“I hurt my finger,” I said. “Jake’s getting me a plaster. Are you having toast for breakfast?” I began to ramble again, and the more I talked, the more my voice started to crack. “It’s weird without Denise or Marcus here making us cups of tea, isn’t it? They’ve gone to the police station for a meeting. They’re working really hard to figure out who took you. I wish you could tell me. You’d save a lot of people a lot of time and effort if you would talk to us. I know it’s hard, sweetheart, but you have to try.”
The toaster popped up and Aiden calmly removed the toast with his fingers. If the bread was hot, he didn’t show it. He buttered the bread and placed the knife in the sink. I watched, with tears streaming down my face, as my mechanical son ate his toast without even acknowledging I was there.
Was Jake right? Was I being selfish keeping him at home?
29
Jake’s words continued to play on my mind throughout the day. I ended up doing as he asked. I went into the nursery and I opened cardboard boxes of stuffed toys, and plastic wrappers filled with brand new baby grows. Carefully, I folded the tiny items and placed them in the shelves of the little wardrobe Jake had put together a month ago. It was only as I was collecting all the empty wrappers and boxes that I saw the doll Amy had given me.
There it was with its perfect porcelain skin, mocking me through the plastic. The worst thing about seeing that doll was that it brought all the emotions rushing back to me. I had been so grateful to Amy for buying that present, and I’d felt so strong and so ready to have this baby. Now all those feelings were absent, leaving me with confused rage that I didn’t know how to direct. I wasn’t excited to meet my new child, I was terrified. With Aiden here the balance had tipped. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to find enough love in my withered heart?
In a fit of rage, I drove my heel down onto the plastic and smashed through the porcelain. The crack was so sickening that I gasped and retracted my foot as quickly as I’d stamped it. When I backed away there was a tiny shard of the porcelain still stuck in the bottom of my foot. I hopped backwards and tripped, landing on my backside with a jolt. Instinctively, I reached around and cradled my bump with both hands. That was when I saw Aiden standing in the doorway watching me.
“Help Mummy up,” I said. I don’t know why I said it like that. I’d stopped thinking of him as a small boy a few days ago when I realised he was filling out after eating decent food and getting more exercise. But the way I laid sprawled out on the ground made a sense of desperation wash over me and I guess I couldn’t help but try to endear myself to him by calling myself ‘Mummy’.
He stared while I reached out. He stood five feet away in the doorway, watching, with the same impassive expression as always. Blank, like a doll. And yet… was there part of him that was mocking me? That empty expression with the slow-blinking eyelids. That straight line he kept his mouth in at all times. The way his hands fell at his sides, never gesturing, hardly ever moving. It was all designed to mock me. He was testing my patience. For some reason I was so sure that he was doing all this on purpose. Why did I think it? Why? It was an awful thought. Aiden had been through hell and yet here I was considering that it was all a guise to mock me.
“Aiden,” I said. My voice deepened and took on a stern note. “Help me up. Take my hand, and help me up.”
I already had a plaster on my finger and now my foot was bleeding from where I had cut it on that stupid doll. If Jake was here he’d admonish my clumsiness, telling me how I made him worry and how he hated to leave me alone, especially with Aiden in the house.
“Help me onto my feet,” I pleaded. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. Do you understand me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I growled under my breath in frustration as I rolled myself forward, trying to manoeuvre myself with an injured foot. First, I had to get the shard out of my foot. I needed both feet to get me back up. So I struggled to reach my own toes in order to pull the shard of porcelain out. By now the nursery felt more like a sauna than it did my house. Stringy, damp hairs clustered on my forehead. The maternity dress I was wearing clung to my back.
“If you’d just help me this would be a lot fucking easier!” I blurted out. Why wasn’t he helping me? He understood other orders. He knew to shut the kitchen cupboard doors and to put his plate in the sink after dinner. He did anything Jake asked him to. He always listened to him. Why wouldn’t he help me now?
Aiden took a step back as I finally reached the soles of my feet. Gritting my teeth, I gripped the shard with my thumb and forefinger and yanked it out, letting out a breath of both relief and pain. Then I threw the offending article away and lay down on the carpet to catch my breath.
He was still there a moment later when I examined the wound and determined it wasn’t too bad. There was blood, but it would be fine with a rinse and a plaster. Some of it had got on the carpet, which was unfortunate. I’d need to clean that up before Jake came home.
I winced as I put the injured foot on the floor to help push myself back up. I huffed and puffed as I struggled, and all the time my son stood and watched. By the time I was on my feet I was fuming.