. He stood five feet away in the doorway, watching, with the same impassive expression as always. Blank, like a doll. And yet… was there part of him that was mocking me? That empty expression with the slow-blinking eyelids. That straight line he ke
pt his mouth in at all times. The way his hands fell at his sides, never gesturing, hardly ever moving. It was all designed to mock me. He was testing my patience. For some reason I was so sure that he was doing all this on purpose. Why did I think it? Why? It was an awful thought. Aiden had been through hell and yet here I was considering that it was all a guise to mock me.

  “Aiden,” I said. My voice deepened and took on a stern note. “Help me up. Take my hand, and help me up.”

  I already had a plaster on my finger and now my foot was bleeding from where I had cut it on that stupid doll. If Jake was here he’d admonish my clumsiness, telling me how I made him worry and how he hated to leave me alone, especially with Aiden in the house.

  “Help me onto my feet,” I pleaded. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. Do you understand me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I growled under my breath in frustration as I rolled myself forward, trying to manoeuvre myself with an injured foot. First, I had to get the shard out of my foot. I needed both feet to get me back up. So I struggled to reach my own toes in order to pull the shard of porcelain out. By now the nursery felt more like a sauna than it did my house. Stringy, damp hairs clustered on my forehead. The maternity dress I was wearing clung to my back.

  “If you’d just help me this would be a lot fucking easier!” I blurted out. Why wasn’t he helping me? He understood other orders. He knew to shut the kitchen cupboard doors and to put his plate in the sink after dinner. He did anything Jake asked him to. He always listened to him. Why wouldn’t he help me now?

  Aiden took a step back as I finally reached the soles of my feet. Gritting my teeth, I gripped the shard with my thumb and forefinger and yanked it out, letting out a breath of both relief and pain. Then I threw the offending article away and lay down on the carpet to catch my breath.

  He was still there a moment later when I examined the wound and determined it wasn’t too bad. There was blood, but it would be fine with a rinse and a plaster. Some of it had got on the carpet, which was unfortunate. I’d need to clean that up before Jake came home.

  I winced as I put the injured foot on the floor to help push myself back up. I huffed and puffed as I struggled, and all the time my son stood and watched. By the time I was on my feet I was fuming.

  “Get out of my sight,” I hissed.

  That he obeyed. He scuttled down the hallway like a frightened spider. I shook my head. None of it made sense. Why wouldn’t Aiden help me? After the frightening conversation I’d had with Jake there was a part of me wondering about whether Aiden actually intended to hurt me. Or at least to watch me suffer. Why else would he ignore my one request for help? I threw the thought away. Surely if he wanted to hurt me he’d just missed a perfect opportunity. I’d been helpless. Yes, he stood and watched me struggling without attempting to help, but he hadn’t actively attempted to cause harm to my wellbeing.

  I sighed. That sounded so messed up. I was actually pleased that my son hadn’t attempted to harm me while I was vulnerable. Was this what my life had come to? Gratitude for not being strangled to death while I struggled on the floor like an upturned beetle?

  I limped into the bathroom and rinsed my foot in the bath before finding a plaster to apply to the cut. Thought I wasn’t a medical expert I felt fairly certain that it didn’t need stitches and hoped that the bleeding would stop when the plaster was affixed. Then I went downstairs to collect cleaning products to wash the carpet. I was alone with Aiden that day. With the media finally beginning to leave us alone, and the police more interested in the duke than Jake, the need for the family liaison officers being around us throughout the day wasn’t as great. I was glad of it, and I believed they probably were too.

  When I went back upstairs, Aiden was in his room. I paused for a moment, but then I decided to pop my head in and see what he was doing.

  Nothing.

  That’s what he was doing. Nothing. Not watching a film on the small flat-screen TV we bought for him. Not drawing using the nice pens and pencils that cost me a fortune in the arts and crafts shop in the village. He certainly wasn’t reading any of the books Jake gave him, or even throwing the ball Rob had brought him. He was sitting and staring out of the window.

  “What do you see out there, Aiden?” I asked. “Is it him? Is it the man who took you? Do you see him now? Tell me what he looks like. Tell me, please. Draw his face.” I limped into the room, picked up a drawing pad from his desk and grabbed a pencil. I hurried across the room to where Aiden sat and took hold of his hand, forcing his fingers out of their tight fist to make him hold the pencil. “Draw him. I know you can. Ten years, Aiden. Ten years. You know his face. You know who it is. Draw him.”

  With a force I didn’t know he had, Aiden ripped the paper from my hand, and threw the pad and pencil down onto the carpet. Then, silently, he stood up and walked away from me.

  *

  It took a good hour on my knees to get the stains out of the carpet. Afterwards, I collected up the broken doll, as well as all the empty wrappers from the many packages for the new baby, and tidied up the nursery. It was perfect. We’d gone for striped yellow wallpaper with a border of farm animals. The cot was made of pine, and nestled inside was a tiny mattress and a soft white blanket. Above the cot hung a mobile of colourful stars made out of glittering metallic fabric. Before Aiden had returned, Jake and I had spent a fortune on matching the nursery curtains with the wallpaper and carpet, as well as setting up the perfect wardrobe and a high-quality changing table.

  I stood in the same spot Aiden had watched me struggle to get up from the floor and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was done. The room was ready for the new arrival. I stroked my stomach and breathed in the smell of the new room. The cleaning product had lingered, but underneath I could smell the plastic scent of new furniture. It was a pleasant and fresh smell. The room was airy and bright with a large window letting in the sun. I closed the door and started on that night’s dinner. We’d been living on convenience food for the week: fish fingers and breaded chicken cooked from frozen, with oven chips and ketchup. Today I decided to make a stew with some beef Jake had brought home from the butcher’s the day before.

  The air was fragrant with rich stock and bay leaves by the time Jake came home.

  “Well, isn’t this a sight. My wife barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen,” he teased.

  “Don’t get used to it,” I chastised, though it was nice to do something special for him for a change. I’d been so confused by Rob’s return to Bishoptown that it was nice to feel like a wife again. Though I would never conform to social stereotypes—especially not sexist ones—it was reassuring to have a role again. Wife. Better than ‘failed mother’.

  “Did you get the nursery sorted?” he asked.

  “Oh, Jake, it looks so pretty. I’d forgotten how beautiful the wallpaper was.”

  “Yeah, and it should be. It cost a fortune! I’m going to nip up and have a look before tea’s ready.”

  Like an excited puppy, Jake bounded out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I smiled to myself as his heavy footsteps hit each board. It was nice to see him excited about the baby again. There was a time I had worried that he’d changed his mind about having kids, especially when he became so freaked out about my pregnant body. But here he was, bouncing around, hardly able to wait to see the finished nursery. It was nice. It reminded me why I loved him.

  “Emma!”

  The urgency of his voice made me drop the wooden spoon into the stew. Beef gravy splattered across my chest.

  “Emma, come here!”

  My stomach lurched. What was wrong? Jake sounded upset. No, he sounded angry and… what? Afraid? I hurried away from the oven with my heart pounding. What was happening? My breath came out in ragged gasps as I limped up the stairs. I struggled on my injured foot down the hall and into the nursery.

  “What the fuck happened?” Jake said, pointing down at the cot.

  “I… I…” There were no words.

&nbs
p; “Still think it’s safe to bring a newborn baby back to the house with that boy living here?”

  “I…” Why couldn’t I speak?

  Jake stormed out of the room, leaving me to stare down at the destroyed mobile. It had been cut up with scissors and strewn across the brand new blanket. And across the white blanket was a spray of red paint that mimicked blood all too well.

  30

  The day of the flood was the day I had realised that my life was not under my own control. So you would think that no matter what happened, I would be able to cope with the idea that I can’t control the world around me, only myself. But I don’t think that anyone can deal with that. Maybe after hours of meditation you might be able to convince yourself that you’re at peace, but I’m not sure I can believe it. Staring down at the red paint splattered all over the brand new crib for my unborn child, I realised once again that I was not in control of anything, especially not my son.

  It took some convincing to get Jake to go to work on Monday morning. The truth is that I wanted him out of the house. He’d spent the night tossing and turning, pulling the duvet angrily around him, sighing and leaving his unspoken words dangling between us. There was no way I wanted him around Aiden in that mood. It’d be like pouring water on a chip-fat fire.