Sticks and Stones

by Ilsa Evans

  The dog gave one last high-pitched bark for good measure, and then ran back with his tail wagging. He looked up at Maddie, clearly delighted with his performance and needing validation. D’you see that? Huh? Got rid of him, didn’t I? Huh? Huh?

  Maddie closed the door, using her knee to jam it back into position. She carried the envelope into the kitchen where steam was now rolling up from the kettle and billowing across the ceiling. Maddie turned it off and sat down at the table, pushing the postcards to one side and then turning the envelope over to see if there were any identifying marks. But there was just a rectangular white sticker with her details. Matilda Anne Hampton. It even sounded strange.

  And Maddie knew, unquestioningly, that this envelope wasn’t good. She had known that from the moment the young man said her name, and that piece of knowledge had settled in the pit of her stomach like lead. The envelope was a black crow, a harbinger of bad news, the thing that always appeared in movies just before something dreadful, or someone dreadful, came along. She reached out to move the postcards further away and then, almost as an afterthought, lined them up neatly with the edge of the table for luck.

  Guess pushed his head against her leg but Maddie ignored him. Instead she stared at the envelope intently, as if by doing so she would draw away some of its power, and then she counted the seconds between blinks. The longer she could last, the better things would be. Finally she lifted the envelope, just slightly, and pulled open the flap, letting the contents slide out and across the table before her.

  There were papers, a lot of papers. All of them quite clearly legal. The lead in Maddie’s stomach solidified. A splash of colour, albeit sedate, attracted her so she reached out and separated it from the rest. It was a brochure, called Marriage, Families and Separation. Maddie flicked it back into the pile and picked up the nearest sheet of A4, frowning with surprise when she realised it was an affidavit from Dana, Jake’s eldest sister.

  I, Dana Louise Fielding of 15 Outlook Drive, Yea

  whose occupation is General Manager make oath and say/affirm: that I have always found my brother Jacob Hampton to be of excellent character and an upstanding member of society. He is godparent to one of my children and a devoted father to his own. He has always been fully employed and was an excellent provider for his family, also displaying strong involvement in the children’s educational and social activities. On the other hand it is my opinion that Matilda Hampton displayed increasingly erratic and aggressive behaviour, as well as a total unwillingness to commit to shared care, prior to taking the children six years ago. The emotional turmoil this caused my brother is indescribable. I also believe that it is indicative of my brother’s character that he did not seek recovery orders at this time, preferring instead to hire a private detective and thus minimise psychological distress to his children. I believe that it is in everyone’s best interests, including the mother, that the children live with their father.

  Maddie stared at the sheet of paper, her gut twisting. Increasingly erratic and aggressive behaviour. She thought that if she died, right now, she could be peeled open to reveal gnarled lead within. She pushed the affidavit aside and underneath was another, this one from Jake’s boss. Great guy, incredibly reliable, top accountant, salt of the earth. Absolutely devoted to his kids.

  Maddie thrust it away with a low sound that made Guess prick up his ears. Underneath she caught a glimpse of a stapled set of papers with a heading in large, bold type so she separated this out and then froze, staring. Notice of Child Abuse or Family Violence. Her mouth opened as she read it through again, and for a moment she thought, this is it, it’s all out in the open at last. He has outed himself. But that made no sense. Even as these thoughts chased each other through her head, Maddie glanced down the page to a section that requested the applicant’s name: Jacob Hampton. She flicked the sheet over and read on, with rapidly increasing disbelief, past his personal details and the name of the newly appointed independent children’s lawyer and then the children’s names. And over the page again, until here, finally, was a question that asked about the abuse, and the identity of the abuser: Matilda Anne Hampton.

  Maddie stared at her name, and then reached out and touched it with one finger, as if needing tactile confirmation. The identity of the abuser. And sure enough there were her offences, neatly typed in dot points for easy reading. Physical aggression. Emotional manipulation. Family violence. Parental alienation syndrome. Maddie made another noise, louder this time, and then suddenly picked up the whole sheaf and flung it across the table as if it were toxic. She stared as it came to settle on the other side, pages spread in a lumpy fan. The lead within had started to bubble, coming slowly to the boil. Bastard. Bastard. She swiped through the remaining papers, not really sure what she was looking for but confident she would know when she found it. And then there it was. Another set of stapled papers, this time even thicker. Initiating Application (Family Law). Orders sought: Children (parenting).

  Maddie suddenly realised that she was crying, and had been for some time. Almost numbly, she tried to clear her mind enough to make sense of what she was reading. What she had known she would be reading, but still hadn’t been able to prepare herself for. That interim parenting orders were required with some urgency, given the prior abuse, her prior abuse, particularly her predisposition towards emotional manipulation of the children, and the mother’s history as a flight risk. Coupled with the children’s right to have a meaningful relationship with both parents, and the mother’s proven preference to deny them this right. Orders that would have both children living permanently with their father. Time spent with the mother recommended, but only under supervision.

  She stared at the paper for some time, marvelling that she could feel so blunted and yet so razor-sharp furious at the same time. Furious at Jake for doing this, furious at the system for allowing him, but most of all furious at herself for not having seen it coming. How could she have convinced herself that he would simply settle for shared care, after what she had done? But, oh god, why couldn’t he have? They could have worked it out this time, she was absolutely sure.

  Guess whined, a low poignant sound that made Maddie glance down. The dog still stood by her chair, gazing at her with liquid brown eyes that seemed to glimmer with her own reflection. The identity of the abuser. The identity of the abuser. Her. Maddie jerked her head back up as her anger quite suddenly boiled over to froth furiously along her veins. Making her feel suddenly charged, as if with electricity. How dare he? After everything he had done, everything she had been through. How. Dare. He.

  Maddie jumped up, Guess moving rapidly as the chair skidded backwards. She went straight to the sink and began washing her hands, rubbing them together so furiously that the soap was thrashed into a thick foam. She shook them to dry faster, ignoring the bubbles that flew across the bench, and then strode into the lounge room and grabbed up the phone, dialling Sam’s number as she came back into the kitchen.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sam. Hi, it’s Mum.’

  ‘Hey Mum! I was gonna ring you later. We’re just on the balcony and –’

  ‘Sam, I need to talk to your father. Now.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ There was the sound of breathing for a moment as if Sam was hoping she would change her mind, and then Maddie could hear his voice calling for his father. Soon afterwards, Jake came on the line.

  ‘Well, hello. What a surprise. How can I help you?’

  Maddie picked up the application sheaf with her spare hand. She ground the words out. ‘How dare you?’

  ‘Ah, I take it you’ve just been served?’

  ‘How dare you? How fucking dare you!’ Maddie felt tears prick at her eyes once more. ‘All those lies. All that bullshit.’

  ‘That depends on perspective now, doesn’t it?’ Jake’s voice lost a little of its playfulness.

  ‘We could have worked this out. We could have done it the right way.’ There was a brief silence and then Maddie could hear Jake breathe in lo
udly, through his nose. He spoke slowly. ‘The right way? You talk to me about the right way? You took my fucking kids for six years and you talk to me about the right way? You have to be kidding. Even you aren’t that fucking dense.’

  ‘I only took –’

  ‘You listen to me, sweetheart. It was you who laid the ground rules for what’s going down now, so don’t come whining when it suddenly doesn’t go your way. In fact, get used to it.’

  ‘I don’t think –’

  ‘Hey, breaking news, idiot. I don’t care what you think. And I don’t care about you.’ Fucking loser. Brain-dead fool. Traitor. Mother from hell.

  Maddie took a deep breath, trying to rein herself in. She dropped the papers down on the table. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere. It’s just not productive.’

  ‘Don’t care.’

  ‘And you’re not helping the –’

  ‘Don’t care.’

  Maddie opened her mouth and then closed it again. She could feel her anger beat against her temples, trying to find an outlet somewhere. Anywhere. She hoped, desperately, that Sam and Ashley weren’t close by, listening to this. Or Natalie.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No,’ Maddie spat the word out, biting it off at the end. ‘In that case I’ll see you in court next Tuesday.’

  ‘Hang on!’ Maddie clasped the phone tightly. ‘What about the kids? When you get back from Queensland?’

  After a moment Jake laughed, not altogether unkindly. ‘You still don’t get it, do you? You’ve got it all in front of you and you still don’t get it.’ He sighed, as if her idiocy was personally tiring, and then spoke slowly. ‘Let me spell it out for you. You’re not getting them back. Not next week, not next month, not ever. That chapter of your life is over. Finito. Move on. For all our sakes. Just. Go. Away.’

  Maddie blinked as the phone went dead but she didn’t put it down. Instead she stood there, as the minutes slid past, with the phone held up to her ear as if any second now it would crackle back to life. God, sorry about that, didn’t mean any of it. Huge mistake. Massive. Eventually the phone began to emit a low buzzing sound that echoed against the white noise inside her head and she put it down, next to the postcards. And the room, two from the top and four over, where her children were right at this very minute. On the balcony. Thousands of miles away.

  TEN

  Maddie sat at Kim’s island bench with a thin-stemmed goblet of red wine, watching her friend wash dishes. She had arrived just as Kim and her son Ryan were finishing their tea, desperate to see someone, talk to someone, do something other than stride around her own home, leaving messages on her sister’s machine in between shedding tears of fury that accomplished absolutely nothing. And she was well aware that she must have looked a fright, looming at Kim’s screen door with reddened eyes and wild hair and her hands clenched into fists by her side.

  ‘Sure I can’t make you a sandwich?’ asked Kim, slotting the last of the dishes into the drying rack. ‘I’ve got some nice smoked ham?’

  Maddie shook her head. ‘No thanks. I couldn’t eat.’

  ‘You poor thing.’ Kim hung the tea towel neatly on the handle of the stove and then leant against the other side of the bench, beside her own glass. ‘So what will you do now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, firstly you’ll need a lawyer. You know that, don’t you? And they’re pretty expensive.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maddie. She put her head in her hands and stared down at the benchtop. ‘Yes, I know.’

  Kim reached out and gently rubbed Maddie’s shoulder. ‘Do you want to talk about something else for a while? Take your mind off it?’

  ‘No!’ Maddie looked up, surprised at the question. ‘There is nothing else.’

  ‘Okay then.’ Kim continued to rub, just lightly, for a few moments and then stopped. ‘Well, I don’t know how much help I can be in a practical sense, but as a sounding-board I’m without equal. So use me as you see fit.’

  Maddie smiled, just slightly. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure. Well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘The thing that makes me the angriest,’ said Maddie, sitting upright, ‘is that I keep falling for it. I mean, I thought I’d changed, got smarter, but I still let him pull the wool over my eyes. Like at the airport, he’d already filed all the legal stuff, he must have, and yet he had me feeling sorry for him. Thinking I was being unfair.’

  Kim looked at her for a moment. ‘Well, I suppose maybe you felt a little . . . guilty?’

  ‘That’s right! And that’s the sort of thing he picks up on and uses. But why do I keep letting him?’ Maddie felt tears of frustration prick at her eyes, yet again. ‘Am I really so stupid?’

  ‘No! And don’t even think that. It’s just that you see the best in people, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘But there is if it means I keep getting shafted. And it certainly is if it means I lose my kids because I was too busy thinking everything was going to turn out for the best and we were all going to live happily ever fucking after.’

  ‘You said the f-word,’ stated Ryan, appearing by the end of the bench and looking at Maddie with delight. ‘I heard you.’

  ‘God, sorry.’ Maddie glanced at Kim apologetically and then turned back to Ryan. ‘And I shouldn’t have, okay? So don’t you go repeating it.’

  Ryan nodded, but kept his smile in place. He was a small, blond boy, with a pronounced cowlick that made him look a little like Dennis the Menace, except sturdier.

  ‘And I thought you were in bed, little man.’ Kim came around the end of the bench and scooped her son up, tickling him lightly around the waist. He giggled happily. ‘Say goodnight to Maddie again and this time that’s the end of it, okay?’

  ‘G’night!’

  Kim disappeared with Ryan still wriggling in her arms. Maddie took a long sip of wine, feeling the warmth spread all the way down to her gut. Where the lead still lay, solidified once more. She glanced over to the manila envelope lying at the far end of the bench and wondered why she had brought it with her. It seemed important, as if she had to keep it within sight at all times. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Kim came back in, bundling her hair into a messy bun that reminded Maddie suddenly of Natalie, with red tendrils curling around a slim face. She blinked and there was Kim again, securing her hair in place with an oversized clip and then picking up the bottle of wine, refilling both their glasses.

  ‘Still having problems with him staying in bed?’ asked Maddie, trying to be normal.

  ‘Yes, but I’m sure it’ll all sort itself out eventually. Now, back to you. When did you say the hearing was?’

  ‘Next Tuesday. At Dandenong.’

  ‘So you’ve got just shy of a week to get everything together. Find a lawyer. Any ideas?’

  Maddie laughed humourlessly. ‘I’ll just have to check my rolodex. You know, from my extensive criminal past.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

  ‘I’m sure my sister will have some ideas though. Her son-in-law’s a lawyer for starters.’

  ‘That’s good!’ said Kim brightly. ‘And cheaper!’

  Maddie didn’t bother explaining that Nicholas didn’t handle family law, mainly because every time the conversation snagged on costs, she would begin to feel physically ill. Instead she smiled weakly and took another sip of wine.

  ‘I mean, sure he’s had more time to prepare but that shouldn’t matter too much, should it?’

  Maddie shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘And the kids will get a say, because they’re older, and that’ll be good. For you,’ Kim pointed at Maddie, for emphasis. ‘And besides he’ll have to prove these allegations. You know, that you were abusive and all.’

  ‘Yes, he will,’ replied Maddie slowly. ‘But I suppose he does have that intervention order.’

  ‘What intervention order?’

  Maddie glanced at he
r evenly. ‘From the last . . . altercation we had. I fought back so he went and got an intervention order. Against me. Saying he was the victim.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you get one too?’

  ‘There was no point. See, it never mattered what I did, he was always one step ahead. And he loved that whole thing, all the tactics. The competition. And then the kids started to get caught up in it all, being used as pawns. Acting out. And it was one thing when it was just me, but them?’ Maddie shook her head, remembering. Max beating at his father’s back. ‘Daddy! Daddy! Stop! You’re killing her!’

  ‘But . . .’ Kim paused, as if unsure whether to go on. She sucked her bottom lip and then looked away, picking up her glass instead.

  Maddie watched her. ‘But what?’

  ‘Oh, well I suppose that’s the bit where I get confused. And please don’t think I’m judging,’ Kim looked at her intently, driving this point home. ‘It’s just that I don’t understand. At all.’

  ‘About what?’ asked Maddie, already knowing the answer.

  ‘About you leaving. About why you left, without going to court first. It just seems, to me, that it would have been better to have tried that first. Before you took the kids.’

  Maddie twirled her glass slowly, the ruby-red wine glimmering within. She thought back to how it had been for those last few weeks, the feeling of utter impotency, of being doomed no matter what she tried. Like being in a whirlpool, caught by the rapidly swirling current, closer and closer to the point of no return. Trying to claw her way upwards, but being sucked faster and lower, faster and lower. Barely able to breathe, let alone stay sane.

  ‘I mean, that’s what the courts are there for. To help people who don’t get along.’

  Maddie stared. Not get along. As if they had simply been unable to see eye to eye. ‘Actually it was a little more than that.’

  ‘Oh god, I don’t mean to belittle anything,’ said Kim quickly. ‘Sorry if that’s how it sounded. I meant more that the court system can deal with anything, and that’s what it’s there for.’