“Remember yesterday, Aiden?” I asked, leading him into the nursery. “I fell over and you wouldn’t help me up. Well, that’s not very nice for one person to do to another person. We should always try to help each other. So if you fell down, I’d help you back up. If I fall, you should help me. Especially seeing as I’m pregnant at the moment.” I smiled down at my bump, but Aiden’s gaze didn’t follow mine. I cleared my throat and continued. “This is difficult to talk about, Aiden, because I don’t know why you did it. Why did you destroy the mobile and throw paint into the crib?” I moved away from the offending area so that he could view his handiwork. “That’s not a very nice thing to do at all. That’s not welcoming your baby sister to the home. Are you listening, Aiden? I can’t tell if you’re listening…”
I stopped speaking. For the first time since he had arrived back from the hospital, Aiden was frowning. There was a line forming between his eyebrows and his face was angled down at the crib. Slowly, he shook his head and backed away.
“Aiden?” I whispered.
He ignored me as usual, but this was different. He was absorbed by the sight of the broken mobile and red paint. He seemed frightened of them. A tingling sensation snaked up my spine and the blood drained from my face. Why was he so afraid of what was in that crib? He’d done it. So why did it frighten him?
And then it dawned on me: He didn’t remember doing it.
*
Spooked by Aiden’s reaction to the red paint (although I didn’t want to admit it at the time) I called Rob and asked him to come over. He brought his parents with him and they sat with Aiden watching a silly comedy film in the living room while I shared a pot of tea with my ex. He seemed tired today. Rob was generally an attractive man, but a little tiredness actually worked in his favour. Some stubble and eye-bags made him sexier, though I tried my hardest not to remember.
“Did you read Amy’s article?” I asked. We’d already discussed Aiden’s progress, though I decided not to tell him about the crib, and we’d exchanged pleasantries in the presence of his parents. The weather has turned quite mild for this time of year, hasn’t it? Unseasonably warm. Makes you wonder if there’s going to be a storm to clear it all away.
“I did.” His uncharacteristically laconic response made me wonder if he was holding back.
“And? Tell me what you thought.”
Hunched over his tea, Rob had to lift his chin to look at me. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Just say it.”
“I think she was right.”
I exhaled in a rush. “What?”
“Hear me out, okay? Don’t go jumping to any conclusions. I know you’ll take that to think I’m calling you a bad mother.”
“I didn’t think that until you just said it.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, I don’t think that.” His face flushed pink. He took to staring at his tea again. “It’s just… some of it rang true. Aiden was a little wild. We both thought that was a cool thing. He was a brave kid, an active kid. I loved the fact that Aiden could climb a tree and played in the garden all day collecting spiders. I dunno if it’s some stupid macho thing but it made me feel good that he was a boy’s boy, you know?”
“Yes,” I answered. “And it is a stupid macho thing.”
His eyelashes flitted apart so he could roll his eyes at me. “What Amy said was mean-spirited and nasty. She was implying we’d let Aiden down and I don’t think we had.”
I bit my lip because there was a question I wanted to ask, but every time I thought it, tears pricked at my eyes and I was afraid that my voice would crack. “Was Aiden a bad kid?” The weight of the question lifted from my shoulders and I let out a long, slow breath.
“No, Emma, no. He wasn’t a bad kid. He was a little bugger when he wanted to be. I don’t think it was ever malicious, though, do you?”
I shrugged my shoulders, trying to ignore the way I’d begun to tremble. My entire body worked on stopping myself from bursting into tears. The pressure of taking care of my damaged son was getting to me. The exhaustion had seeped into every one of my muscles, but I wouldn’t admit it at the time. Looking back now, I know I should have asked for more help, but I was stubborn, and I was determined to try and keep in control. The problem was that in trying so desperately to stay in control, I couldn’t see that I was destined to lose it.
“Do you remember that camping trip to Brittany?” Rob asked.
I nodded, still gripping my tea to stop my hands from shaking. I was only half listening to him at this point.
“We went with Josie and Hugh. Oh boy, the hours of driving with Aiden cooped up in the car. I thought my eardrums were going to burst. Hugh had brought that huge tent with the little windows and the open porch bit at the front, and we ate nothing but sausages and beans for the week. Anyway, do you remember that prank Aiden pulled on the German couple two tents down?”
I shook my head. The entire week was a blur. Josie and Hugh were beginning their rocky descent into a bad marriage, and Josie and I spent the week chugging Chardonnay. No matter how many times I tried to extricate myself from Josie’s binging, she managed to pull me back in. Needless to say, Rob and Hugh were the responsible adults that week.