‘Two houses, Liv. Two bloody houses! In the one week!’
I’m at lunch with Ingrid, and she’s positively glowing with excitement. It’s impossible to avoid getting caught up in her joy, and I’ve managed to push all thoughts about the odd moment with Sebastian in the kitchen all the way out of my mind.
‘You’ll put Todd out of business soon,’ I remark, and Ingrid grins at me.
‘The day I do and I move from my pokey little shithole office into that beautiful big building, promise me you’ll come and dance on his desk with me.’
‘You’ve got yourself a deal,’ I laugh.
‘How’s work?’
‘Going well. I’m well and truly back in the swing of it now.’
‘Still doing mostly theatre work?’
‘Yeah, Seb is still really weird about me dealing with the human customers,’ I sigh. ‘I think I’m nearly ready for it, but he’s still… I don’t know. Things with him are pretty complicated.’
Ingrid’s phone begins to sound, and she grimaces apologetically as she picks it up.
‘Ingrid Little Real Estate,’ she says, ‘You’re speaking with Meg.’
I press my fingers into my mouth to stifle my giggle, and Ingrid grins at me for just a moment before her eyes widen. As she wraps up the call, she gives an excited squeal.
‘You’re not going to believe this. Those people who went through your old house last week want to see it again right now. They said they’re ready to make an offer.’
‘Oh, fantastic!’ I say, and she stands.
‘I’m so sorry – I’ll need to get over there—’
‘Go, go,’ I insist as I wave my hands at her. ‘Three houses in a week? You really are on fire.’
Ingrid laughs, then she grimaces as she glances at the door. ‘So sorry to cut this short, Olivia.’
‘We can do it again next week. Good luck!’
I’ve got half an hour before I’m due back at work, so I finish my wrap without rushing, and then wander across the road to the post office with a bag of accounts Gilly asked me to post for her. I join the end of the line, and I’m looking around the random assortment of envelopes on the shelves—
And then I realise that Ivy is two customers ahead of me. For a moment, I consider leaving – she hasn’t seen me, if I turn away now, I could back away before she does. But then I realise she’s talking to the owner of the town pub, Gwen Grayson, and they are talking about David’s death. I still want to leave, but like watching a train wreck happen right before my eyes, I find I can’t tear my gaze away.
‘How are you doing, Ivy?’
‘Ah, I’m okay. You know, you have to keep your chin up.’
‘I can’t even imagine… ’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you… are you any closer? To finding out why?’
‘It was a complicated situation.’
‘There are rumours… ’
‘I’m well aware of the rumours. You knew David too, do you really think he could have done such things to Olivia right under our noses and we wouldn’t know?’
‘No, no… of course not.’
‘I mean… my God. Just look at her lately. She’s clearly not a well woman, who knows what David was putting up with in that house? My son was a good man, Gwennie. Everyone knows it, that’s why he was elected to the town council twice. And yes, clearly he snapped, but she did try to take his daughter away from him, so if we’re going to ask ourselves who’s fault all of this really is… ’
She trails off, and my heart is racing, and I want so much to run away but I feel frozen in time.
‘Is it true?’ Gwen asks, her voice a scandalous whisper. ‘What they say? About the car?’
‘It was an accident,’ Ivy says stiffly. ‘The whole thing was a terrible, unfortunate accident.’
‘How exactly does someone accidentally hook a hose to an exhaust pipe, Ivy?’
I’m embarrassed for whoever has shouted that sentence because it was inappropriately loud in the confined space of the post office. My throat is sore. It takes me a moment to connect the two concepts, and then I realise that I’m standing in the post office and I’m unravelling and all of the progress I’ve made in the last few weeks has been for absolutely nothing because I’m two minutes away from running back to my house and locking myself away again.
David was a good man, and perhaps he snapped.
Is that the story we’ll always tell ourselves about David? Is that a true story? If it is, why does it make me so angry that I feel like my entire body is turning to stone with the effort it takes to hold my rage in?
Ivy and Gwen have both turned and they are staring at me and I am conscious of their horror – of the blood draining from their faces and the way Ivy’s jaw is hanging loose. But if the whole town is saying this and the whole town believes it then I am a victim of their excuses for him, just as I was a victim of his violence. There is no escape from it – I am trapped here, and I’ve been kidding myself.
My vision fades, tunnelling around Ivy and Gwen, and I drop the bag of envelopes and I start to back away from them.
‘How exactly does one wind the exhaust pipe to the window of the car, above my baby’s car seat—’ I’m not just shouting now, I’m screaming – spitting with rage and hate and pain. But I can’t continue. I can’t say it. The words nearly choke me, and I stop mid-sentence and I make a sound like a wounded animal.
The brave thing to do would be to explain myself, to stand up for myself, and to face their judgement and their assumptions and to tell them all just how it was. I have a captive audience – the whole post office is staring at me, enough small-town gossips in this space today to get a message to the far reaches of the district by sunset.
But I have never been good at standing up for myself, not since David convinced me I had no right to. And I’ve never been good at making a scene, not since I spent fifteen years under his thumb trying to avoid them.
So I spin on my heel and I run. I run all the way out of the post office and down the street to the day-care centre. By the time I get there, I am red faced and exhausted and I can’t feel anything but hurt. Ellen takes one look at me and she ferries me into her office and she gently guides me to a chair and Zoe is already in her office waiting for me – but shouldn’t she be in the nursery? How did Ellen know I was coming?
The hose above her capsule. The swirling fumes in the car.
No, no, no.
I push the thoughts and the images away frantically. I can’t face this yet. I won’t.
No! No! No!
Ellen pulls a blanket around my shoulders and tucks Zoe into it too and then I see her on the phone. She whispers into the handset as she stares at me. Her gaze is gentle, and when she hangs up, her touch on my shoulders is soft and comforting. But I am in a bubble of shock, and I sit right there within it until Mum and Dad come through the door and they gently guide me to their car and take me and Zoe home.
‘Darling girl,’ Mum whispers to me. ‘You’ve been so brave, my darling.’
‘Don’t say that, Mum, I can’t hear you say it,’ I say. My lips feel fat and stiff. ‘If I was brave, I would have gone to Seb earlier. If I was brave, I could have saved her.’
I try to gasp those words back in, because I’m not ready for this. Not yet, not yet. Just one more day before I face it. Push it away. Bury it deep.
‘Darling, none of this was your fault,’ my mother says, and the pain in her eyes actually echoes my own and I can’t even look at her now. Why is my grief so magnified when I see it in the eyes of people who love me?
Because they haven’t found my magic weapon.
They don’t have my denial.
Rolling sobs break over me and I curl up into a ball over my daughter in the back seat of my mother’s car and I wish that David had taken me that day, because it doesn’t matter if I managed to pretend otherwise for a few weeks; I am as good as dead anyway.
I wake with a start and the sun is already up. I’m confused – I can’t figure out what day it is – my eyes feel gritty and my mouth is dry and I recognise the Stillnox hangover as soon as it hits, but I can’t remember getting home from the day-care centre, and I’m guessing that Dr Eric came to sedate me, but I can’t remember seeing him.
Something feels different inside – I can’t figure out what it is, only that my pain feels raw all over again. I need to get out of bed. The urge to keep moving forward is still right there within me – so I go with the impulse. I sit up and reach for Zoe, but my hand meets cold, empty sheet and I panic for a moment until I remember she’s sleeping in the cot now.
But then I look across to the cot, and find that it’s empty too. My heart starts to race.
I run now towards the chatter of the television on low in the living area. I find Mum sitting at the dining room table. She’s got a pink teddy bear against her chest as she reads the paper. There’s a steaming coffee on the table in front of her, and my baby is nowhere to be seen.
‘Where’s Zoe?’ I demand, and Mum looks up in surprise and gives me a quizzical smile.
‘She’s right here, love. Are you feeling any better?’
I scan the room again, and then narrow my eyes on Mum. I’m not in the mood for games. I haven’t been in the mood for games for months now, maybe longer. Right here? I don’t see her. I need to see her.
‘Where, Mum?’
Mum lifts the teddy bear towards me, and I stumble backwards, as if it’s a danger to me. I stare at the teddy and I’m absolutely sure that I’ve never seen it before in my life, but it’s familiar anyway – really familiar – how is that possible? It’s a deep pink bear, with a light pink bow with a tiny silver heart on it, and there is white embroidery on its round little belly.
Zoe Joy Brennan
21st May 2016 – 5th June 2016
My knees give way and I stumble again – this time my back hits the doorframe at the edge of the kitchen – and I shake my head violently and I hear this loud, wailing sound coming from somewhere far away but it’s echoing in my head as if I’m caught in a tiny space, and then somehow… I am. As Mum shoots to her feet and comes towards me, I scamper backwards – away from the bear, away from the truth – pressing myself into that dark little space between the pantry and the fridge, pressing myself all the way back in till I’m tucked inside it and I want to curl into a foetal position but there’s just no room and I’m stuck. Mum is reaching in towards me – I see her lips moving in slow motion – but I can’t hear anything but the wailing. The pain is coming – it’s a pain so great that I have run from it for months, pushing faster and faster to try to convince myself that I could avoid it forever – running so hard that I couldn’t feel my feet moving at all – but it has caught right up to me. I am crushed now – destroyed by it – Olivia Brennan is gone forever because Zoe Brennan is gone forever.
So many things that just didn’t add up. The intensity of Sebastian’s grief. Ingrid suggesting I bring Zoe in the car without the car seat. Ivy’s strange comments about letting go. Natasha… so much gentle prompting from Natasha.
And the way that everyone just keep staring at her, and I thought it was because she was so beautiful and they were so sorry for David but it wasn’t that at all.
It is only an urn – an urn inside a teddy bear – my perfect little baby’s ashes in an urn inside a teddy bear. The bear was Mum’s idea, I remember now her talking to me through her sobs in the days after The Tragedy when I needed to make decisions about Zoe’s body and I just couldn’t. Mum thought the bear would bring me some comfort, she said maybe it would help if I had something to cuddle against my body.
And it did. It was a false comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
I squeeze my eyes shut – wanting to block out the sight of the bear – but as the darkness closes in I see her face – as if she could have been sleeping peacefully, but she wasn’t – she was grey and purple and still and cold and—
And I can pretend my life will go on, but it won’t, because on a cold winter’s day the very best part of my heart was taken away from me.
Dr Eric comes yet again to my home, and he sits patiently at the edge of the gap between the fridge and the wall. I see him, and then after a while, I hear him talking to me in soft, fatherly tones that are not professional at all any more and haven’t been since The Tragedy.
I had to call it The Tragedy, even to myself. I couldn’t even bear to think the words murder suicide.
Dr Eric cares about me and he, like everyone else, has been so patient with me. Today, he’s patient enough to wait however long it takes me to find the strength to climb out from my hidey-hole – which I only do when the tears run out and my mouth starts to feel cottony and I need a drink of water more than I need to feel enclosed.
‘I know it doesn’t feel like it,’ Dr Eric says gently, as he takes my hand to help me to my numb feet, ‘but this is real progress, Olivia.’
Progress? What ‘this’ feels like is humiliation and devastation all rolled up into one mortifying and overwhelming ball. I flick my gaze towards the bear which now rests on the dining room table and a sob wracks me all over again, because the idea that my beautiful baby is gone and all that remains is ash is completely, undeniably wrong.
And oh God… Sebastian. Perhaps he lost his daughter too, but he never even got to hold her or meet her, and he hasn’t even had the basic right of having his role in her life acknowledged. Oh, what I have put him through…
Unforgivable.
I see it now, clear as day. This is why I couldn’t talk to Sebastian and why I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about him. In his story, I am surely the villain – the person who made the decisions that mean he’ll never get to know his own daughter. And if I talked about Sebastian, eventually I was going to talk my way up to the part of the story where the shame hit, and my guilt is now for his loss.
Mum and Dr Eric sit with me for a while – until they eventually decide that they should sedate me again, which I suppose is probably the right course of action because once again I cannot stop shaking, and once again I cannot stop crying. In those awful days between discovering her body and her ashes being returned to me, I knew the truth then… but it was unbearable, and then the urn arrived. The thought of her inside it was too much for me to contemplate, and so I simply didn’t. I just continued on as if it had never happened. I accepted what I could deal with – that David was dead – that he had taken his own life – that in some undeniable way, my infidelity had caused this whole godforsaken scenario – and that was bad enough. I had enough to deal with in that.
I hear Natasha’s careful words, and finally I understand what she has been pushing me towards for all of these weeks.
Denial isn’t something you know you’re doing. It’s subconscious.
But the coping mechanism has failed now… and I have to face this. I don’t have it in me. There is already nothing left of me, nothing like the strength that I would need to face the fact that my daughter is gone.
I let them sedate me. I let them pull me back into the bed, and once again, Mum touches me tenderly, as if I am the child. She brings the bear and tucks it in beside me, but this time as sleep overtakes me I stare at it, and I am suddenly angry even with the bear, because what it represents isn’t my memories – but my loss.
‘Livvy, Sebastian is here,’ Dad is standing at my door late in the evening. ‘Do you want to speak to him? He said he understands if you can’t.’
I am lying on my side with the bear hard against my chest, and Milo is asleep, cuddled right up beside it. I hear Dad from the doorway, but I’m facing away from him, and I can’t really find the energy to sit back up. I want to stare out the window at the hydrangea plants all day and go back into that state of denial where I truly believed Zoe would pick the blooms with me one day.
‘I’ll see him,’ I whisper. My voice is hoarse and I have no idea what day it is. But I do know that I owe Sebastian McNiven at least a million apologies, and my grief and my pain is no longer any excuse to delay the first. He comes very quietly into the room, and he crouches down beside my bed to stare into my eyes.
‘How are you going, sweetheart?’ he whispers.
Why is there still love in his eyes? I don’t deserve it – I never did. I can’t even lift my head off the pillow at first, it’s all I can do to force myself to meet his gaze. I’m ugly crying and I have been forever – my nose is raw from it. I must look disgusting.
‘I really wasn’t sure,’ I say. ‘She truly could have been his, and I didn’t want her to be, but I also didn’t want her to be yours because if she was… there was no way out anyway, you know? It just made everything worse if she was yours, because if she was his, then I could almost keep you out of it.’
‘You were in an impossible situation, Olivia.’
I sit up and shuffle over to make room for Sebastian. I lift Milo up into my arms, but I pass Sebastian the teddy bear, and he sits it on his lap and wraps his arms around it and his jaw tightens. He takes a moment, staring away from me, but then his gaze returns and he asks me gently, ‘Why did you finally leave him, sweetheart?’
‘She wasn’t sleeping well and I was exhausted. He took her for a walk one day, and I fell asleep… I woke up choking. His hands were around my neck,’ I tell him. I sound numb, but I’m not – it’s just that if I let the emotion into my voice, he’s not going to be able to understand me. ‘He kept screaming at me about her hair being red – asking me if she was yours, and I denied it over and over again, then he’d choke me until I blacked out, wait until I woke up and start all over again. He’d been angry before, but that was the first time I realised he was actually going to kill me if I didn’t leave. So I was looking for a chance to go, but he was doing his usual thing… the remorse, the pleading, this time even worse because things had never gotten so out of control before. Later that day, the doorbell rang and it was one of the mechanics from work, dropping off some locks David had asked him to pick up. He put new locks on all of the doors so I couldn’t get out. He took the phones and the modem. I was trapped. David had to go to work to authorise the staff payroll, so as soon as he left, I smashed a window and I wrapped Zoe up and I ran.’
‘I’m so sorry, Livvy,’ Seb whispers. ‘I’m sorry I put you in that position. You were vulnerable that night in Sydney. I should never have—’
‘Seb,’ I say, and I start to cry. ‘I don’t regret it. I can’t regret it. You and Zoe have been the only good things in my life for so very long.’
‘I know, sweetheart. But… I should have protected you… I should have been there for you.’
‘I didn’t let you. I couldn’t let you. I was scared he’d hurt you too and I couldn’t have lived with that.’
As the conversation has progressed, we’ve somehow, naturally shuffled closer to each other on the bed. Now we are touching – Seb’s arm around my shoulder, his head resting against mine.
‘So after you broke out, what did you do?’
‘Mum and Dad’s house was too far to run on foot, so I ran to a stranger’s house and I begged them to hide me and let me use the phone. Dad came and got me.’ He took one look at me and the bruises around my neck and he burst into tears. I was terrified of how my parents would react to me calling them for help after so many years, but the minute I saw my father in tears, I knew they only cared about my safety. ‘So Dad and Mum hid me at their place. I knew we couldn’t call the police again – not after the first time. So instead, I sent David a text from Louisa’s phone later that night to tell him I was never coming back.’
You have to let me go, David. I’m not coming home, and if you try to force me to, I’ll have to go to the police again but this time I won’t be able to let it drop. I’m never coming back. Please just let me go.
We sit together for a while, the silence punctuated only by the echoes of our breaths as they fall in and out of sync with one another. After a while, Sebastian whispers, ‘So, what happened? How did he get his hands on her?’
‘He went straight to a solicitor and within a day of me leaving he had an order issued for visitation rights. I didn’t have a choice,’ my words are strained as I plead with Seb to understand the unforgiveable. ‘The lawyer said it would make things so much worse in the long-term if I refused him reasonable access to her. I had ordered a DNA test but there was paperwork coming that never showed up and anyway… until I had proof that she wasn’t his, the lawyer said I had to give him something. So that’s what I agreed to – one single hour.’
It’s just one hour, Olivia – not a lot to ask, the lawyer had said. Let him spend some time with her this week, and we’ll rush the DNA test next week. It’s one hour of her life, and then we can make some more permanent moves to keep him out of yours – okay?
I made Louisa hand Zoe over, because I couldn’t even bring myself to see David. She said he was polite, and he said to give me his regards.
Give Olivia my regards please, Louisa.
It’s just one hour, Olivia.