We weren’t expecting another baby in the family, and Toby was the one who brought us all together, especially his poppa, who can’t be here today. His favourite thing was being read to, and I’d like to share a few words from the book he loved the most.
Here is what you know.
That you cannot tell your mother. Tell her once, and you will have to tell her over and over. You’ve decided to simply say ‘He couldn’t come today’ if she notices Toby’s absence.
That Jarrah is stronger than either you or Finn. He’ll get through this.
That the Brennan family blames you. No matter how much Finn explains the malfunctioning gate mechanism, his change of routine, his proximity to the pool – in their minds, you left Toby alone. You can see it in their eyes.
You are grateful to Conor, though. It’s unthinkable that you or Finn could actually speak at Toby’s funeral, and somehow Finn’s older brother manages his short speech about Toby on behalf of the family, reading it doggedly from the page, pausing to breathe deeply and wipe his eyes, amidst the muffled sounds of crying.
It’s not you crying. You’re frozen. You suppose it could have gone the other way – the funeral might have coincided with your wild weeping, those unpredictable moments that bring a little relief. It feels like you should cry at this terribly public moment.
For half the town, it seems, has blown into the chapel on the winds of this blustery day for Toby’s funeral. Behind Tasmanian family and friends at the front stretch rows of strange, sympathetic faces. Chen, close to the front but not in the inner circle of family, not today. Some of your other colleagues. Students from Jarrah’s school. Meredith, who seems to have been at your house every day, and one of the paramedics, whose name you will never remember but whose face you’ll never forget. The rest – you have no idea. The curious and the sorrowful, the invisible bringers of food and flowers, come to glance respectfully at the tiny white coffin, blink away a few tears, and thank their deity, if they believe, that this hasn’t happened to them.
Have you slept yet?
You couldn’t on the first night. As if it were the ultimate abandonment of Toby. Some time in the tiny hours Finn fell into a fitful slumber, his snores ripping the air apart, leaving you alone to hate him. By first light you knew what to do. You rose and padded through the house on bare feet, past Edmund, who’d flown in late and was asleep on the couch. You slid open the glass door and headed across the damp grass. In the garage you found what you were looking for, hefty and satisfying in your hands. You carried it back to the house, mounted the steps, and approached Finn’s contraption, hanging in its shining obscenity on the wall. You raised the sledgehammer above your head with a strength you’d forgotten you had and let it fall. The first blow smashed through the morning, rocking the timbers of the house from top to bottom and setting shrieking birds a-flight. It was the first thing that had felt right in the twenty-one hours since Toby died, and so you raised the sledgehammer and hit again. The clockwork crumpled and sagged, the sound smashing through the sleepy neighbourhood, the stupid owl’s all-seeing eyes shattered.
Because shortly after midnight, fifteen and a half hours after Toby drowned, Finn had told you. Said it was his fault, the thing must have malfunctioned and left the gate open behind him when he went through to the studio, he’d forgotten to tell you it was playing up because he’d meant to fix it; all culpability was his.
‘But it was shut,’ you said. ‘I saw it. That’s why I looked for him upstairs first.’
He’d shaken his head. ‘It must have closed behind him. It’s my fault.’
You lifted the sledgehammer again and let it fall, burying its head deep in the splintered weatherboards, where it jammed. Then Finn’s hands were on your shoulders and he was drawing you back, unwrapping your fingers from the handle.
‘There are live wires in there,’ he said.
You had a wild urge to tear yourself out of his grip, reach in and grasp those wires. It would be a quick death, quick enough that you could find Toby, wherever he was.
Except: you know there is nothing after death. You’re a scientist, and there’s no evidence that life continues in any form. All that was Toby has been snuffed out.
You wanted to crumple into Finn, but with his own hands he built the contraption that killed your son, and you couldn’t bear those hands on you. You pulled away and stalked down the verandah, past tousle-haired Edmund standing with a blanket around his shoulders, past Jarrah emerging from the house with dark-circled eyes. You stalked past them all, into the kitchen, and then, because you could think of not one other thing in the world to do, you put the kettle on.
How would you now spend the hours?
Finn followed you into the kitchen, picked up the stupid Atomic and began his morning coffee ritual, the one that had started your days since forever.
‘We need to ring a funeral home,’ he said, once the thing was on the stove.
You kept your back turned. The kitchen smelled of food, the linger of cooking and the two casseroles and batch of scones dropped off anonymously just hours after Toby died, now jamming up the fridge, barely picked at.
‘Do you want me to take care of it?’ He spoke to the back of your head.
‘I think you’ve taken care of enough.’ You didn’t see if he flinched under the cruelty of your words. ‘I’ll do it. Are you thinking burial or cremation?’
He made a sound that could only be described as a whimper, a sound that would once have devastated you, and part of you marvelled at how you could do that to him, while the rest of you considered ways to hurt him more.
‘The detective gave me a number,’ he said. ‘A funeral place.’
‘Good. I’ll call them.’
You wouldn’t, you decided some time in that first night, allow Finn to be in charge of anything. You had to set your course to steer through this, a hard and straight course through night and day, in and out of the roaring, terrible weeks and years ahead, and all you can do is hold to that course and see what remains at the end.
Conor comes back to your pew and squeezes in next to Finn, who reaches dumbly across and hugs him sideways. The thing is nearly over. The celebrant says a few more words you don’t hear. You take your last look at Toby’s coffin. You’ve made sure it won’t roll behind the curtains at the end – such an awful melodramatic touch, you’ve thought at the few cremations you’ve attended before. It didn’t occur to you that, instead, you will be the one turning and walking away from him.
You stand. Flanked by the Brennan family, you turn and walk down the aisle through the bowed heads. You walk out into the soaking spring rain that’s blown in from the sea. The Brennans have lost it completely, and you are losing it too. Thank God for Edmund and Chen, who come to your side like sheepdogs and herd you towards the waiting white cars.
‘Are we supposed to wait?’ you manage to ask.
‘You don’t need to do anything.’ Edmund puts up his hand in front of you as a flash fires. The local media, in which the story has led the news all week. ‘Please respect the privacy of the family,’ he calls. To you: ‘Get in the car. The people who know you will come home.’
That picture does end up in Saturday’s paper. The three of you – Finn, you, Jarrah – clinging to each other, hair rain-slicked, like shipwreck survivors. All looking in different directions.