by Nicole Trope
She had to remember how much it hurt to be hit with an open hand and a closed fist and how hard it was to always be trying to figure out the right thing to say. She was always on guard. Even in her sleep she had needed to be vigilant, worrying through her fitful dreams about accidently waking him. Now she only felt like that when he came over to see Luke.
‘Alex, I can’t talk about this now. I have things to do and you don’t have much time today. He needs to be back by two.’
Alex’s brown eyes darkened almost to black.
‘You can be such a bitch, Elizabeth. I’m not going to let you just dismiss me. I know what I felt last night wasn’t just me.’
Liz felt the sting of the word ‘bitch’. The part of her that had recovered a little from being with Alex, the Liz who wanted to step out of the shadows, opened her mouth. She hated being called by her full name.
‘God, Alex, leave it alone, will you. You got what you wanted last night but it was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again. I was just . . .’
‘You were just what?’
‘Lonely, I guess. I was just lonely.’
‘I can change that, babe. I’ve been lonely too and I can make sure that you never feel that way again. We can do it, Liz. We can try again.’
‘We’re better apart than together, Alex. Please, let’s just not discuss this now.’
‘I can change, Liz. If you just give me a chance I can do better.’
‘You always say that, Alex. Every time it happens you tell me it won’t happen again, but it keeps happening. Maybe you need to take some time out and get some help.’
‘Fuck that, Liz. I don’t need some shrink telling me what’s wrong with me.’
Liz had heard it all before—once, twice, two hundred times.
Every now and again he would agree to go to counselling and then back out at the last minute, claiming it was all ‘just bullshit about what your mother did wrong, and you and I both know I never had a mother for most of my life’. His mother’s desertion was his favourite excuse for his behaviour, and his last resort when he wanted Liz’s sympathy. ‘My mother left when I was five. One day I went to school and when I got home she was gone and I’ve never seen her again.’
‘Look, Alex, we’ll talk later, okay? Just bring him home at two and I’ll put him down for his nap and we can talk.’
‘Can we talk about getting back together? Can we talk about ending this bullshit?’
‘Look . . . just . . . we’ll talk, okay?’
‘Yeah, we’ll talk, but it’ll be about what you want. It’s always about what you want. I’m not some boy you can lead around by the nose, Liz.’
‘Please, Alex . . . not again.’
Alex clenched his fists and Liz could see that even standing at the front door of her mother’s house she was still not safe. His silent fury filled up the space between them. Liz felt it choke her and she slowly moved one foot back so that she could turn and run.
Luke came bounding back into the room then. A puppy full of bounce.
Suddenly there was more light and Liz felt like she could fill her lungs again.
‘Is it time to go, Dad? Are you done? Can we go, Mum? Can we go, Dad? Let’s go, Dad, let’s go!’
‘We’re done,’ said Liz, and she looked only at Luke.
‘Bye, Mum.’
‘Bye, Luke. Give me a kiss.’
‘Nah, kisses are squishy.’
‘Okay . . . no squishy kisses. How about a hug?’
‘’Kay. Love you, Mum.’
‘Love you, Luke.’ She turned to Alex. ‘Have him back by two, please.’
Liz watched Alex.
‘Maybe today’s not the best day for you two to go out,’ she said.
‘Awww . . . Mum,’ said Luke.
‘We’re going out. Just Luke and me—two boys out on the town,’ said Alex and his voice had relaxed again.
Luke giggled.
‘Well just . . . just call me if you need me, okay,’ she said.
Alex made no reply.
‘Bye, Mum, love you, Mum, bye, Mum.’
Liz waved then closed the door on Alex and his sad accusing stare. She wanted him gone and now he was gone.
She felt a surge of triumph. She had stood her ground. She had not been pushed into saying something that she would regret.
‘Standing your ground’ was one of the first things Rebecca tried to teach them.
Rebecca was the psychologist in charge of the sad little group that Liz attended once a week. Thursdays from ten am to twelve pm—coffee and tea provided. There she sat in a circle with all the other bruised and broken women trying to find a way out of the lives they had somehow stumbled into.
Rebecca liked to make them stamp their feet and shout ‘no’ to show them all that they had the strength and the power to defend themselves. They stamped and shouted as loud as they could, laughing and enjoying their raised voices. But they were stamping and shouting at each other in the safe confines of the group. Outside the group it was an entirely different story.
‘If you can just change the way you respond to the abuser you have a chance to change your relationship. If you can stand your ground in a safe environment where you have others around to protect you, you can force the abuser to see you as a person who has their own power,’ Rebecca said.
‘What crap,’ Glenda said. ‘That’ll just make him more pissed off than before. Then he’ll lie awake at night trying to figure out how to slit my throat.’
‘Obviously you have to make a decision based on your own individual circumstances,’ said Rebecca.
‘Yeah,’ laughed Glenda. ‘Our own individual circumstances. Individually, each and every one of us is a bit fucked.’
Liz had only gone to the community centre because her mother insisted. The ad for the domestic violence support group had been up on the noticeboard right outside the shopping centre. It was next to an ad for lessons on flower arranging, like there was a choice. Her mother had pointed it out.
‘Just give it a couple of goes, Liz. You never know—it might help.’
Liz just sniffed. ‘I don’t need to witter on about what Alex did. I’ve left him, haven’t I?’
‘Liz, he was here nearly every day last week. You may have moved out but you definitely haven’t left him.’
‘Like you would know.’
Ellen had sighed. ‘You need to do something, Liz, so go or I’m giving your father a call and he can figure out what to do about Alex.’
‘Aren’t I too old to be treated like a child?’
‘You’re never too old to be treated with concern, Liz. You need to talk to someone.’
Liz took down the number and shoved it into her bag where it stayed for weeks. She waited for her mother to just drop the issue but Ellen was surprisingly dogmatic about her getting some help.
‘I never got any help after your father left and I’m not saying this is the same thing but you can’t hide from your pain, Liz. I did it and basically checked out for years after he left. I know I did.’
Liz didn’t say anything. She waited for her mother to finish talking.
‘Thanks for agreeing with me, my darling,’ said Ellen.
‘What exactly would you like me to say? Do you want me to say it didn’t happen? Because we both know it did.’
‘Liz, I can apologise all I like but I can’t give you back those years. So all I can do is try to prevent you from making the same mistakes. You have Luke to think about and I know you want to do better than I did. You need help. You need to talk to other women and try to figure out how to move your relationship past the point where he has any hold over you.’
‘Like Alcoholics Anonymous but for domestic abuse?’
‘Yes,’ laughed Ellen. ‘Like that.’
After she heard the car start up Liz leaned her head against the front door. If she was honest with herself, she knew that she hadn’t really achieved anything.
All the voices ran round and round in her hea
d and it was getting harder to know who she should listen to. This morning she had managed to keep some control of the situation, but she knew that when Alex brought Luke back this afternoon he would find a way to make her feel like it was her fault he raised his hands to her. Her fault they were unhappy, her fault they were shuffling Luke between the two of them.
Her mother and father believed it was her fault for staying, Alex believed it was her fault for leaving, and the only thing Liz really knew for sure was that it was all her fault.
Scenes from the night before flashed through her mind again, forcing her to shut her eyes and wish them away. Things had been getting better. It had been easier to keep Alex at a distance. He was responding to emails, accepting that she would leave messages for him rather than speak to him, and the conversations about their failed marriage had been getting shorter. But then there was last night.
And Liz knew, with the same intuition that told her when she was going to be hurt, that last night had made things worse. She could see herself at the bottom of the hill and she didn’t know if she had the strength to push the rock all the way to the top once more.
2
Afterwards she had twisted herself up in her sheets for hours cursing her stupidity. There was no way she should have let it happen but the tender touch of his hands was the one thing she did miss about him. They could be gentle, those hands; they could be so many other things, but they could also be gentle.
He had called late in the afternoon, ‘I want to come over and kiss Luke goodnight. I want to do the whole bath time and story thing. Is that okay with you?’
His voice was so soft, so sad, that it broke her heart. He was asking to see his son. He wasn’t ranting or demanding, he was just asking.
‘Stay away from the abuser as much as possible,’ said Rebecca. ‘Avoid the places he goes and the friends he likes to hang out with.’
‘How can I stay away?’ asked Liz. It was the first time she had opened her mouth. ‘He has to see his son. How can I stay away when I have to keep inviting him in?’
‘You have to get a lawyer and tell the police,’ said Rebecca.
‘And then?’ asked Liz.
‘And then you’ll still have to let the bastard see the kid because he’s never laid a hand on him and fathers have rights, don’tcha know,’ said Rhonda, who had been in the group for a whole year and still hadn’t worked out how to maintain a proper distance from the love of her life, who liked to hit when he’d had a few.
Liz nodded at what Rhonda had said and in that moment accepted what she already knew to be true. She and Alex were tied together forever.
They were tied together by Luke.
‘Can I come over, Liz—please?’
That voice made her weak. It brought back the way he would curl up next to her and plead, ‘Don’t ever leave me, Liz, don’t ever leave,’ like a little boy.
The voice tugged at her. He sounded so alone and one word from her could change that—for one night at least.
She had promised to stay forever. High on his adoration she would have agreed to anything, and now she had left and made him sad. She understood his despair was her fault. She had left to save herself but he couldn’t see that. He seemed genuinely bewildered by her behaviour.
So when she had heard that voice, the voice that drew her in and softened her heart, Liz couldn’t say no.
It was just story time and bath time. It was a reasonable request, wasn’t it? He was always exhorting her to be reasonable. ‘Look at it from my point of view, Liz. You have to see that this cannot be just about me.’ The trouble was that when she did look at it from his point of view she forgot her own perspective. Alex was very good at making her brush her own feelings aside.
But he had called and asked so politely, so softly and so sadly, that she forgot to think about herself. All she thought was, ‘He’s a good dad and he just wants to see his kid.’ She ignored the voice inside that told her to protect the small steps she had taken with boundaries and limitations, and gave in again.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘My mum will be out with friends so I guess I could use the help.’
Her therapy group was filled with women who took two steps forward and three steps back.
Sometimes they laughed about that over coffee and cigarettes. It was good to have a laugh. They turned away bruised faces and held their cups carefully with broken wrists and laughed. Rhonda thought it was something chemical. ‘It’s like they change the way our brains work as soon as we’re around them. We know that if we could just stay away it would be better for everyone, but then they come over and you can’t stop them from seeing their kids. They come over and their voices get low and soft and maybe it’s a smell or something but we can’t help ourselves.’
The other women nodded in agreement. You could get addicted to that small flip of your heart, to that warmth between your legs when they came near you. You could get as addicted as the poor sad bloke on a bench with a bottle of cheap whisky for breakfast.
‘There should be a special clinic we can go where they wean us off them,’ Liz said and Glenda had laughed so much she spilled her coffee.
‘Great, I’ll see you soon,’ Alex had replied.
He had turned up right on time as he had always done and Luke’s eyes were the best reward for any stupid choices she made.
‘My dad’s here, Mum, my dad’s here! Did you see him, Mum? My dad’s here! Mummy, Mummy, Mum, Mum.’
Bath time became an adventure and three stories had to be read and Liz felt her heart break just a little at the thought of how Luke would ask for his father the next day.
She had explained it carefully. She had explained it the way the psychologist had told her to explain it, but Luke still couldn’t quite understand.
‘But why can’t Dad live with us at Nana’s house?’
‘Just because, Luke.’
‘Because why?’
‘Luke, it’s time for bed,’ she would say, or, ‘How about we play a game?’ or ‘Let’s go and get a treat,’ because she couldn’t tell him the truth. It was not a truth anyone would ever want to hear.
Luke knew something. He had seen things and even though he couldn’t yet connect the dots he did know that there were reasons why his mother and father lived apart. It didn’t stop him wanting them back together, of course. Liz was an adult with a child of her own and she still sometimes fantasised about a reunion for her own parents.
Liz watched Alex read to Luke and her heart was stung by the loss of the possibility of a picture-perfect family. They sat together on the bed and Luke was all warm and sleepy and Alex had his head on the pillow and she could see the colour Luke’s hair would become as he got older. Liz had seen pictures of Alex at the same age and it was difficult to tell the difference between them. Luke looked so like his father it was funny. Same nose, same chin, same smile.
It was like a scene from a movie. It was a scene from a postcard. Somewhere inside, she wanted it to last forever.
‘My boys,’ she thought, and she should have known right then and there just to shut down, but it was hard always being on the lookout. It took work to maintain distance and repress emotions.
‘Do you want a drink?’ she asked when Luke’s thumb was firmly in his mouth, his blankie held tightly in his other hand.
‘Don’t encourage them to stay after they’ve seen the children,’ Rebecca said, and all the women in the group had looked around the room or at the back wall where happy family paintings from the preschool covered the bricks.
‘Sometimes there’s stuff to fix,’ said Rhonda.
‘Yeah, you need a man around the house every now and again,’ said Glenda.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Rebecca. ‘Say goodbye and show them to the door. Don’t let them stay, don’t give them the chance.’
Some nights the loneliness sucked Liz into an abyss and she had to lie on her hands, knowing that if she just picked up the phone he would come running and he would put his arms
around her and chase the shadows away.
‘Yeah . . . yeah sure, a drink would be good. Wine if you’ve got some.’
He didn’t say, ‘Why now when you’ve been such a bitch?’ and he didn’t say, ‘I have better things to do and other people to see,’ and he didn’t say, ‘I think we should keep things simple right now until the divorce is finalised.’ He didn’t even give her a questioning look. He smiled at her like he had been waiting for the invitation and let her lead the way and she forgot herself. She forgot everything.
She had poured red wine and made pasta and afterwards she wished that her mother had arrived home earlier.
They sat in dim light in the lounge room and talked about Luke and how cute he was and how funny he was and what they thought he would be when he grew up.
They opened a second bottle of wine and watched the fire, built properly by Alex the way she and her mother could never build it, and she had felt her skin glow with pleasure. This was how it was supposed to be.
They ate and drank and laughed and all through it her own little voice was trying to get her attention. But the Alex that she had fallen in love with was on show and he was hard to resist.
They cleared the dishes and when he kissed her she knew she could stop him but that old chemical reaction came back and when he touched her breasts she was lost. The room was in a light spin and the pasta sat heavily in her stomach and her limbs slid down to the floor.
It was her fault. Even as it was happening she knew she was letting it happen, she knew that.
When it was over Alex had curled his body around hers and stroked her hair while he talked, and she listened.
‘God, I’ve missed you, Liz. I’ve missed us so much. We need to be a family again. We’re so good together. You can see that, can’t you?’
They were lying on the floor of the kitchen and the cold from the slate tiles was beginning to seep into her skin.
Regret was a stone on her chest.
‘Alex, I think . . . I think . . .’ She got up and pulled on her clothes, smoothing her long black hair back into its neat ponytail.
