“They’re fine,” she said, slipping her arms into her robe and padding off towards the kitchen.
Doctor Perry frowned at his wife’s back. How long had it been since he’d last given her some tonic? It bothered him that he couldn't remember. Must be too long ago he decided. She’d need another dose before they moved, if indeed he took her with him. It was good to have someone to cater to his every need, but that someone didn’t have to be Myra. He luxuriated in bed a moment longer imagining the possibilities, whilst giving Myra enough time to make his breakfast, as was her job, every day.
A ginger tom cat rolled in the dirt of the back yard, a long feather clutched between its paws. Gnawing at the brittle quill, engrossed in his endeavours, he was oblivious to the audience at the kitchen window.
Myra watched as the cat tired of the feather and tore into the dismembered corpse of what had once been a gull. Myra moved a fraction of an inch, spooking the cat, who looked up from his meal, his whiskers smeared red.
A wail from the nursery reached Myra’s ears and those of the cat, who took off, abandoning his prey, torn ears flat against his head. He’d be back soon, he always came back, hungry for the love and attention she’d given him for the fifteen years she’d had him. Myra ignored the baby, she had to get her husband’s breakfast ready first and the baby would be safe in his crib for a while longer, hungry but safe.
Multitasking, she measured the formula powder precisely while waiting for the eggs to fry. She knew the repercussions of not measuring correctly, her husband had drummed it into her over and over again; his lessons spectacularly driven home the one and only time she’d ever been to the Juvenile Detention Centre where they’d first met.
She’d dropped in with a box of her childhood books in her arms, rescued from her family home before developers crushed it to a pulp and replaced it with soulless concrete boxes. She’d buried her parents a month earlier and her time had been filled with sending their treasured belongings off to auction, delivering cartons of linen and crockery to the local charity shop, and now this — donating the final vestiges of her childhood to those who needed them more than her. Her barren womb wouldn’t be producing any children to enjoy them.
There’d been no cheery-faced staff at the door, no chortles of delight at the books she’d brought with her. The halls were filled with children of every sort and every age, abandoned by a system lacking the skills, the money, or the patience to adequately deal with damaged goods. Stunned into silence, she’d carried her box of books, aimlessly looking for someone to leave her box with. Child after child had followed her with their eyes but made no move towards her or the box, over the rim of which peeped the hard plastic faces of play-worn Disney characters. The children an eerie cast of tiny mannequins living amongst the scent of urine and neglect. She’d turned to retrace her steps and was confronted by a young girl, with a somewhat familiar face.
“Help me, please,” the girl had said, stepping forward, eyes darting back and forth between Myra and the empty corridor. “Can you get me out of here?”
“What? No!” She’d backed away from the child but the girl had grabbed her wrist.
“You have to get me out of here. I need to go home. Look at them all, we’re all prisoners here,” her little-girl voice had been filled with panic.
They’d drawn a crowd of blank-eyed children, who’d shuffled closer in identical slippered feet, surrounding them. Myra remembered pushing through the slack-jawed children, the girl child clutching onto her. She’d tried to shake her off but it wasn’t until she’d found her way back to the front door, where the underpaid immigrant worker had absently let her in, that she finally broke free. From the safety of her car she’d watched as an older man had ushered the girl back inside, the little girl wailing, beating at him with her small fists. Myra had slunk down behind her steering wheel, tears melting the makeup she’d slathered on that morning. It wasn’t until a hand had rapped at her window that she’d looked up from her rage at the injustice of the world. It was then that she’d met her husband, the kind Doctor Perry, the same man who’d ushered the wailing child back inside. How long ago had that been now? It was so blurry. Her mind had a hard time focussing on anything other than the immediate tasks within her own house and the parade of foster children they cared for, least they end up in a place like that.
He’d given up working at the detention centre after they were married, apparently something to do with government cutbacks and integrating the less problematic children into mainstream schools, including the child she’d spoken with. She’d never forgotten what he’d said about how that little girl was suffering from irreparable brain damage after being given the wrong dosage of an over-the-counter adult pain relief. It was a lesson she never forgot, a lesson her husband never let her forget.
Myra dished her husband’s eggs onto a slice of unbuttered wheatmeal bread, he couldn’t abide butter. She straightened his cutlery and mentally checked off the breakfast list — toast, eggs, cutlery, napkin… juice, he needed a glass of juice, that’s what was missing. Glass bottles clinked in the refrigerator door as she reached for the orange juice. Her hand paused above bottles of her husband’s special tonic. After his comment today, he’d make her drink some before the end of the week. Myra had no idea what the tonic contained and although she’d come to appreciate how it made her look, she had a suspicion that the tonic was messing with her memory. She had flashes of memories of faces and people, memories of a life she didn’t have any more, and had trouble grasping those wispy thoughts and twisting them into anything coherent. The online forums she frequented called that mommy brain, but she’d never been a real mommy, only ever a foster mom. No one in any of the online forums ever said anything about their husbands making them drink a concoction to make them look young and beautiful…
She grabbed the juice they had delivered with the rest of their groceries every week and slammed the fridge door shut. She never went to the store, an unnecessary outing her husband said and besides, she needed to be here for the children, for the babies. Myra poured the juice, careful to only fill the glass three quarters full. Doctor Perry was very particular about that sort of thing.
13
Elijah’s arthritis made sleep impossible, the pain more excruciating at night than during the day. Sitting upright eased it somewhat, so he’d given up trying to shut the demon memories from his mind and had lumbered over to his armchair. Another long night in the chair hoping to die before the sun rose.
He’d dozed off when the sound of an engine jerked him awake and the flash of headlights poured into his retinas like lightning. Maybe someone had snuffed it during their sleep, the lucky bugger. The lights of reception flicked on following the slamming of the car door, illuminating the Amazonian figure of Tracey Chappell, her skirt too far away from her knees to be anything more than a belt, and her ropes of costume jewellery too gaudy to be fashionable in any decade.
The lights from reception showed the witching hour visitor to be the amiable Doctor Perry, his cliche leather doctor’s bag clasped in one hand, his other outstretched to pump the manicured fingers of Rose Haven’s manager. They disappeared into the building, locking the door and extinguishing the lights behind them.
Elijah pondered which poor soul needed the ministrations of a doctor this time, the time of night when old tickers gave up the ghost and tired lovers walked away from trysts gone stale. Was it Johnny Paulson or someone else? He hoped whoever it was had a quick and painless exit from this purgatory. He deserved to be here, but prayed to whatever omnipotent being was overseeing them that his number would be up soon because then the nightmares would stop and the pain vanish. Elijah imagined an afterlife akin to sitting on the edge of a lake in late spring, fishing rod in hand, his wife by his side… or at least that’s what his heaven would be if it existed, if he ever got there, but the odds weren’t in his favour.
Tonight the building was silent. Most nights the cries of his neighbours; their moans and groans and
the grinding of their teeth became the symphony to which he slept. But tonight was quieter than the dark lane which had robbed him of the life he had loved. Where even the owls observed an unnatural silence at the atrocity he had committed and only the hissing of a cooling engine, and a dripping from the bottle, could be heard.
He woke with his own cry, the crushing of memories as painful as the roof of the van pressing down upon him and his passengers had been that fateful night. The sound of a car door opening once again waking him from his uneasy slumber in the chair.
The good doctor was back outside, Tracey Chappell simpering at his side, a wrapped bundle in her arms. Elijah watched as Tracey handed the package over to Doctor Perry, who put the package into the car, the bulk of the sedan hiding any further view of what he was doing in the back seat.
The doctor straightened and shook hands with Tracey before handing her an envelope. The smile on Tracey’s face was big enough to light up a ballpark. Just before the good doctor closed his car door Elijah swore he heard the mewling of a newborn baby, cut off by the gentle rumble of the engine as the car backed out of the driveway, leaving only the exhaust fumes to infiltrate Elijah’s room, instead of the long-forgotten sounds of a baby crying.
The lights at reception went dark as Tracey Chappell disappeared inside. Elijah knew too well she couldn’t abide wasting electricity. The electricity bill probably cut into her holiday fund, or her Botox fund, or any other fund which might divert profits away from her. She wasn’t known by the residents as one who liked spending money on anything Rose Haven Retirement Resort related, least of all electricity.
14
Myra’s husband popped his head into the nursery to say goodbye before leaving for the day. He rarely had anything to do with the children they fostered, other than picking them up from wherever they came from, then delivering them to their eventual families. Sometimes the new parents came to the house, but more often than not her husband strapped the babies into a carseat and delivered them himself, telling her it was Social Services policy. Myra tried not to think about the babies after they left, but saying goodbye got harder and harder. She didn’t mind the tiredness which came hand-in-hand with caring for babies, but she did miss the luxury of having a day to herself; a day of pampering or lying in the sun, cocktail in one hand and a paperback in the other. Since becoming a doctor’s wife and then a full-time foster mom, she never even got to go to the local library anymore. Her husband had given her an eReader and a subscription to a book service so, pointing out that she didn’t need to go to the library any more because the breadth of choice online was superior to anything at the library and that the children needed her at home. That coupled with their grocery delivery service, her husband’s stringent rules around who could visit — they had to have had recent vaccinations and not be sick, etcetera etcetera, left her a virtual prisoner in the house, bound by baby wipes and nap times.
Feeding, burping, cleaning, changing, then settling the baby all took time, and in a couple of hours she’d have to do it all over again. For now, she had a small window for a shower and to gulp down some breakfast.
Tossing the empty baby bottle into the sink on her way past the kitchen Myra saw a familiar medicine cup sitting next to the kettle and froze mid stride. Her husband’s throwaway comment about the lines on her forehead clearly wasn’t so throwaway after all. Her fingers sought out the offending furrows on her brow, then feathered across the lines she knew were forming alongside her hazel-coloured eyes. Contemplating the precisely measured vial of liquid her husband the doctor expected to her drink with her breakfast she picked up the medicine cup and carried it through to the bathroom, tipping the milky liquid down the sink. Leaving the medicine cup on the side of the sink, she stripped off and stepped into the shower cubicle, the hot water washing away her unease at defying her husband.
Deep in the sewer under Doctor Perry’s house, a family of rats sniffed at the odd coloured liquid dripping from the pipes. They ignored the tang of shampoo and the eggy sludge from the doctor’s breakfast, instead licking the milky residue forming along the edge of the old pipe damaged by the big tree in the front yard; damage which had gone unnoticed by anyone, despite the increasing bogginess of the earth in that part of the garden.
Being creatures of habit and with their stomachs full, the rats scurried off to their next port of call. Although they didn’t have the words to name it, they and all their brethren made their way towards the various laneways and roads frequented every Monday to Friday by the small humans — the ones who tossed unwanted sandwiches and the crumbs from their cakes on their way to school. Mana from heaven; it was an event not to be missed.
As they scurried from their dark corners and their stinky pipes, from behind dumpsters and underneath bridges, there was one family of rats who lagged behind, their minds suddenly foggy. Physically they were fine, their multitude of aches and ailments had vanished; a lifetime of bad food snuffed out in an instant. Their arteries were flushed with youth and their hearts pumped with renewed vigour, but they couldn’t remember where they were going or why they were going. Popping up on the corner of Padova Drive and Arno Way, they stood quivering in the sunlight, completely unaware that they were a lot younger than they’d been before they’d quenched their thirst on that strange milky liquid underneath the Perry’s house.
15
“Jesse, hey Jesse, come see these,” called James Jackson to his twin brother, not so loudly that their mother would turn, but loud enough for his mirror image to hear and come running.
“What’ve you got” asked Jesse Jackson, a complete clone of his brother. Their mother made no effort to differentiate them and only she could tell them apart. The boys had identical temperaments and leveraged their alikeness to their advantage.
“Baby rats, look!”
“Cool! Put them in my bag quick, before Mom sees them.” Jesse opened a schoolbag adorned with images of the Incredible Hulk and a collection of key rings from various family friendly restaurants where the over-priced nutrition-deficient food was disguised with free gifts and bottomless soda cups.
The rats were deposited into Jesse Jackson’s schoolbag, to await a fate worse than the sewers they’d come from, and both boys scurried after their mother as she carried on towards their school. The boys exchanged gleeful looks, today was turning out to be better than expected.
As the family walked past the Rose Haven Retirement Resort, their mother cast a nervous glance towards the blank windows following them. Amber Jackson had a decision to make and it didn’t sit comfortably with her. She was embarrassed to be contemplating it, but with three children, an almost full-time job, and no husband, she didn’t have the time or energy to care for her ailing father, which made her feel like a failure. The longer she put off the decision, the worse she felt, but she needed to move somewhere cheaper and smaller, and fast because she was falling behind in her payments. She couldn’t manage any longer with her father holding them back. He was an extra mouth to feed and he took up a whole room which the baby needed. She needed the baby in his own room so she could finally get a proper nights sleep. It’d been forever since she’d had an uninterrupted sleep, so long ago she couldn’t even remember it. Maybe she should move into the old folks home and leave her dad to raise the boys?
The gussied up face of the Rose Haven Retirement Resort followed her harried progress. Amber quickened her steps, barking at the twins to hurry up or they’d be late for school. Little beggars were whispering about something and once again she felt like an outsider within her own family, shut out of their secrets and their play. It had been that way since they were old enough to open their eyes.
“Come on boys, stop dragging your damn feet or we’re going to be late and you’ll have to explain to Miss Barnett why you’re late,” Amber chastised, turning for them to see that her face had an I’m not messing about look on it.
As she turned, the pushchair went over the lip of the sidewalk, its front wheel catching in a s
tormwater drain missing it’s protective grill. A grill which hadn’t been replaced despite more than one concerned citizen ringing the council about the hazard.
Amber Jackson’s forward momentum propelled her into the stationary pushchair, the weight of her body knocking it into the path of a monster of a Mercedes, a gleaming white beast hurtling towards the screaming baby and his stunned mother lying dazed on the sticky bitumen.
The Mercedes driving mom slammed on her brakes and the smell of burning rubber filled the air as the German engineering kicked in and the brakes did their job, stopping the car an inch away from Amber’s head.
Amber Jackson never saw the car in the other lane, the one driven by a learner driver whose boyfriend had just broken up with her via text. Amber never saw the tears streaming down the young girl’s face as she read her boyfriend’s pathetic excuse for the breakup. She never saw the girl take her other hand off the steering wheel to type an angry reply. And she didn’t see the little blue car pull slightly to the side now the driver had both hands off the steering wheel. But Amber Jackson did hear the little blue car clip the side of the stationary Mercedes at just the wrong angle, which shunted it over her terrified face.
Amber’s face didn’t stay terrified for long; the rubber of the huge tyres stripped the skin from her face and crushed the cartilage of her nose and her worries fell away with her skin. One of the diamond earrings her husband had given her on their wedding day was pressed into the hot tar of the road, the other one was caught in the ridges of the tyre. Later, a mechanic would pull the tiny gem from its rubbery grave and slip it into his pocket. From what he’d heard, the woman who’d been wearing the earring didn’t need it any more. Hard to wear earrings when you don’t have any earlobes.
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