I squeezed Aiden’s hand and moved on. At least he was getting used to me touching him. Slow steps. The next series of paintings were all the same. “You see these?” I pointed to each one in turn. “These are the birthday cakes I made for you every year. I never forgot. The third of April. This was the first year. I made you a Superbatironman cake. See? He had a cape, an iron suit, and bat ears. You would have loved it. It was sunny that year. Then, this one was a winged Ferrari. You always said you wanted a flying car for every birthday. Then I made you a dragon cake, just like Walnut. It was a walnut cake, too, with vanilla buttercream.” I cleared my throat, forcing away the emotion. “Do you see what I was trying to do? I painted my feelings out. That was what I did when I lost you. I painted all of these.” My eyes trailed along the wall of paintings, reaching the very last one. The one that had been torn all down one side. I didn’t look at that one for very long. “It’s okay if you want to paint out your feelings, too. I’m going to set up a canvas for you. There are some paints here. I want you to paint like you used to when you were little.”
I moved an easel into the centre of the garage and lowered it to Aiden’s height, then pulled across a small table to set beside it, and put a chair in front. Then I brought in jam jars of water and arranged all the paints and paintbrushes next to the water.
Part of me itched to join him, and I wondered whether it would help him start, to see someone else working with him. But in the end, I decided this was all about Aiden. He deserved to be left alone. So once I had set him up, I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. When I leaned my head around the door into the garage, Aiden was sat leaning over the canvass, moving his paintbrush in an arc. I smiled, and took a sip of my tea.
*
There were times I believed Aiden almost wanted to talk to me, and after he finished his painting was one of them. He walked up to the kitchen door and stood there in the space where the kitchen and garage connected.
“Have you finished?” I asked.
This time I waited. I sensed that he wanted to speak. He wanted to tell me that he was done. He was proud, I realised. Instead, all I got was the slightest of nods, almost imperceptible. That was enough to get my heart soaring. Progress, at last.
I followed him into the garage where he proudly displayed another terrifying piece of art, and I tried my best to not seem horrified by it. This time he’d painted in blues and greens. They’d been mixed together into a spiral, which narrowed to a dark point in the centre. It reminded me of the tunnels in my nightmares.
“It’s beautiful, sweetheart,” I said.
Later that afternoon, while Jake was still at the school—he’d taken time off for the first few days as we’d dealt with the issues with the reporters, but I could tell he was itching to go back so I let him—I took Aiden to see his dad and grandma, not just to get Aiden out of the house, but also to get away from Denise, who came to our house every day with a forced smile that made me itch.
In the living room of the B&B, Rob spread the newspapers across the table. Aiden was listening to Sonya read him The Hobbit.
“Look at what those scum have been saying.” Rob indicated the newspapers.
“I don’t really want to, Rob. I’ve been trying to keep all this away from Aiden, to be honest. I don’t think it’ll do him any good.” Bump kicked on my bladder and I shifted my weight, stroking the top of my stomach.
“I’m not going to show him, Em. What kind of a bloke do you think I am?”
“Okay, well, he’s only in the other room.”
Rob fixed me with his intense, brown eyes. “I’m aware. I just wanted to show you.”
I got it. Rob was a talker. When something bothered him he needed to talk it out. He needed to share the burden with another person. I was always the opposite. I kept things buried inside until they threatened to burst out of me. I tried not to think about the time I’d allowed everything to erupt out of me. It had only happened once in my life, and it hadn’t been a pretty sight.
“Look, there’s that photo of me. ‘Ex-officer Robert Hartley,’ they’re calling me. I’m not an ex-officer. They want to make it sound like I’ve lost my job. While you’re some sort of saint this time around. They all feel sorry for you.”
“Oh, I don’t care, Rob.”
“And look at this, they’ve even printed a copy of the thing Aiden drew in the hospital.”
I snatched the newspaper from his hand. “What? How did they get that?”
“Probably one of those nurses. I bet they sold it for hundreds. People’ll do anything to earn a quick buck, won’t they? God, I need a drink. They think he’s a nutter. They’re calling our son a nutter. And have you seen what they’re writing about Jake?”
Even though I was still staring at the full-page print of Aiden’s disturbing artwork from the hospital, I still noticed the slight change in Rob’s tone. It was quieter. Less agitated. It made me wonder if this was what he had wanted to show me all along.
“What are they writing about Jake?”
Rob licked his finger and flicked through the newspaper to find the right page. The first thing I saw was a photograph of Jake when he was younger, with an arm around an even younger girl’s shoulder.
“Who is that?” I whispered, trying my hardest to keep the tremulous note from my voice, but failing miserably.
“One of his students, apparently. They say he left his job in Bournemouth rather abruptly after the headteacher found out he was Facebook friends with several of the students.”