by Nicole Trope
Molly was a good student, becoming captain of the school and excelling in all her subjects, but Lexie was a rebel, getting into trouble whenever she could. ‘As befits a second child,’ her father would say wryly whenever he found her outside his office. He was respected and liked by students and teachers, but Molly and Lexie always felt singled out for one reason or another because of who they were.
Molly enjoys an easy relationship with her father now although they rarely speak on the phone. Calling him was an act of desperation. Her mother is usually so open and honest. All through their childhoods, Molly and Lexie were aware that there was no subject that was off limits to their parents. They discussed everything as a family, valuing each other’s opinions on everything. Her mother not wanting to discuss something is downright weird.
In the background Molly can hear her mother crying, meaning her father is home in the middle of the day, which is unusual for him. She is suddenly terrified. Something has happened, something terrible, and she has made it worse by haranguing her mother about hanging up on her.
‘Dad,’ she says, ‘what’s going on? Why is Mum crying?’
‘Molly, sweetheart, listen to me. I don’t want you to worry, everything is… I think you need to come over here tonight, you and Peter. Come for dinner if you can.’
‘But what—?’
‘Molly,’ says her father and she recognises that he has switched modes, back into the principal talking to a recalcitrant student, ‘I’m not going to discuss anything with you right now. Your mother is a little upset and I need to see to her. Come tonight and bring Peter, all will be explained then.’
‘But, Dad,’ Molly almost whines.
‘No more discussion now. Do as I say, please.’
‘Okay, Dad, okay… I’ll let Pete know. He might have to work late though.’
‘Tell him it’s important.’
‘I will…’ Molly’s eyes fill with tears. She can feel her life changing as the seconds pass but she has no idea how or why and she feels powerless to stop it.
‘Oh, and Molly,’ says her father, ‘don’t say anything to Lexie, will you? Not until we’ve talked.’
‘Okay, Dad, I promise,’ she mumbles before ending the call. The tears come quickly and soon she is sobbing, clutching her phone in her hand. She is desperate to call her sister but she promised her father she wouldn’t, and she waits until she has calmed down to call Peter.
‘What’s up?’ he says, and in the background, she can hear the clicking of his keyboard.
‘Pete, I’m sorry about this, but can you come to my parents tonight for dinner?’
‘Tonight? No, Molly, that’s not going to be possible, sorry. Why don’t you just go and have a nice meal with them? I should be home around ten, if I’m lucky.’
‘No, please, you don’t understand,’ shrieks Molly, ‘something’s very wrong. My mother hung up on me and then I called my father and I could hear her crying in the background. I was just talking to her about a blog I read and she… I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ve said something to upset her but Dad won’t explain and he just said to tell you that you had to come with me tonight and it’s important,’ she finishes breathlessly.
‘Please stop yelling, Moll, it’s not good for you or… It’s not good for you. I’ll rope one of the juniors into staying late and finishing up some stuff for me.’
‘What if something is wrong with one of them? What if one of them is sick? What if Mum is really sick?’
‘I don’t know, love. I’m sorry. What did Lexie say?’
‘Dad said I’m not allowed to call her and that makes me think it’s something really awful…’ Molly feels a hard edge of resentment inside her at having to be the ‘good big sister’, protecting Lexie, who is an adult and a mother herself.
‘All right, let’s just take this slowly then. I’ll be home by six. Please try not to worry too much. It may be something easy to treat if she is ill. Modern science can do all sorts of things now. Just get through the rest of the day and I’ll see you soon.’
‘Okay, love you, and thanks, I know it’s a bad time.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s fine. Love you.’
Molly cleans and tidies the apartment, too distracted to write. She wipes the white marble counter in the kitchen over and over again, even though it was already clean to start with. She keeps going over scenarios in her head, searching for clues in her conversations with her mother. She hadn’t mentioned any tests and she usually would let her and Lexie know after she’d been for a mammogram or a set of blood tests. Molly feels herself grow cold at this thought. Her mother only let them know afterwards when she was sure everything was fine. She never told them before she went.
On impulse she sits down at her computer, and in an attempt to distract herself she rereads Meredith’s story on the My Secret blog. Instantly the smell of the damp, mouldy cupboard comes to her, filling her nostrils as though she is inside the cramped space at that very moment. She closes her eyes and tries to see herself there, to imagine herself small and afraid, but then the smell disappears and she is left wondering if her pregnancy hormones are making her mad.
She thinks about Meredith, wonders what she looks like, where she lives, how she manages to get through her days with the horrific baggage of her childhood weighing her down. And then she thinks about Meredith’s little sister. Where is she? Was she also abused? What is she doing with her life now?
She looks back at the page with Meredith’s story on it. The words are written over a black-and-white photo of the sky filled with heavy grey clouds, the sun piercing through as though a storm has just passed. There is a set of three craggy rock formations in the picture, which Molly vaguely recognises. She sees Meredith, a faceless woman, deciding on the image as a way of reminding herself that she has left the storm of her childhood behind.
The blog has a button to send Meredith a private message, and Molly starts typing before she can talk herself out of it.
Hi, my name is Molly Khan and I’m writing a book of short stories about children in crisis. I read your blog and I wanted to reach out and let you know that I am so sorry you had to go through something like that. I am glad that you have a good life now and I don’t want to intrude, but would you be able to tell me what happened to your little sister? I understand if you don’t want to discuss it, but if you can speak to me, I would be really grateful. My email is [email protected]. Thanks so much.
She sends the message and then decides on a long shower. Her neck is stiff and her face sticky with tears. She glances at the calendar on her desk. She is nine weeks pregnant today. Her breasts are tender and large and she has to pee every five minutes but she’s had no nausea and she knows that Lexie’s obstetrician told her that morning sickness is a good sign of a healthy pregnancy. Lexie was sick for months when she was pregnant with Sophie. Molly has never felt nausea with any of the other pregnancies and she cannot help but think this is a terrible sign that this is nearly over, that her time of hoping, of pretending not to hope, and hoping again is almost over. It is the giving up of hope that is the hardest. Without hope she has nothing.
‘Are you even alive in there?’ she whispers with her hand gently over her stomach. ‘Stop thinking,’ she admonishes herself. She stands in the shower until the water runs cold and then, shivering in the cool air, she wraps herself in Peter’s robe, revelling in his smell of musky aftershave and the ocean-scented soap he likes, and the comfort of the large size.
On her phone she can see there’s a new message in her inbox. She is surprised to find it’s from Meredith. She hadn’t expected her to get back to her so soon or, if she’s honest with herself, at all.
Hi, Molly. Thanks for your message. I do have a good life now and I have tried very hard to rise above my terrible experiences. It must be wonderful to be able to write stories and I do admire you for that, but please understand that this is my life and not some piece of fiction. I don’t like discussing my little sister but I can
tell you that she died very young in a car accident. Best of luck with your writing. Meredith.
‘How strange,’ says Molly aloud.
She reads the message again. How old was her sister when she died? Was Meredith also in the accident? Was her sister’s death reported in the press? Molly shakes her head. She has no idea who Meredith is or how old she is. She could live anywhere in the world. You’re being silly, she tells herself. You’re fixating on something else so you don’t have to think about the fact that you’re pregnant.
She thinks about giving the woman Dr Bernstein recommended a call. ‘Olivia Stevens has helped a lot of my patients through their difficult journeys,’ Dr Bernstein told her and Peter. ‘She’s a psychologist who specialises in counselling women who are dealing with infertility and miscarriage.’ But as quickly as she has the thought, Molly dismisses it. If she knew for sure that she was on a journey, it would be different. But sometimes, just like she feels in the road dream, there seems to be no end in sight.
She feels like she will be here forever, waiting, hoping, dreaming of becoming a mother but being forever denied it. What’s the point in discussing it with someone? She’ll never be able to gracefully accept it and she doesn’t want to try.
Her mind turns to the dream again, the one she can’t seem to shake. Is she alone on the road because her mother is ill and she’s going to lose her? Is that what the dream is telling her? Tears threaten again as she considers the possibility of finding out tonight that her mother is ill and then experiencing the cramps she knows mean the end of another pregnancy, the end of another life she loves so dearly.
She picks up her phone and texts Emma.
I keep having a dream that I’m alone on an empty road. Any ideas on what that means?
There is more to the dream but she can’t explain it in a text. Emma has always been a huge fan of dream analysis. She’s kept a dream journal since she was a child and reads everything she can find on the subject.
‘I keep dreaming about Peter in a field surrounded by butterflies,’ she remembers telling Emma after they had been dating for a few weeks.
‘That means you’ve met your soulmate,’ Emma said sagely.
Molly’s phone pings with Emma’s reply.
A road symbolises your life path in reality. Would have to know more about it to really work out the meaning. Will chat when we have coffee xx.
She is alone on the road, completely alone. Is the dream telling her that she will always be alone? Her hand goes to her stomach. Is the dream telling her that she will never have a child?
She wishes she didn’t have to think about any of this. The churning inside her tells her everything is about to change, about to change in the worst possible way.
She will be someone else after tonight, someone different – she is certain of it.
Twelve
12 January 1987
Margaret
* * *
She swallows another mouthful. The whole country is in the grip of a heatwave and on the news this morning they recommended keeping children and pets inside. She should be drinking water but another mouthful and she’ll be back in the past, back where she is happiest.
Margaret remembers pregnancy as a bubble of happy time. When she was six weeks along, the morning sickness set in and would wake her from sleep, sending her scurrying for the bathroom to retch until she thought her whole stomach would come up. Mr Henkel and Adam told her to stay in bed and rest. The shop was below the two-bedroom flat, and at lunchtime Mr Henkel would come upstairs and make Margaret soup and crackers. He would bring her ginger snaps and crystallised ginger and ginger tea to drink to keep the nausea at bay. Sometimes his voice would drift upstairs to Margaret as she watched television and she would hear him telling customers, ‘My daughter-in-law is pregnant, and the sickness, we don’t know what to do about it.’ He was loaded down with advice when he came home at the end of the day: ‘Ginger and soda water, crackers and salt and vinegar chips, sour soup and milk.’ He was a father and a mother rolled into one, doting and kind, thoughtful and sweet. He was everything she’d never had.
‘Sorry if Dad’s bothering you with all the stuff he tells you,’ Adam said. ‘I’ll tell him to leave you alone if you like.’
‘No,’ Margaret almost shouted, ‘I like that he cares. Don’t say anything.’ She wished that she was really Mr Henkel’s daughter-in-law and not just Adam’s girlfriend.
‘When you’re feeling better, we’ll make it all legal, I promise,’ Adam said.
Overnight the nausea simply disappeared and Margaret buzzed with energy. She would help out in the shop in the morning and then go back upstairs and clean and cook for Adam and his father.
The words danced out of her mouth more and more. She flushed with pleasure if she was able to make Adam and his father laugh when she related a story she’d seen on television or something she’d overheard at the store. Other people’s voices were easy for her to imitate. ‘You’re such a good mimic,’ Adam said, ‘you should have been an actress.’
‘Don’t give her ideas,’ said his father. ‘You don’t want her running off to Hollywood, do you?’
Margaret felt a laugh bubble up from deep inside her. No one had ever thought her capable of anything in her whole life.
When Margaret was five months pregnant, they got married. Margaret invited her parents, desperate to show them she was doing the right thing as she created her own family, but the painstakingly written letter was returned unopened. She didn’t want to risk a phone call, not wanting to hear her mother’s disgust over her unmarried state.
‘I’ll talk to them,’ said Adam, his brown eyes dark with anger.
‘No,’ she said, ‘leave it, leave them. It’s easier that way.’ Her parents only wanted a quiet life, and Margaret realised that her disappearance from their lives would have affected them little as they stuck to their routines.
Only Margaret, Adam and Mr Henkel were at the small wedding conducted by a justice of the peace in a nearby park where the gardenias were in bloom under the hot summer sun. They had a picnic lunch afterwards, just the three of them.
Mr Henkel gifted them a luxurious overnight stay in the Blue Mountains in a room with a four-poster bed and a view of the bushland that made Margaret and Adam feel like they were the only people in the world until they joined the other guests for a sumptuous buffet breakfast the next morning. ‘One day we’ll come here all the time,’ Adam told her as he placed yet another loaded plate filled with fresh pancakes and flaking pastries on their table. Margaret took small bites of everything, wanting to experience the sweetness of the bright red strawberries alongside the saltiness of the bacon. She took her time, lingering over the breakfast, needing to savour the different tastes and the delight of being a married woman on her short honeymoon. She used her left hand for everything, loving the way the small diamond chip on the band on her finger caught the light.
‘You’re beautiful, Mrs Henkel,’ said Adam.
Margaret smiled, concentrating on eating politely, on holding her cutlery properly as she studied the elegant, confident hotel guests. That afternoon they wandered around the small town hand in hand, picking up some souvenirs to take back to Mr Henkel. Margaret couldn’t help scanning the crowded streets in the hope of spotting her father, knowing that one of his routes took him right where she was. Her box of treasures from him contained an empty tin that was once filled with chocolates emblazoned with the Paragon Restaurant Blue Mountains logo. Despite everything, she had been overwhelmed with excitement at being able to have lunch at the restaurant her father often ate at when he stopped for a rest. She had never been happier.
Later, things were difficult for Margaret when the baby arrived. They named her Alice for Adam’s mother, and Margaret thought she finally had the family she’d always dreamed of. Yet she didn’t quite love her child like she felt she should, and the endless sleepless nights made her cry with desperation. Alice woke every forty minutes, screeching at some terr
or only she understood, inconsolable no matter what her mother and father tried.
‘It means she’s a smart cookie,’ Margaret heard one of the customers tell Mr Henkel. Margaret began to wonder if Alice knew what she was thinking, if the tiny creature was actually smarter than she was.
Margaret wished for her mother but she wouldn’t answer her calls. She did everything she was supposed to do with the baby, but most days it felt like she was watching someone else go through the motions. She lusted after sleep as she had once lusted after Adam. She felt like there was a sheet of glass between her and the rest of the world. Everything felt muted and far away.
She envied the way Adam and his father cherished and cuddled and spoke to the baby as though it was the most natural thing in the world. She started to worry that she would accidentally hurt the child or leave her somewhere.
She didn’t tell anyone about her thoughts and fears. She gnawed away at her nails and drank endless cups of tea and shoved the words back down inside her, afraid that she was failing so badly that Adam and his father would kick her out of their little family and she would be all alone again.
Meanwhile Adam and his dad were concerned, checking up on her all the time.
‘I think you may have postnatal depression,’ said the clinic sister when Margaret took the baby to be weighed and measured. Alice was growing fat on her mother’s milk, her little hands developing dimples, but Margaret was swimming in the pair of jeans she had worn at sixteen.
‘We can help you,’ said the clinic sister. ‘There’s counselling and medication if need be.’ Margaret felt ashamed but the woman was kind and Adam took time off work so she could get some sleep. She didn’t want to speak to anyone, finding words too difficult, but rest helped a little bit.