Blame (25 page)

‘You believe me now, Geoff, don't you?'

Geoff had looked out of the car window and said nothing for a moment, and Caro had felt her heart sink. If he didn't believe her, then how would she convince anyone else she was telling the truth?

‘I do believe you,' he finally said. ‘I didn't want to because it's not something I'd ever have believed of Anna. I mean . . . it's Anna.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘It's Anna.'

‘Do you remember the time she invited us to a picnic in her garden?' asked Geoff.

‘That was so long ago . . . it feels like forever.'

‘Yeah, but it was a good day . . . sort of. I know we had to have it at her house because she needed Maya to feel safe, but do you remember how she spent the whole day trying to get Maya to come outside? She kept putting those
little carob buttons that Maya was allowed to eat closer and closer to the door. She talked to her so softly that I couldn't hear what she was saying but she was so calm, so patient.'

‘She was . . . she was a good mother, even though . . . Do you remember that when Maya did finally come outside, Anna was so happy, she was almost ecstatic. She kept laughing and then Maya started laughing too, and then we were all laughing at nothing more than a kid coming outside.

‘I remember looking at Keith and thinking, “Look at us, two family men.” I don't know what to say to him now. I feel like I should call him but I don't think he'd want to hear from me. I want to tell him that I'm . . . I'm so fucking sorry.'

‘He may want to hear from you. You weren't driving. This had nothing to do with you,' said Caro.

‘Don't go back to thinking you're alone, Caro. You're not alone,' said Geoff. ‘You never have been and this has everything to do with me because we're a family—you and me and Lex and we're in this together. I just don't know how we're ever going to get past this.'

‘We will,' said Caro. ‘I hope we will. I have to believe we will,' knowing as she spoke that she didn't really mean it. She had no idea how she was going to get to the end of the day.

‘You think?'

‘I do.'

‘Okay then.'

Caro had understood that Geoff was choosing to believe her because he loved her, because he needed her home and not in jail, but she also knew that she didn't really deserve his belief in her. They had lost their way as a couple and, in doing so, had lost their faith in each other. Caro had not been able to believe in Geoff for years. She had not trusted him or talked to him or turned to him. They had basically become strangers to each other.

But as she got out of the car to go into the police station, Caro knew that they had begun to find their way back to each other. The night before, they had both made a choice to begin that journey.

Caro had chosen to tell Geoff about the interview, about the dreadful humiliation she felt after throwing up in front of the detectives, about her fear for her future, because she knew they didn't believe her, and about the drinking. She had not minimised it or lied about it—she had told him everything. The words had come faster and faster, and gone all the way back to her clinging to her stillborn son in the hospital.

And Geoff had chosen to listen. He had not looked at the mess of a human being Caro was at that moment and turned away. Instead, he had sat on the bed next to her and listened. More importantly, he had heard. And then he had joined her in that long-ago hospital room, and they had remembered Gideon's small, perfect hands and the curls on his head.

They had talked for hours, sitting next to each other while Caro's body had thrown everything it had at her. She
had felt like she was on fire one moment and immersed in ice the next. She had thrown up whatever Geoff gave her to eat or drink.

‘I'm sorry,' she had wailed as he helped her into the shower for a second time. ‘I'm so sorry.'

Geoff had not left her side. In the moments she was able to breathe, they had also talked about her drinking, and when it had begun and why.

‘I wasn't just heartbroken after he died,' Caro had said, ‘I was soul broken. I felt like I had been punished for some unimaginable sin.'

‘But you seemed . . . you seemed like you were holding it together,' said Geoff. ‘Once we came home from the hospital, you seemed . . . not happy but okay. You cleared out his room in a week. I couldn't believe it.'

‘I couldn't look at his things. I felt stupid for having gone ahead and bought anything at all. I thought I should have known that I was never going to be allowed to have another child, and I couldn't look at my hope any longer. I thought I'd feel better once it was done but I just felt worse. One day after I'd dropped Lex at school, I took a whole bottle of vodka into the room, and cried and drank until I passed out. I was so scared when I woke up that I'd missed the end of school. I thought Lex would be standing out on the street.'

‘What did you do? You didn't go and get her, did you? You didn't drive drunk with her in the car?'

‘No,' said Caro quickly, ‘I called my mum. She got her. I've never driven drunk with her in the car, Geoff.
I promise.' This is the one truth that Caro has clung to over the years—that she has always waited until she knew she was sober, or has called her mother or her sister for help. She has never driven drunk with Lex in the car, but she has driven drunk. It's not a distinction she explained to Geoff.

Sitting next to him with her hands over her stomach, she had realised she had been calling on others for help more and more. She has always had an excuse ready but it was possible that the sighs she has heard over the phone from her mother and her sister, and the few friends she has asked for assistance, were because it had begun to happen regularly. Too regularly.

‘Why didn't they say anything?' Caro had thought but then had to admit to herself that they had said things. She had just chosen not to hear them.

‘I took one of the teddy bears from the trash,' Geoff had said quietly. ‘It was the one we took to the hospital for him. I couldn't believe you'd thrown it away.'

‘I hated myself for that, I wanted it back so much, but I thought I would be better off if I got rid of everything. If I could simply pretend that he'd never happened.'

‘But you didn't say anything to me? Why didn't you say anything to me? I thought you'd found a way to put it all behind you. You got involved in Lex's school. You always seemed to have something on the go, and when I got home at night, you were even kind of cheerful. I thought you were okay.'

‘Were you okay, Geoff? Can either of us ever really be okay?'

‘No, no, we can't and . . . I didn't want to say anything, because you were being so strong, but I felt a little . . . I don't know . . . resentful that you were so okay. I used to sit at my desk for hours during the day and think about his face, and then I'd come home and you'd be printing flyers for the bake sale at school, and the television would be blasting some stupid program, and it'd feel like you'd found a way to move on. It took me months, years even, to stop thinking about him. The day I came home and his room was empty, I couldn't believe it. I wanted to grab you and shake you, and make you tell me why you'd done it. I wanted to be able to see his stuff when I came home. I felt like having his room there the way we'd arranged it gave me more time to think about him, even though he'd never even made it through the front door.'

‘I should have asked you, we should have done it together,' said Caro. She had stood up from the bed and made her way to the bathroom to throw up again.

‘Do you still have the teddy?' she had asked when she returned to the bed.

‘I do,' he said. ‘He sits on my desk at work.'

She had taken Geoff's hand in hers. ‘We missed each other,' she said. ‘I got involved in Lex's school because I knew I couldn't sit at home and think about him. I didn't talk to you when you came home because you seemed to be doing just fine. You'd made your mind up that there'd
be no more kids and you were fine with it, but I was so far from fine, Geoff. The only reason I seemed happy when you came through the door at night was because I'd dulled the pain with a drink, or two or three. It made everything so easy to deal with. I was drinking at night, Geoff, every night, and I was drinking more and more. You saw it. Lex saw it.'

‘I saw it but I kept thinking I was being over cautious. No . . . that's not true. I didn't want to deal with it. I mean, I tried, but you were always so aggressive.'

‘What if I can't stop?' asked Caro.

‘I don't know . . . there are places you can go . . . help you can get . . . but, look, it's nearly twenty hours now.'

‘It feels like a lifetime,' said Caro, and she allowed herself to imagine the clink and crack of ice cubes in her vodka.

‘You have to do this, Caro,' said Geoff. ‘You have to do it for Lex.'

Caro had felt her stomach turn over. Lex would be twelve soon. She was turning into a young woman, and her most significant memory of childhood would be of her mother with a wineglass in her hand. ‘I've really fucked things up,' she said.

‘We both have,' said Geoff. ‘I'm forty-two and I feel like a kid, like I have no control over anything. I should have pushed you to get help. I should have made you talk about it, made you go to therapy. We both should have gone. It was stupid to think that we could just get on with our lives.'

‘I wasn't ready for therapy. I wanted to try again, and when you said that we couldn't, it all felt so hopeless, and I felt locked into this life and this pain, like there was no way out.'

‘But you agreed that we wouldn't try again. You agreed that it was too hard, and if you really wanted to give it another chance, why didn't you push me?'

Caro had made for the bathroom once again. When she'd finished throwing up, she climbed back onto the bed, and Geoff handed her a glass filled with water and lemon juice.

‘The sour taste used to help you when you had morning sickness with Lex,' he said, and Caro had smiled and dutifully taken a sip. It was five o clock in the morning.

‘I haven't had a drink for twenty-one hours,' she said.

‘That's a good start,' said Geoff.

‘I think I'm going to try and sleep a little.'

‘Can I stay?'

‘You can.'

Caro had rolled over onto her side and Geoff had done the same. She was surprised that their bodies still fitted together, that it still felt right.

She tried to breathe slowly, matching her breathing to his. Geoff was right. She hadn't pushed him because she had been terrified of another failed pregnancy, terrified that somehow she was being punished for some sin she couldn't name, and that she would continue to be punished over and over. She had imagined that if Geoff said without
prompting that they should try again, she would somehow be able to change the outcome. She had waited and waited for him to say something, and had occasionally tried to prod him in the right direction, but he had never said the words she wanted to hear. And every time he didn't say them, every time he failed to do what she needed him to do, a drink made the situation bearable, and then another drink made it fine, and then another and another and another made everything black.

Today there would be no escape and no way to dull the pain. The only thing Caro can do is endure and that's what she plans to do. She locks eyes with Detective Sappington who is standing behind the police station counter.

‘Hi, Caro,' she says. ‘Thanks for coming back in.'

‘You have no idea how far I've come to get here,' Caro wants to say, but knows Detective Sappington has no real interest in her life or who she is. ‘I didn't really have a choice, did I?' she says instead.

‘No, not really.'

Detective Sappington is holding a thin folder in her hands.

‘Are those my results, Detective?' asks Caro.

The detective doesn't say anything but looks down at the folder, ‘Please call me Susan. I think we're past formalities now,' she says.

Caro laughs.

‘Throwing up in front of people does dispense with all the formalities,' she says. ‘Can you do me a favour?'

‘Depends what it is.'

‘I think I know what the results are going to be and I'm sure you've looked at them already, so can you just leave it for now and let me tell you exactly what happened, and then we can get to what's in that folder?'

Susan looks at Caro, and Caro pushes her shoulders back. Whatever is going to happen today, she's ready to face it. She thinks Susan looks tired and wonders if the detective had been up all night as well.

‘You'll tell me exactly what happened?' says Susan. ‘No bullshit?'

‘No bullshit,' says Caro, and holds back a laugh at how serious Susan looks when she says the word ‘bullshit'.

‘I haven't had a drink for twenty-four hours,' says Caro and covers her mouth with her hand. She wanted to tell someone, anyone, but Susan is probably not the best choice.

‘Good for you,' says Susan.

‘Well, I feel like absolute hell but it's a start.'

‘All right then,' says Susan, nodding. ‘Brian is waiting for us.'

Chapter Seventeen

‘Anna, I'm hoping we can just get through what happened on the day of the accident. We want this over as much as you do,' says Walt.

He is dressed for the new day in jeans, and a blue shirt in a light fabric. He is less patient, more formal, despite his clothes.

Cynthia has her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Both detectives look well rested. ‘Unfair,' thinks Anna. She sees them together in bed, sees them touching and then reluctantly leaving each other to shower and dress for the day, so they can come in and work out exactly how to make her pay for Maya's death—like she wasn't doing that every hour of every day already.