“He’s not talking yet,” I replied.
After hanging up the telephone, I closed my eyes and tried to wish it all away. For a while, I almost did. None of it mattered because we were an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We were off the coast of Australia, and every morning I greeted Aiden with a ‘G’day, mate’. Then we’d spread out the picnic blanket, put Netflix on, and pretend we were sat on the top of the tallest mountain, with the world below us. I chose some of my favourite films that I’d always wanted to watch with Aiden but had been waiting for him to get a little older. The Neverending Story, Bugsy Malone, The Goonies. More than once I almost turned off those innocuous films when any character was in peril. I reached out for the remote with my heart racing, but Aiden never reacted. He sat, and he chewed his food, and he didn’t say a word.
“You can’t do this forever,” Jake said from the sofa. He had an art history textbook in his hand, and his glasses pushed high up his nose.
“I know.” I pushed the ice cream around the bowl. “Okay, time for a game of basketball.” It was something we’d played when Aiden was little. I used to take pieces of paper, screw them up, and play at throwing them through a hoop I’d made out of a wire coat hanger. In fact, all of the games were rehashed versions of what we had done when Aiden was a toddler. Like the indoor picnics, which inevitably occurred in fictional versions of the Great Wall of China, or Kilimanjaro, or Cairo, or anywhere but Bishoptown-on-Ouse. It had been the only way to curb my wanderlust when I was a teenage mum without the same prospects as my friends.
“He’s not going to want to play basketball.” Jake uncrossed his legs and stared down at us. “Look at him.”
“What else am I going to do?”
“For one thing, I don’t think it’s good for you to be on the floor on that scabby picnic blanket when you’re eight months pregnant. For another, you’ve eaten nothing but ice cream for two days. That’s not taking care of your baby. Get up, stop messing around, and face what’s going on.”
My cheeks flushed with heat. He thought I wasn’t accepting the grim reality of the situation, but he was wrong. I knew exactly what was happening—I was just trying to shield Aiden from it. He wasn’t ready. How could anyone be ready for what was going to happen? If I, a fully-grown woman, wasn’t ready, how could my damaged, vulnerable son get through the ordeal?
“Basketball,” I said. I clambered ungracefully to my feet, walked into Jake’s study and took a few sheets of paper from the desk.
When I got back into the living room, Jake was on his knees talking to Aiden.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re just having a chinwag.” Jake grinned and patted Aiden on the shoulder. “I was telling him it might be a good idea for him to spend some time with his dad and grandparents.”
I dropped the paper. “What? Why? How dare you say that to Aiden without suggesting it to me first?”
He shrugged. “What’s the problem? He hasn’t seen them for days. It isn’t fair, you keeping him cooped up in here.”
“I’m protecting him. I’ve told Rob, Sonya, and Peter not to come. You know what Rob’s temper is like. The last thing we need is him yelling at the press and making a scene. I know Sonya is itching to help, but what can she do? No. Aiden needs some space from this circus. He needs time with just us so that he can adjust. Wherever he was he was probably alone for a long time. Too many people will just freak him out. ”
“He needs some time away from this house.”
“More like you just want him out of here,” I muttered under my breath.
Jake got to his feet. “What was that?”
I backed out of the room, then turned and walked into the kitchen, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the argument. “Look, I know you’ve been trying to make the most of things, but it’s so obvious that you don’t want Aiden around. You going up to him and basically telling him to get out doesn’t help.”
“Emma, I don’t know how I can make myself any clearer. I don’t want Aiden out of my house—I just want him to get some fresh air, to see people other than me or you, and to actually begin to face his own reality. It isn’t doing him any good being here with us.”
“He’s improving,” I insisted. “I can tell. He’s listening to me. He’s taking everything in.”
“You’re seeing something that isn’t there. Trust me, I have some perspective on this. He’s not improving. He’s a vegetable, Emma. He sits there without even the slightest remnant of human emotion on his face. The other day I walked out of the bathroom and he was stood in the corridor doing nothing. Just standing. Just staring.”
I rubbed the dry skin on my hands and paced up and down the kitchen. “Vegetable? What the fuck, Jake. How could you?”