All I can say is how sorry I am. I didn’t mean to hurt you; I just needed to find a way to survive. Even if that meant blaming you unfairly. I love you as much now as I did before all this, I’ve just forgotten how to show it. Now all I can do is ask your forgiveness and hope we can find a way to move on together. I nearly lost my life when you said you wanted to go home, even without us. The thought of losing you makes me feel physically sick. But in spite of this, I was hell bent on pushing you away.
And since now I’ve finally found my tongue, I want to say something about the domestic discipline thing. I still don’t agree with it, but I’ll go along with it for a couple of months, because after all that’s happened, I owe you that much. I’ll do whatever I must to try to recover what we had, but I’m scared that DD will only make it worse. You have two months to convince me otherwise.
Ange
The letter burned a hole in her pocket for the next three days, and while Jim didn’t push, she knew he was waiting for her to open up and talk. Fortunately, work took him out of the house all day, and the evenings were busy with the kids and now that he was starting early, he needed to get to bed early. Ange knew she could just give it to him, and let him read it but she wanted him to be able to do so at his leisure, and have time to think about it. She knew he’d be angry at her, both for admitting her accusations and also for hiding the extent of her depression. If he read it at work, he’d stew over it and it would build into something humongous. Saturday was the day to do it. She’d get the kids ready to go out; then give it to him to read while he was alone. Ange planned to time it so he didn’t have too long to simmer over the contents before he would have to talk to her. In the meantime, each new day brought more news of Carla. She certainly seemed to be helping him an awful lot. Ange didn’t believe for one minute that she could possibly be as helpful to each new employee. She’d never get any real work done at that rate. Ange was doing her best to stay levelheaded about the situation, but it wasn’t easy. She felt threatened and her instinct was to fight. She was wise enough to keep her opinions hidden from Jim for now and decided to get to know her enemy, to assess the real threat, if any.
*****
“Where are you off to? Do you not want me to come?” Jim asked as Ange and the kids entered the living room all bundled up in their winter woollies. Ange could see he was hurt by his exclusion from the family activity.
“No, I’m taking them out for a while so you can read this. We can talk about it when I get back.” Ange was astounded by the tremble in her voice and shake in her hand. Nervousness had come on her suddenly, making her want to withdraw the letter. She saw his face blanch, too.
“Wh-what’s in it? What’s so bad you can’t tell me to my face?” he asked. Ange kicked herself, she totally hadn’t thought about how it might look if she handed him a letter.
“It’s not that I can’t say it to you, it’s just that I thought it would be better to write it so I didn’t get in a muddle. You know what I’m like when it comes to expressing feelings.”
“Well, can’t you wait here while I read it? Please?”
“I was only going out so the kids won’t interrupt you. We’re just going up to the playground you can come up after us when you’ve read it if you like, but we won’t be long.” Ange laid what she hoped was a comforting hand on his arm for a moment and left with the children.
The cold morning cut short their visit as it wasn’t long before the children were whining and asking for hot chocolate. Jim was sitting at the table when she returned, the letter still open. He didn’t say a word to Ange, even when she said hello. But she felt his eyes following her around the kitchen as took Jack’s coat off, prepared the hot chocolate and settled the children down with a DVD. Only then did Jim acknowledge her presence, not verbally, but he signaled to her with his eyes to go upstairs. Disobeying was out of the question.
Ange assumed that Jim intended to punish her. She removed her pants and panties and waited, lying bent over the side of the bed, pillows under her hips. He was certainly taking his time. As the minutes passed, she focused on the positives. It was all out there now, her accusations, her lies and her secrecy. Ange felt oddly relieved. Scared of what was coming, but relieved. It was all out there. No more lies. No more blame. It seemed like forever before she heard his footsteps on the stairs. She saw him look at her, his features impassive. No look of desire or appreciation for her submissive gesture.
“Get dressed, I’m not spanking you. Not now, anyway, I’m too angry.”
“Jim, please, listen…”
“No you listen. You’ve had your say. You think I don’t know that you blamed me. For three fucking years, I’ve lived with your blame. And your rejection. But it was nothing, NOTHING, compared to the torture I put myself through.” Jim was pacing the floor, his hands all over the place. On minute they were in his hair, tearing at it, then his finger was pointing at Ange, then his fists were clenched. His face was red with anger and Ange knew he was fighting his urge to shout or hit something. While mainly placid, Jim had a mighty temper when pushed too far, but this was the closest she had seen him come to losing it since his football days.
“And yet you knew there was something wrong. You could have stopped it, no, should have stopped it. But you let me take all the responsibility,” he continued. “It’s not that I want to avoid my share of it, Ange. But you played on it. For years. Even without calling stop, if you’d told me this before, we could have dealt with it all together. Helped one another. But no, let the fool take the blame and Ange can be the martyr.”
Fear had rooted Ange to the spot. The tears stung her eyes and she tried to hold back. She wasn’t afraid he was going to hurt her; not physically at any rate. But this fear was something different. Terror that she had pushed him too far and ruined everything. She was afraid there would be no going back.
“And two years of depression, and medication, without telling me? Did you trust me so little? But I bet your family knew, did they?”
Ange made no attempt to answer, there was no point. She knew Jim needed to rant before he’d listen to reason.
“Did they?” he shouted. “Were they making snide comments that you were so afraid of your wife-beating husband that you had to hide your depression? Answer me.”
“N-no,” she replied, the tears now beyond checking.
“More lies. Do you take me for a bloody fool? And save your sniveling, it won’t wash. Who did you tell? Your mother? That bitch of a sister?”
“No-one, I was too fucking ashamed.”
“As well you should be, ashamed of being a sham. Do you think your guilt helped with your depression? Or our relationship? You did your best to throw it all away. I could even understand it if you had kept it all in while you were depressed. But a year later, it’s still secrets and lies. It seems I don’t know you at all.”
“Mammy?” Ava shouted from the bottom of the stairs. “Jack needs to go to the toilet.”
Ange scrambled to dress herself before Ava walked in on her half naked and crying. In truth she was relieved at the interruption. While she had expected anger, this was much, much worse than she had anticipated.
“I’ll go. Make yourself decent,” Jim snapped. “But we’re not finished on this yet, not by a long shot. You have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.”
Once Ange returned down to the children, Jim took off to the gym, leaving her stew in her misery.
Chapter Ten
By nine pm Jim still hadn’t returned. The children were already in bed, and Ange was very anxious as he hadn’t contacted her since he left, or replied to any of her texts or calls. It had all gone even more horribly than she had imagined. Ange was terrified he was over in Carla’s – maybe even berating her. It was a horrible thought and Ange felt terribly isolated. If she had been at back in Ireland, she would have packed the children in the car and gone visiting some family to pass the day. She couldn’t settle to anything.
Ange picked up a book; drop
ped it; paced the floor. Then she switched on the TV, flicked from channel to channel, and paced the floor again. When the back door finally opened that’s what she was at, pacing anxiously around the kitchen.
“Where were you?” Ange asked. She leaned against the counter, hoping this was going to be a longer discussion than the one earlier.
“All over the place, I needed to think.”
“And what conclusions did you come to?”
“Shit, I don’t know. First, I was mad as hell. I can’t believe you kept something as serious as depression from me for three bloody years. I felt cheated, like everything was a lie. Then I was vexed at myself for not seeing it and started to think I let you down, too. I just can’t believe how we went from Ange and Jim, happy married couple to strangers that shared a house. We used to be so close, but now I hardly know you. And that hurts.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s my fault.”
“You didn’t help, that’s for sure. But I started the problem that night, and I let it continue, too. I knew you blamed me afterwards, and instead of having it out with you I hid from it. I didn’t want to hear you say it out loud. I thought it would ruin us if you did. It’s ironic, it’s only now that you are ready to take responsibility for your share, that I can see how wrong I really was.”
“I’m not trying to brush the past under the carpet, but we can’t change what’s past. Can you see a way forward for us? Can we get out of this mess?”
“Do you mean am I leaving you? I’ve certainly thought about it, all day. And not for the first time, either.”
Ange inhaled sharply. Even the sound of those words struck fear in her heart. Her body tensed, she folded her arms, as if to shield her heart from the blow that it was about to receive. As if her arms could even start to protect her from her emotional vulnerability. Already Ange was imagining a return of the depression, that total sense of helplessness and inertia. She was dreading it. It had been bloody awful. Only for their home-help, an elderly, motherly woman who came in every morning, Ange would never have coped.
“Please, listen to me, before you make any decisions. I want to tell you about the depression. What it was like. Maybe you’ll understand better then. See why I couldn’t tell you.”
Jim took a bottle of wine out of the fridge and stretched across Ange to reach two glasses. Ange immediately felt relieved at this indication that he was ready to sit and listen, and she sure as hell could use a drink to help loosen her tongue. This was a period of her life she preferred to keep locked away. They sat at the kitchen table, side by side, but chairs tilted towards one another. Ange looked down at the table rather than at Jim. It was hard enough to recall this without having to maintain eye contact.
“Do you remember when Ava was born? How happy and besotted I was? The minute they put her in my arms I fell in love. And that love was like nothing else on this earth. Even the way I felt about you was nothing compared to it. I would have killed or died for her, from the very first second I held her.”
Jim smiled at the memory. “You were like a demon, you didn’t even want to share her with me, and you used to get so mad if anyone tried to give you advice. She was your baby, and you’d do it your way.”
“Exactly. I wouldn’t even let you do the night feeds, no matter how tired I was. I wanted all of her. When Jack was born I expected the same. When I was pregnant, I wondered if it was ever going to be possible for me to have enough love to share with another child. But with him, I felt nothing, it was like I was handed a stranger. At first I thought it was because he was early and I couldn’t cuddle him much, you know, because of the incubator. And then the C-section didn’t help. I still thought the bond would happen in time. But even after a week in hospital I still felt like I was handling a stranger’s child. When they told me I was fit to go home without Jack, you’d have thought I’d be upset. But I was relieved, glad to be away from that place and even glad that I wouldn’t have to be responsible for this crying, scraggly thing that I had no feelings for.”
Jim’s horror was evident on his face. Ange knew what a cold, hard bitch she must seem to him now. Not only did she deceive and betray Jim, but she had neglected her new-born baby when he was at his most vulnerable. She needed a moment to prevent herself from crying from the pain of the memories and took a long gulp of her wine. She’d started now so she felt she might as well present him with the full picture, inglorious as it was.
“Only for Mary, I’d never have got up and forced myself to go to the hospital. She bullied me out of bed every day, threatening to tell you if I didn’t go. Once I was up and dressed, it wasn’t too hard to go on autopilot to the hospital, but by Jaysus, getting out of that bed every day was worse than being in labor. Mary would run a bath, and nag and nag me to get out of bed. She even took away the bedclothes some days so I couldn’t stay there. And Mary called the taxi every day, so I had no excuse. But even when I got there, I’d only stay and do one feed and one nappy change, out of duty, not out of love. The rest of the time, I’d sit in the café across from the hospital. When they said that they were going to let him out, I was petrified. I didn’t want him home. I didn’t want my own son.” The tears she had tried to check were now flowing freely down her cheeks. She noticed Jim’s hand on hers. Unaware of how or when it had got there, Ange took comfort from the physical contact. He was keeping quiet, so obviously he wanted her to continue. She fished in her pocket for a tissue, wiped her eyes and nose and carried on.
“When we got Jack home it was worse, he was a slow feeder and it had been much easier to express the milk than feed him directly. He didn’t like the boob after the bottle, either. It was harder for him to suck and he got frustrated and cranky. So he was rejecting me just as much as I was rejecting him, or that’s how I saw it at the time, which was stupid. A six week old baby doesn’t reject anyone, it was my misery and guilt that made me think that. But it gave me another excuse. So I went back to expressing and was only too glad to hand him over to you and Mary and anyone else to feed. After another two months of this carry on, Mary got totally pissed off with me. She’d been telling me to see a doctor for weeks. But she took matters in her own hands and made an appointment at the doctor’s. She said she’d leave if I didn’t go. She forced me to let her come with me, said she wouldn’t believe I’d been and told the truth unless she came, so she, Ava, Jack and I all went in to the small little room. And there in the doctor’s surgery she spilled out the list of my failings and then left me to it. I was never as embarrassed as I was listening to her version of how I’d been behaving. But I just hadn’t the energy to drag myself out of it. The thing was I didn’t think I was depressed. I wasn’t sad or didn’t burst into tears or have the baby blues. I just felt nothing. Dead.”
“Jesus, Ange. How could I not have known this? I knew you were in crappy form, but I’d no idea how bad it was.”
“Even after six weeks on the tablets I didn’t feel any better. Nor had I bonded with Jack. His crying was just proof of his neediness and made me feel like I was trapped in my own version of hell. I remember driving out to Dun Laoighre and sitting on the beach, wondering what it would be like if I just walked out into the water and didn’t come back. I seriously considered it. The only thing that held me back was Ava. I wouldn’t leave her behind, and I couldn’t bring her with me. But that’s the day that the crying started. After that I went back to the doctor and got different tablets. I never told her about the beach incident, though. I was afraid she’d send me to hospital. It was like starting all over again, there was another month of waiting for these tablets to work. Then the dosage had to be upped and finally when they got it right, bit by bit, the lead weight began to lift. It took ages though, about another four or five months, before I started to feel like I could cope properly. I was coming down off the tablets, on half dosage, when Jack got the pneumonia and had to go back to hospital. That set me right back. I felt so guilty about how I had let him down, and how I had never bonded with him. It took that to
make me realize that I really did love him. I became totally irrational that he might die, just because I deserved to lose him. Even when he was out of danger, I was terrified to leave the ward, even for the loo or a shower, in case he mightn’t be alive when I got back.”
Ange paused for another gulp of her wine. Jim squeezed her hand slightly. She couldn’t believe how silent he was keeping. Normally he’d interrupt her every two minutes when she told him something, either to ask a question or throw in a quip. She didn’t think she’d ever held the floor with him for so long in all the years she’d known him. She blew her nose and continued.
“Two months later, Jack was all better and we were bonding well. He was a much more relaxed baby then. Of course it was because I was more relaxed with him and cuddled him more. He was babbling away, smiling and responding to my voice, even showing a preference for me over Mary. And I was so grateful to God for letting him get better and to Jack for seeming to forgive me. But then what baby doesn’t love his mother? Even if she’s as bad as I had been. I was getting back on my feet, done with the tablets, but my maternity leave was nearly finished. I told the school I’d be ready to go back to work, and they landed bombshell of the suspension. It seemed like everything was conspiring to fuck me up, and I was back on full dosage for a third time and back to struggling to get out of bed and face the day. I know you think I shut you out, but it wasn’t you I was running from, it was me. My life. I didn’t know my arse from my elbow then. I needed to blame you because blaming me would have meant me floating in Dun Laoighre Harbor. Then I just got in the habit of it. I swear, Jim, I know you think I was moaning about you to my family, but I was so bloody ashamed of myself that I wouldn’t have dreamt of telling anyone. Mary had suffered post-natal depression herself, and she spotted it straight away, but she would never have said or listened to a bad word about you. Sure you charmed the pants off her. For everyone else I did my best to put on a face, if they saw through it, they never told me. And that’s the ugly tale of the last few years in a nutshell. I thought that by moving here and starting fresh, I’d never have to tell you all this; that our problems would magically disappear, but even though, it’s been better, some of them still haunt us.”
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