All That Was Left Unsaid

by Jacquie Underdown

  But Tina didn’t hate him. And she certainly didn’t blame him. She was emotionless. Numb. A meat body without a heart. Her husband needed to heal and that required love. Touch. Feelings. All the things she could no longer give him.

  And so, Tina was left alone, comfortable in her fabricated world. She didn’t re-emerge into reality again until years later.

  Chapter 34

  Isabelle drove through the frosty streets of Launceston, heater set to high. A pretty, old, undulating city that held onto many historic buildings. The sunlight was muted, not like bright Queensland days, and it dulled the hue of the flanking structures and cloudy, grey sky above.

  Not that Isabelle noticed any of that. Since arriving nine weeks ago with her parents, in the deepest, darkest depths of her grief, where her body was consumed by a pain she had never believed possible let alone bearable, where she had to actively choose to keep going each second, she hadn’t noticed much at all.

  Life was a series of motions. Every one of them had a steep mountain at their foot. She stayed at her parents’ home, the same house from her childhood, the same bedroom, and she went about her day barely receptive to the happenings around her. Her mum tried to get her out of the house for walks when the sun was doing its best to shine. But nothing stopped the relentless cold that wouldn’t leave her bones. Her Dad tried to cheer her up by cooking her favourite childhood meals. But nothing had taste.

  Isabelle gently gripped the steering wheel and drove, adhering to the commands of traffic lights and stop signs and giving way when needed. But she wasn’t present, not completely. Her mind was protecting itself from the truth. Mostly, her mind was protecting itself from the injustice. The injustice of Juliette’s death was the most difficult aspect to it all. Of all the people to have suffered such a pointless, heinous death, it had to be the person who least deserved it. Juliette.

  Juliette had been such a great kid. A diligent sleeper from the moment she was born. Isabelle had often marvelled at how lucky she was to have a baby like that. Juliette had been the kindest of children. Social. Happy. A good, loyal friend. The most loving daughter. She had worked hard and never expected life to hand out favours.

  She had been Isabelle’s whole world from the time she felt her little feet flutter against her belly for the first time. Isabelle didn’t know anything else but Juliette. Even with Chris there, it had been a way to fill the void that was imminent once Juliette moved out and started a family of her own. She hadn’t known that, until the biggest, darkest void had opened up beneath her feet and she realised that Chris never could fill it. Not at all. Not one bit.

  Now she had to navigate her world without the only person who ever anchored her to it. And that was, most days, impossible.

  Isabelle looked at the long street ahead of her and blinked. She didn’t know where she was going. After five minutes of driving around in circles, she found an empty park and pulled in. She stared, existing somewhere between the realm of life and death, awake and asleep, conscious and unconscious. She hovered there, her gaze filled with an out-of-focus blur of muted colour.

  A small flutter—subtle at first and then more insistent—beat in her belly. Her hand floated to her stomach, but the baby was too small to feel from the outside yet. As though her tiny child had sent her a message, she remembered the purpose of today’s outing—her eighteen-week-scan.

  Isabelle sighed. The shine on her pregnancy had dulled since her daughter was violently stolen from the world. Her pregnancy had taken a back seat to the immensity of emotions that loomed over everything. Almost a chore to pretend to be okay for the few moments she had to interact with doctors during scheduled appointments.

  To even envision mothering another child shone a light on the insidious loneliness left by Juliette’s absence. New motherhood was too momentous, too great a task for someone who couldn’t even remember where she was going.

  Isabelle steered her car out onto the street and headed to the women’s imaging office her doctor had referred her to. When she arrived, she went inside and sat in the small waiting room avoiding the other patients’ eyes.

  She didn’t want to be spoken to, didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to act like a normal human being because she wasn’t normal. Not anymore. She was a broken, barely pulled-together replica.

  A middle-aged female sonographer stood at the head of the waiting room and called, “Isabelle Spencer?”

  Isabelle had already dropped her married name. Mostly because it added another layer of anonymity, but also because her marriage was over, so she wasn’t about to pretend otherwise. She stood and met the smiling woman’s gaze but couldn’t bring herself to smile back.

  In a private room, once Isabelle was directed to lay back on the padded table, shorts pulled low, shirt lifted under her breasts, the sonographer applied some gel to a transducer.

  “I’m very sorry, I know that’s a little cold,” she said as she pressed the tool onto Isabelle’s stomach.

  Isabelle shrugged; she had barely noticed.

  “Did you want to know the sex of your baby today?”

  “Sure.”

  The transducer slipped across her stomach and came to a stop. An image of a tiny being, heart thumping away, appeared on the monitor.

  “There she is,” the sonographer said.

  Isabelle’s eyes widened. “A girl?”

  She smiled, nodded. “Congratulations.”

  Isabelle turned back to the image as the transducer continued a path over her stomach, stopping here and there as the sonographer clicked her computer, taking measurements of body parts and organs. The baby seemed to move as though knowing she was being watched. Her little heart was strong, determined and insistent, the rhythmical beating filling the room.

  At that moment, something shifted inside of Isabelle. As though a tiny spark had been ignited and it was slowly waking her up from her nightmare ever so gradually.

  “Life,” Isabelle whispered.

  The sonographer smiled. “Sure is.”

  What a revelation. What a shining beacon awaiting on the shore of this swamp of death, loss and grief she had been wading through.

  There, in her very womb, was life. Creation. A future.

  Her lungs ached. Her throat was tight and painful. “Her sister is going to love her,” Isabelle whispered.

  “And what’s her sister’s name?”

  “Juliette. She’s been super excited about this pregnancy and will be so happy to know she’s going to have a baby sister. She’s going to be the best big sister.” A watery laugh. “Said so herself.”

  The sonographer chuckled. “Self-professed best sister in the world.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How old is Juliette?”

  “Twenty-two. She turned twenty-two last week.”

  “That’s a big age gap.”

  Isabelle sniffled, wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Took me that long to get my act together again.”

  “Better late than never.”

  A few more minutes of silence as the sonographer continued with her ultrasound. All the while Isabelle stared at the screen and marvelled at her daughter.

  “Well, everything seems to be in order here. No signs of abnormalities. No markers present for any genetic disorders. By all accounts, you have a healthy baby girl.”

  Isabelle breathed in and her lungs inflated fully—something she hadn’t managed for too long now. A brief moment of levity.

  The sonographer wiped the gel from Isabelle’s stomach. “All done.”

  “Thank you,” Isabelle said.

  When she made it back to the carpark and sat in the driver’s seat, looking out at the other cars and nearby businesses, colours were brighter, shapes sharper. A subtle but profound alteration of her perceptions.

  For months, Isabelle had been trapped in her tight skin, her focus directed inwards. When she had stared at that ball of life in her belly, she had glimpsed the world outside of her. What she saw didn’t dwell in th
e realm of grief. Her baby was like the sun—full of life-giving warmth. Her heart had cracked and through that fissure, a love that was bigger than her seeped in.

  The future she had been unable to consider stretched out before her. Her hand floated to her stomach and she sighed with relief. That small spark of life in her womb was all the reason she needed to keep going.

  Chris filled her mind and she reached for her phone. She should call him to let him know that they were having a baby girl. She should.

  She turned her mobile on, scrolled through her contacts. Her finger hovered over his name, but no matter how much she forced herself to call him, she couldn’t do it. Even with time and physical distance between them, how she felt about him hadn’t changed.

  Juliette’s death was an enormous blow and Isabelle had been unplugged from that life she once existed in, with all its delusions, and woke up in another. A darker place. But a more real place.

  There wasn’t room in her heart or head in this new world for Chris. She hadn’t the wherewithal, the energy, the desire to patch up or prolong what was barely real to start with. She clicked her phone off, sat it in the centre console and drove home.

  Chapter 35

  Christmas Day – three months before the murder…

  Tina accelerated along the darkened streets of Yarwun towards home. She was on her way back from Mandy’s where she had spent Christmas day with her friends and their families.

  A long, hot summer’s day. The first Christmas she had celebrated since the sexual assault and Kadie’s death.

  In the past few months, she had been poking her head out of her imaginary world and existing in reality for a time. Those moments were becoming more and more frequent. Finally, she was letting that horrible day go. Her defences were dismantling.

  She hadn’t been sure if she was ready to socialise in a group situation, but she had no excuses left to deny her friends her company yet again.

  What she had been fearing, actually turned out to be great fun. She had swum, laughed, sung Christmas carols, reminisced and feasted on ham, seafood and salads. An ideal day until Trevor had mentioned that Chris was getting married next month.

  Over two years had passed since he had walked out. Nearly a year since their divorce was finalised. She had known he had a girlfriend and a stepdaughter, but this was different.

  She gripped the steering wheel tighter. She had always assumed their separation was temporary. Just a blip until she was strong again. But with Chris marrying someone else, it revealed that he didn’t see matters the same way. He was moving on.

  Tina’s hands were shaking by the time she pulled into her driveway, speeding the car along the gravel and sticks and screeching on the brakes as she approached her carport, barely stopping in time before running into the water tank.

  She climbed out and headed to the front door, stopping when she noticed the debris left on the doorstep. Her eyes darted around the yard, suddenly alert.

  “Maddison?” she called out, but there was no answer. She couldn’t see anyone.

  Her shoulders relaxed and she sighed. She had dodged that drug-fuelled visit from Maddison. She hadn’t had to hear her cry, yell and hurl abuse at her from the top of her lungs. Tonight, of all nights, she wasn’t sure she could have handled it.

  “Geez, Maddy, you must have been in a state tonight,” she said, bending over to pick up the sole shoe lying near the door. A little further over was a packet of tissues. A few wet and scrunched tissues beside that. A hairband. A full box of prescription tablets.

  She sighed as she picked up all the rubbish.

  Maddison, only an hour earlier, while screaming and crying on the front porch, had tipped her bag over, dropped the contents everywhere, and was so useless from insobriety, she hadn’t even noticed.

  Tina marched to the garbage bin, sitting out the front near the carport, opened the lid and threw the shoe inside with all the force she could muster.

  She resented Maddison. To not be able to recognise that Tina had lost so much that day as well came from a place of stubborn ignorance. The pain of losing Kadie still stung her. The shame. The sense of responsibility.

  The loudest emotion was guilt. She should have fought Ben off. She should have fought him instead of cowering, avoiding, disappearing. If she had fought back, then she could have saved Kadie. She could have saved her marriage. All their lives could have continued as normal instead of being destroyed and lying in tatters around them.

  She needed Maddison to stop blaming her. To stop reminding her of what had been thieved from her life and her soul.

  Tina threw the tissue packet, hairband and dirty tissues into the bin. She held the box of tablets up closer to her face and read the name through the shadows. Scopolamine.

  “Bloody hell, Maddison, why do you have these?” She had only been reading an article a few weeks ago about these drugs.

  With a sigh, she lifted her hand, started to lower it with force, only to stop herself when a thought hit her.

  “What if I had fought back?” she whispered, her body going very still.

  Tingles fanned down the back of her neck, spread along her arms. A revelation was occurring. A tilting of reality. A shift in her perceptions was taking place right at that very moment.

  All her life, she had been viewing the world from the wrong angle. She had always, regardless of the circumstances, positioned herself as the victim. When watching the news, she would listen to the graphic details of some girl who was raped and murdered as she cut through a park on her way home, and Tina would put herself in the victim’s shoes. She would imagine the fear and suffering in the girl’s final moments. She would think about how the young girl’s family would feel.

  Or when a patient had poured their heart out to her about a tragic moment in their life, she would be consumed with such empathy because she would be viewing the circumstances from her patient’s point of view.

  And even when a friend experienced loss or downfall, she would be right in there with them, living it as though it was happening to her.

  She did that because to not be the victim meant she had to be the perpetrator. They were the only two roles. And perpetrators were the worst kind of people. They inflicted pain. They made others suffer. She never wanted to be that. Never.

  But that always meant she was the one who got hurt.

  Barely a minute ago, she had been wishing for Maddison to please stop blaming her. How wrong that was. What Tina should have been saying was that she would make Maddison stop blaming her. Make Maddison stop reminding her of Ben’s assault. Make Ben learn the consequences of his misbehaviour. Fight, until she was the last one standing, to get her life back.

  Yes, that was the right mindset.

  She slid the box into her pocket, shut the bin lid and went inside.

  Chapter 36

  Callous Housewife Convicted for Juliette Spencer’s Murder.

  The Gladstone Housewife Trials came to an end Monday when vengeful housewife and mother of two, Maddison Brooks, was convicted of manslaughter, closing the eighteen-month-long case.

  Maddison Brooks was given the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison after a jury unanimously found her guilty of intentionally drugging her ex-sister-in-law, Tina Brooks, which led to Tina viciously beating Juliette Spencer to death with a wrecking bar.

  The jury said that though Maddison Brooks didn’t intend for Juliette Spencer to die, it was proven beyond reasonable doubt that her ‘callous’ involvement directly led to the heartbreaking death.

  Maddison Brooks was also convicted of a battery of additional charges including unlawfully administering a substance with the intent to cause harm, stalking, and breaking and entering.

  This comes only months after Tina Brooks had her charges dismissed. Her initial murder charge was downgraded to manslaughter when Diminished Responsibility was argued due to Tina’s unwitting intoxication at the time of the murder.

  The jury returned a not guilty verdict after the d
efence team, over five long days, provided proof of Tina’s mental demise, paranoia and eventual delirium directly caused when her coffee supply was intentionally spiked with Scopolamine, a drug documented for causing altered states of mind when consumed in high doses.

  Lead defence lawyer, Robert Gennaro, who represented Tina Brooks, stated about the outcome, ‘Tina’s compromised mental state was well-substantiated and with her good standing in the community, lack of prior convictions of any kind, dedication to counselling since the incident, along with her obvious remorse, we were always confident she would be found not guilty’.

  Not the case for Maddison Brooks who was noted as appearing ‘shellshocked’ when her guilty verdict was handed down. Her defence team didn’t wish to comment when approached outside the Brisbane Supreme Court soon afterwards.

  Isabelle Brooks, the mother of Juliette Spencer, made a short statement thanking all involved in the trial. Through tears, she said, ‘I hope people will remember my daughter for the vibrant, beautiful, happy young woman she was, not the tragic way her life was ended’.

  As for Gladstone residents, after their town was made famous for all the wrong reasons, it is understandable that many in the community would like to put this horrifying incident behind them.

  Chapter 37

  Chris stood outside the Brisbane Supreme Court and watched Isabelle speak to a horde of reporters. Her voice was soft, wavering, and her eyes were red and wet from tears. His wife’s face was pale. Her shoulders stooped. Her long blonde hair had been cut to just below her ears. Chris hardly recognised her.

  Maybe he had made the wrong decision flying to Brisbane to be there today. Maybe he was wrong to put her through any more pain, any more punishment, after a long, excruciating trial. But he had to see his child.

  He kept Isabelle in his sight as she finished her statement, her parents at her side, then rushed to a waiting car. He hailed a taxi and followed.