The Daughter in Law

by Nina Manning

‘What? What’s happening?’ I asked through my feigned ignorance. If this was what was happening then there was nothing I could do but let it. Ben took both of my hands in his.

  ‘Let me just go and sort these queries out at the station, babe, and I’ll be back home within the hour.’

  ‘Actually, it will probably be a lot longer than that, Mr Cartwright. We need to go back to the station in town,’ Burns said. ‘That’s a good hour and a half’s drive there and back plus the interview time.’

  ‘Fine, whatever,’ Ben said over his shoulder. He kissed me. ‘I’ll see you in a while.’

  I suddenly found strength and with Ben’s help I left the sofa. I noticed Annie hovering in the doorway in my peripheral vision. I followed Ben and the constables to the door. Jones handed me a piece of paper.

  ‘Here’s the full autopsy report Mrs Cartwright. You can probably call your doctor if you need assistance with any of the medical terminology.’ I absently took the paper from her and glanced down at today’s date that was glaring at me. 16th January 2008.

  ‘Daisy, I’ll see you soon,’ Ben called over his shoulder as he took his jacket from the hook next to the door. I watched as the three of them walked away from the lounge to the front door. I summoned the strength to see them out. The wind was whipping wildly outside the porch. I took a step back and watched them head to the car. Perhaps the drugs were beginning to wear off or it was the sharp intake of sea air, which ever it was it caused me to shout to Ben before he disappeared into the car.

  ‘Ben!’

  Ben stopped just before the car and turned. I stepped outside onto the porch and hugged my arms around myself. ‘Today is my birthday.’ My voice was strained and I almost laughed at the absurdity of the words. How could we possibly celebrate anything, especially a birth, when someone I loved so dearly would never celebrate another birthday again?

  Ben opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. Instead he offered me a pained expression and held his hands out in surrender of the situation that had literally taken him hostage.

  I stood on the doorstep and shivered as I watched all three of their heads disappear into the car, feeling empty that no more words were spoken. But I knew there were no more words left to say today. And certainly not ones with ‘happy’ in the sentence.

  Annie

  Something had shifted in my world. Everything was different. In a strange way everything felt right. I knew my son was grieving and that he was probably experiencing some kind of pain that I wouldn’t be able to relate to right now, but despite the circumstances, I felt glad. Glad that the woman who was responsible for creating such drama and hurting so many people, was lying down upstairs, weak and scared and vulnerable. Glad that my son had come home and now the time was right, I would use all the evidence I had to bring her down from her oh-so-very-high horse she had been residing on with my son so close in tow.

  Soon everything would be as it once was.

  Ben trundled into the kitchen. He looked tired. He had spent too long at the police station yesterday. It was night-time when he came home. I made him some soup and tried to get him to talk, but he barely said a word – instead he had finished his soup and then taken himself off to bed.

  I heard him arrive behind me, the familiar scuff of his shoes on the hard floor. He had been outside smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Take those shoes off, please,’ I said as I wiped the kitchen surface. I heard the tone in my own voice and I felt something inside tug, a warm familiar feeling. Here we were again, the two of us, as though those months of him not being here had never happened. Those subtle sounds of him arriving and leaving a room that had become the very fabric of our existence had stopped overnight and left a gaping hole.

  In just a few days I was getting used to his smells and his sighs and his clanking around in the kitchen looking for something to eat. And slowly everything was falling back into place.

  ‘Daisy’s sleeping.’ Ben went into the cupboard and pulled out a jar of coffee. He turned and shook the jar in my direction.

  ‘Er, yes son, coffee would be great. Sleeping, you say? Do you feel like doing something today? With your old mum.’

  Ben filled the kettle up, replaced it in its holster and flicked the switch. He then busied himself with adding sugar and coffee granules to his favourite large brown mug; never removed from where I always hoped he would return one day to reach for it.

  ‘I’ve got to keep an eye on Daisy. You know, make sure she doesn’t veer off…’

  ‘Veer off?’

  ‘Yeah, you know?’

  ‘No, son. I don’t.’ I finally turned to face Ben and saw his pent up expression.

  ‘Well, she lost her best friend and everything she owns is in smithereens. She’s hanging on by a thread right now, Mum. And you know, she’s six months’ pregnant. I need to keep a special eye on her.’

  I moved to the fridge with a cloth and began wiping stray crumbs from the shelves. I let the tight feeling in my stomach disintegrate. There was time, just be patient. Ben dropped the teaspoon into the mug with a loud clash of metal on porcelain.

  I heard Ben pouring boiling water into the mug, stirring it and then putting the spoon down on the kitchen surface. I didn’t hear him make a second cup. I could feel the coffee seeping from the teaspoon into the work surface and staining it. It was something he always had done. I should have picked him up on it years ago, but there had been years of removing those teaspoons from the counter. I had learnt to swallow down the frustration because I wanted Ben so much and to have him in my life was nothing more than a miracle. I had Ben and I would always be thankful for that.

  But today I felt the rage of anger bubble up inside me – why was he still choosing her over me! I felt the urge to rush at Ben and throw his head against a kitchen cupboard. How could he have been so stupid, so naïve, as to get with a woman like Daisy? The deceit, the lies? But he was too tall and strong for me. I would have to make do with the only other weapon I had. My words. I had held my tongue for too long.

  ‘You barely breathed a word about her until you were… married!’ I spat the word out as though it were about to sting me in the mouth. I looked at Ben with disgust as he stood casually sipping his coffee. ‘Now here she is licking her wounds, nursing her grief in my bed, under my roof. You barely know her for god’s sake, son!’

  ‘Oh right, so that’s how it is, is it? I knew as much. This is why I never told you about us. You’re so… precious! You don’t own me! If you loved me, surely looking after the one I love shouldn’t be a cross you have to bear?’

  I sighed. ‘Oh, son, you have so much to learn from life. Well, you have Daisy now, so you can simply wash your hands of me, can’t you? But just remember, when it all comes crashing down, who are you going to turn to, hey?’

  ‘What do you mean? This is ridiculous. Why are you so concerned with us? You barely even tell me anything about my own life. That’s no fairy tale by all accounts. Where’s my dad? Why did you not want me knowing him?’ Ben asked with pain in his voice.

  I felt my hand rush to my head and I began to fuss with my hair.

  ‘Why are you asking so much of me today, Ben! You know it’s hard for me to talk about such things. It was so hard for me back then, all alone without your father.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ben threw his hands up ‘Who is he? Did Dad have an affair? Is that why he left us? Can you tell me that? If he didn’t do anything wrong to me, surely I have the right to know!’

  ‘Ben! Son!’ I moaned. ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do this.’ I fell into a chair at the kitchen table, weighed down with the past.

  ‘This is what I mean!’ Ben placed his coffee cup down with a force. A small amount of fear penetrated me. I had never seen or heard Ben act this way before and for a second, I wondered what he might do. He was a strong man like his father and I knew what atrocities his father was capable of and therefore it wouldn’t surprise me if it was in him too. But I couldn’t tell him that. Even after all these y
ears and having not spent any time with him; blood was blood.

  ‘This is what you do. As soon as I start to ask questions, you fall apart!’ Ben shouted.

  I threw my hands over my face ‘Oh, son! Is this what being with Daisy has done to you?’ I pulled my hands away and looked at him. ‘All this doubt? All these questions? You were a good boy once. Kind, quiet, considerate. I did everything to protect you, can’t you see?’

  ‘I’m a man now, Mum, you can’t keep treating me like I’m a baby. There are things I need to know! And if you won’t tell me, then I will have to go and find out for myself. You really have left me with no choice.’ Ben walked towards the kitchen door. I jumped up and ran up behind him. I had fought so hard to keep everything so perfect for us, it couldn’t have all been for nothing. Yet here he was, a grown man, and my son was turning on me.

  ‘Ben!’ I called after him and he stopped in the doorway. ‘Ben. I love you!’ I said, my voice breaking, trying to force the words out – sometimes they didn’t come naturally.

  ‘Well, is that enough?’ The words came from Ben and hit me like a bullet in my chest, but I knew I had the ammunition to fight back.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Ben, is Daisy sleeping?’

  ‘What?’ he snapped. ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Good. I have something I want to talk to you about. I think we need to sit down.’

  ‘Oh right, now you decide you’re going to give me the big reveal, tell who my father is? It’s not some murderer, is it? Is he in prison?’

  ‘Ben stop, this isn’t about your father. This is about Daisy.’

  ‘What? Daisy? Why?’ Ben was getting more agitated.

  ‘Because son, she is not who you think she is.’

  ‘Why are you so intent on telling me that that Daisy isn’t good enough for me? I’ve known all the time you don’t like her. Why are you choosing now to unleash your hatred when you can see how much we are both struggling with what has happened to Eve, to our home, our lives?’

  ‘Because, son, none of those things would have happened to you if she had been honest with you from the beginning because, believe me, you would have run for the bloody hills. Daisy would be a distant memory and you would still have your piano, your guitars, your clothes, your song lyrics…’ I could see the pain flash across Ben’s face. He hadn’t said as much yet but I knew the grief he was carrying was not all for Daisy and her friend, but also for his own personal belongings; the words he had written down. He was an old-fashioned soul never using a computer or making copies. Those words were lost. Years of work burnt in an instant. Never to be seen or read again.

  ‘Son, please sit down. I promise you I am doing this because I love you, not to cause you more pain. I just need you to know that the woman you think you know upstairs is nothing but a fraud. We don’t need to give her the time of day let alone shelter her through her grieving. These are her losses, not ours. We are one, son, you and I. Daisy, she is… someone else entirely, not like us. Sit, please. Hear me out. You will understand when you hear what I have to say.’

  Ben shook his head, he pushed past me and pulled aggressively at the chair and sat down. ‘I’m here, Mum, but I swear whatever ludicrous thing you have to tell me will not change my feelings for Daisy.’

  ‘Okay, son, wait there.’ I scuttled up to my bedroom. I stopped by Ben’s room on the way to make sure Daisy was still sleeping. She was. Those drugs she so freely took from me were doing the trick nicely.

  As shocking as the contents were, they were my key to happiness again. I left the box in the bedroom at the top of my wardrobe and cradled just the papers.

  I arrived downstairs and laid the contents in front of Ben.

  ‘Now, son, take a look at this and tell me that you know your wife and that you love her. Go ahead, take a good long look.’

  Ben began flicking through the papers. I knew it would take a few minutes for him to piece the puzzle together the way it had for me, so I waited patiently for the penny to drop and when it did I could not stop the feeling of joy that spread through me. I watched Ben’s head fall in his hands, sickened and shocked by what he was seeing.

  Daisy

  If it wasn’t for the dawn chorus of the birds and the high pained shrieks of the seagulls outside the window every morning I would not know if one day had ended or another had begun. The trills and high whistles had become part of my waking ritual, as I had been asleep by 6 p.m. each night and woke naturally with the rhythm of nature.

  Every day that passed I imagined Eve, and what she would look like now. How the natural decaying process of death was taking her piece by piece. As each day passed, I tried to claw it back, filled with despair because that time had already lapsed and despite my hardest efforts to imagine myself back with Eve over a week ago, there was no turning the clock back. Each day I woke with the heavy regret laying hard on my chest. Why didn’t I stop Eve from leaving the bar? I had felt that pull to keep her with me. It was a brief moment, but it was there, that gut instinct that Ben had mentioned to me not too long ago. Now I thought how odd it was that he would be talking to me about such a thing, as though he could already sense something coming. I was in tune with my body. I too felt those gut instincts, yet for some reason, that night, I pushed it away.

  And not for the first time in my life either.

  Sometimes I wondered what the point to life was if you never learnt from your mistakes.

  I let Eve down. For every piece of advice she had given me and every day and night she had been there for me with a wink, a smile, a joke, a song, or just a look, that said, I’m here for you, I will always be here for you, I couldn’t be there for her when she needed me the most.

  Eve was all I had. That was it plain and simple. I didn’t seek out others at uni, I just saw her and she saw me and we had a conversation about a song they were playing in the cafeteria and that was it. I didn’t let anyone else in. I never have done since. I turned down offers of work nights out, uni get-togethers, because I never once met anyone else I could connect with in the same way as Eve. I suppose now in hindsight I should have invested more time with other people who showed an interest in me. Then I wouldn’t feel as alone. Of course I have Ben, but we’ve known each other such a short space of time, I’m still figuring him out and vice versa. And then the baby will come. But it will need me.

  Eve and I had over a decade of friendship. I would have to wait a long time to get that with Ben.

  As I shifted to a comfortable position, something about this morning felt different. I was always pretty comatose by bedtime so I wasn’t ever aware of Ben getting into bed, but as I lay my hand on his side of the bed, it felt cold. He had either got up very early or hadn’t slept in there at all. It wasn’t unusual because Ben was a thinker – a night owl. He would often stay awake long after me writing down his lyrics or watching a film for inspiration. But what was unusual was that he hadn’t left my side since the explosion. I sat up and pulled my hair up into a bun on top of my head with the hair band I kept religiously around my wrist. There was a sharp pain in my head. I was dehydrated.

  The stab of anxiety had already hit my stomach. Like clockwork it happened within ten seconds of opening my eyes. Those first seconds of consciousness, although deceiving, were the respite that I would take, no matter how short. I always let those waking moments lull me into security and make me think that everything was going to be okay, that I would wake and be able to face the day without feeling the depression creeping around my body. Only this morning, Ben’s disappearance bought me an extra few seconds of solace as I was swept up in wonder. I looked at the bedside table. There was a glass of water and two tablets, left there by Annie probably. They looked a slightly different colour from yesterday but I couldn’t be quite sure. Annie had assured me they were for the shock. She got them from the internet and they were not the sort of things the doctors would prescribe in this country. Normally I would question such things but all I wanted was to feel numb and they did just th
at. I put them both in my mouth and took a big gulp of water. For only a moment I let in thoughts of the developing life within me as I swallowed the strange tablets.

  I padded across the hall in my pyjamas bottoms and T-shirt and made my way downstairs, my hand rested on top of my bump, the other against the wall for balance.

  The cold downstairs bit at my arms and as I arrived into the lounge I could already see the oversized shape of Ben on one of the sofas; a large brown fleecy blanket covering him up to his chin.

  I took a moment to steal a glance at the window; the curtains hadn’t been shut from last night. Or perhaps Ben had opened them. The waves were thrashing against the wall at the end of the garden. I could see a tiny dot of a boat on the misty horizon.

  I walked to the edge of the sofa and knelt next to him. ‘Ben,’ I whispered.

  ‘Uh… what?’ Ben sat up.

  ‘Shhh, it’s okay.’ I laid a hand on his chest. ‘It’s early. I just wondered where you were. You didn’t come to bed?’

  ‘I’m going to get a shower.’ He stood up quickly and headed upstairs. I didn’t have the energy to feel displaced by his behaviour.

  By the time I made it upstairs I could hear him in the shower so I went to the bedroom to wait for him.

  Despite the cold outside, I opened the curtains and the window an inch to let in some air. A fresh salty breeze hit my nostrils and I took a moment to gaze out to sea, I tried to decipher the ocean from the horizon but it was still too misty and barely dawn. I tried to feel something from the vast stretch of water just outside the window that went on for miles, as though it had no end. I could hear the waves through the small crack in the window. Such a simple and familiar sound.

  Ben came into the room as I was settling myself back onto the bed which I had straightened out so it looked a little more inviting, rather than the tangled mess I had woken up in half an hour earlier.

  ‘It’s freezing,’ Ben said and shut the window. I watched him dry himself and put on a pair of jogging bottoms. Ben had popped out a few days ago and picked up basic sport casuals for us. I heard Annie greet him at the top of the stairs and tell him to keep the receipts for when the insurance money came through. This sentence had been used many times already and I wasn’t sure at what point I would drop the bombshell that Eve and I never once took out home insurance.