I was lonely. I was sitting in a room full of women at the local mothers’ group. Surrounded by people that supposedly had the same issues, the same day-to-day problems as I did, but I didn’t feel a single connection to one of them. They were nothing more than white noise to me.
I came so that the boys got the chance to mix with other kids. The twins would be starting at playgroup after the next holiday, and then it would be just Lucas and me for three mornings a week. Next year, he would join them, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
What would I do with my days then? What would be my purpose?
The twins were off playing with sand, and Lucas was in front of me with a car and a dinosaur. He was a funny kid, very happy and content. When the twins were rolling around fighting, he took himself away and just watched their antics.
“Is Carter going?” Mandy, one of the mums who also had a child at Carter’s school asked me.
“Sorry, going where?”
“Jenna was just saying that all the kids from class have been invited for high tea at White Croft Manor Hotel for Isabella Collins sixth birthday.”
“Oh, I didn’t say all the kids,” Jenna jumped in.
“Oh, sorry, I thought you said the whole class has been . . .” Mandy trailed off as Jenna gave her a look.
I felt sick.
“I think what Jenna meant is that every kid in the class except for Carter has been invited to this party.”
It had happened before. Carter’s behaviour was a whole lot better than it had been, but it still wasn’t great. He wasn’t a bully, but he didn’t take shit either. Part of the problem was that I kept myself to myself and didn’t really involve myself with the playground clique, so Carter was almost always the first kid the parents blamed when anything kicked off. It didn’t matter who said or did what or who started it—if Carter’s name was mentioned then he was always the one to blame, even if he wasn’t there.
I wasn’t the type of parent that thought my kids were angels and could do no wrong, far from it. I had four boys and had seen what they could get up to, but I also knew my own son, and he wasn’t a bully.
“No, I didn’t say that . . .”
“Come on, Jenn, we both know how it is. I expected more from you though. I thought we were friends.”
I didn’t give her a chance to answer. I scooped Lucas up, collected the twins, and left.
My grandad told me once that if I felt lonely in a room full of friends, then I wasn’t really amongst friends.
The mothers’ group was a prime example of that. Those women pretended to be nice, but I knew that they were all whispering behind my back. I had seen all the posts on Facebook when they met up at each other’s houses for coffee mornings or at the park for play dates, none of which I got invited to. It was exactly the same with the Mums from school.
I didn’t know what I did to them, and they never said anything straight out. They all smiled to my face or stopped to chat, but I never got any invites. I wondered if maybe because of Carters behaviour, they considered me a failure as a mother and were just worried that it might rub off.
I cried in the car on the way home. I turned up the radio and sang along to OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars” through my tears. They weren’t for me though. I cried for my son. I cried because I knew how hurt he was gonna be when he found out all the other kids were going to a party except him. It was the guilt that caused my tears. This was my fault. It was my fault for being such a shitty parent, and it made me worry about whether my other children would go through the same thing Carter was. Would my bad parenting impact their little lives too?
I had tried my hardest to be a good mum. I tried constantly to always put my kids first, I’d tried and I had failed. I blamed her . . . it was her fault. She passed the shitty parent gene on. And him. He was no better. My mother and my father. I was just like them.
Just.
Like.
Her.
Him.
Them.
2015
It was like a fog but worse than the fog I’d felt like I was in before, worse than the cloud I’d felt like I was living under, worse than anything I’d ever experienced, and I couldn’t find my way out. I didn’t see it, but it was there. It surrounded me. I felt it—smothering, choking, suffocating.
Some days I could breathe and think clearly. Those were the good days. The best days. I told Liam every day was a best day. I had tried in the past to tell him when I was having bad days, but he never heard me.
He just said, “Tell me what you need, pretty girl? Tell me, and it’s yours. Anything you want.” But he never heard me when I told him that I just wanted him. All I wanted was for him to see me like he used to, to hear me. When I told him, “I’m fine,” I wanted him to see, I wanted him to really hear me. I wanted him to just know that I was not fine.
But he didn’t. So, I smiled. I fought my way through the fog, and I smiled, and I said that I was fine. Everything was fine.