Across the Water

But nothing is ‘just fine’ any longer. I can’t imagine it ever being fine again. I’d thought – hoped – once upon a time that Rob had frightened the darkness away. Perhaps not for good – I wasn’t that naïve – but for long enough that we might stand a chance at happiness. I’d hoped I’d managed to cut all ties with my previous life in Sydney. With my ex.

I was an idiot to think I’d escaped. My ex is a shitty character. He was involved with all the wrong sorts of people, in debt more than he wasn’t, and he’s managed to track me down and make my problems his once again. It’s the threats that concern me most. They’ve only just begun – I thought I had more time. But these blokes he’s indebted to are never the patient sort, and he’ll be sweating bullets by now.

I’d hoped I’d found security in Rob. In his warmth, his simplicity. I could press my face to the crook of his neck, breathe his scent and imagine I was absorbing his goodness. If I could be more like him, could be as hardworking, as simple-minded, life would be different. Easier. But I’m not simple. I never have been. It’s fantasy to think Rob could protect me from myself.

It’s all come to a head since Ruby came along. It’s like any problem we have ever had has been amplified. I know having a baby isn’t meant to be easy. ‘The first six months are the hardest.’ That’s what they say. But they don’t know my story. They don’t know how the darkness changes things, warps things, makes me different from other people. This isn’t the baby blues. This isn’t postnatal depression. I never wanted this – never wanted this – and now there’s no way out, no one I can tell, nobody who will understand and nothing that can make this go away.

If they knew the truth, I would be despised. Shunned. So now I’m trapped. A prisoner in my own house. And it makes me restless, edgy. Eager for distraction – any distraction. Eager for escape.

My phone pings and it’s Erica, asking if I need help with Ruby. I sigh. I’m not sure I can face anyone right now. With Erica it’s all shallow, surface stuff. Despite being the closest thing I have to a friend here, she isn’t someone I can be honest with.

There’s only one person who knows the whole truth, and it seems even he can’t help me.

Suddenly not wanting to be alone in this house, I text Erica a quick reply, suggesting I go over there for coffee. She’ll get distracted by Ruby – besotted, more like – and maybe I can sneak in a quick nap.

My hand trembles as I trace my finger along the silken curve of Ruby’s cheek. She’s a vortex, drawing me in, even though I want to turn away, to run. It’s too much, this tight band constricting my chest, the ache that fills me when she smiles and coos. The love tinged with guilt.

***

3:04am

I stare at the shadows on the ceiling, waiting. It can’t be long now; she only sleeps two, sometimes three hours straight at a time. No sense trying to get back to sleep. Rob snores beside me and I feel a surge of anger. How can he just fucking sleep through it all?

Everything has changed. Rob’s changed. I can sense it in his body when I flop, exhausted, into bed beside him. Can sense it in the way he touches me – still the perfunctory goodbye and hello kiss. The Saturday morning fuck before Ruby screams for her morning feed is robotic, lacking the tenderness I’d grown to expect. The tenderness I took for granted.

Am I imagining it? Is it possible I’m so jetlagged from this stop-start sleep routine, the constant feeling of drowning, the not knowing which way is up, that I can no longer see what’s real? Maybe things are as they were. Maybe it’s me who’s changed. Ruby who’s changed me.

But then I see him watching me. Standing at the kitchen sink, dressed in his suit, hair slicked back, coffee mug pressed to his lips. I can feel his eyes. And, when I look up, they’re narrowed, suspicious, fixed on me. I’ll smile and jiggle Ruby on my hip and sing ‘Say goodbye to Daddy!’ and she’ll stretch out her chubby fingers and grin at him and he’ll dissolve. He’ll smile at her, tears in his eyes, and kiss her cherubic face. But it’s too late. I’ve seen. And it’s like being touched on the inside with cold fingers.

A wail pierces the air and my skin zings with adrenalin the way it always does, even when I’m expecting it. I rush to her room, lift her warm little body from the cot and cradle her in my arms. Her seeking mouth finds my nipple and she latches on.

There’s no point pretending. The darkness, it’s back. As I stare at the electronic swirl of blue stars on the ceiling above Ruby’s cot, her squirming body – always squirming, never still – in my arms, the tinny, stylised rendition of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ filling the room, I can feel it. Unfurling within, scratching at the inside of my ribs. An anxious awakening. A bad omen.

Chapter 10

Erica

June, 2017

Saturday, 5pm

The garden is lovely at this time of year – a sea of pinks and purples, baby blues and daffodil yellows. Winter is beautiful here, most of the time at least. In summer it’s far too hot on this side of the house, and my babies tend to suffer in the heat. Still, I’ve managed to keep them alive all these years. More than twenty years and counting and I haven’t lost a single one. Letting them down a second time simply isn’t an option.

David is always the first I tend to, then Lucy, then Amanda, then You. It’s silly, perhaps, but I find comfort in keeping to a routine. That’s the order in which they were created, and that is how I always think of them. David, Lucy, Amanda and You. The family I’d have had if everything had gone the way it was supposed to.

Sometimes I lie on my back amongst them and close my eyes, letting the sunshine warm me and the gentle wind soothe me. I do this now, the freshly mown grass soft against my back and fragrant in the air, and in my mind they’re all here. David, the larrikin – he was always so active! Lucy, my gentle girl, Amanda my little livewire. And You. The angel I held in my arms.

In my mind I’m reading a book on the patio and David’s haring around after a ball – to think he’s now a young man! How time has flown. And Lucy and Amanda are squabbling over who’s the mother and who’s the baby in the make-believe game they always play. You’re in my lap, nearly ten years old but still loving to cuddle. The baby of the family, Mummy’s little shadow, my precious angel.

Samir’s upstairs making dinner – he’s a fabulous cook, much better than I am, try as I might – and the smell of something rich and savoury makes my mouth water. He’s the most wonderful father, as I always knew he would be, and the children just adore him. How jealous my silly sister was when I met him! How she envies me even now, because her two-year-old twins are giving her grief, unlike my angels, and Gary isn’t half as supportive as Samir. Nor half as wealthy. Fortune truly smiled on me on that fateful day, so many years ago now.

A sharp wailing shatters the illusion and reality rushes back with such force it leaves me breathless. I squeeze my eyes shut as the baby’s cries pierce through me like broken glass.

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