by Barker, Dawn
She shook her head. ‘Not good either. I’m trying … I know my milk is going to dry up, I need to eat more, but I just can’t. It makes me feel sick.’ The tears started again.
‘Anna, having a newborn is hard work, you’ve got to give yourself a break. We’ll have a look at Jack, all right?’
‘OK.’
Dr Fraser undressed Jack, looked him over, then put him on the scales. She looked back at the notes. Anna stared at him: his tummy looked so swollen, his limbs so scrawny, his skin so loose. Poor little baby, he deserved better than her.
‘He’s doing fine, Anna. He’s put on about four hundred grams since he left hospital. That’s not bad, but I’d like to see him putting on a bit more. It might be useful to top him up after his feeds with some formula.’
She knew it. Because of her failings, Jack was starving. ‘I really wanted to breastfed him!’
‘You are breastfeeding him, and you still can. You’re doing everything right – you’re doing your best.’
‘But my best isn’t good enough, is it? I can’t even feed my own child properly.’
‘Anna, listen to me. You’re doing a brilliant job. All I’m suggesting is that after each breastfeed you offer him some formula. If he’s still hungry he’ll drink it, but if he’s not, he won’t. It’s not forever, just until we can get your appetite sorted out. It might help him to sleep a bit longer as well. You must be exhausted.’
Dr Fraser dressed Jack again and put him back in the pram. She sat in her chair, her hands clasped in front of her as if in prayer. ‘How do you think your mood is?’
Anna shrugged.
‘Does anything make you happy at the moment? Is there anything you enjoy?’
She shook her head, tears running down her face. It was such a relief to hear someone articulate the way she’d been feeling.
‘Anna, I’m worried about you. I’m worried that you’ve become quite depressed. Can I ask … Do you feel that you’re bonding with Jack?’
Finally, someone had asked. Everyone had assumed – she had assumed – that it would be easy, that she’d love her baby straightaway, but sometimes … She couldn’t finish the thought. ‘I don’t … don’t feel anything for him. Oh, I do, I mean, sometimes. But he doesn’t seem … like I thought. I thought I’d feel more.’
‘I need to ask you something that I ask everyone who feels down or depressed. Have you ever had any thoughts of hurting yourself, of trying to end your life?’
‘No, no, I haven’t.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, which had disintegrated into damp flakes.
‘And what about Jack? Have you ever had any thoughts of hurting him?’
Anna gasped. ‘No! I’d never do that!’
‘Sorry, it’s just something I needed to ask. Look, there are a few things we need to do. First, I’m going to prescribe some tablets for you – antidepressants. I want you to start taking them today. It’ll take a couple of weeks before they start to work, so keep taking one every day, even if you don’t feel like they’re helping. I know you’re breastfeeding, but these are safe. Some will get into the breast milk but the risks of that are far less than if you don’t take them.’
Anna nodded. She felt safer knowing that someone was telling her what she needed to do. It was so hard these days to make any decisions; she almost wept with relief that someone else was taking charge.
‘I’m also going to refer you to a psychologist. I think you need someone to talk to, to help you deal with some of the feelings that you are having. OK?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you need some help at home. Is there anyone who can help you?’
‘Tony’s mum’s offered. And my mum, she’s in Western Australia but she could come …’
‘Good. I’d like to speak to Tony too, just to let him know what we’re doing. Have you got his —’
Anna sat up straighter. Tony didn’t need to be involved. ‘He’s at work, in meetings all day.’
‘I can leave a message on his mobile.’
‘No, don’t disturb him. It’s fine, I’ll talk to him.’
Dr Fraser hesitated, then nodded. ‘All right. Make sure he knows to call me if he has any questions or is worried about anything. That goes for you too. Otherwise, make an appointment for early next week so we can see how the tablets are going.’
While Dr Fraser made some notes, Anna splashed her face with cold water from the small sink in the corner of the room. She pulled two paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and patted her face.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. She took the prescription and some printed information about the medication, dragged the pram backwards out of the room, and paid her bill. She told the receptionist that she’d call later to make the follow-up appointment.
Anna went straight to the chemist before she could think about it too much, and handed in her prescription. While she waited, she picked up a tin of formula and some bottles. She wanted to hide them, to tell the sales assistant that she wasn’t really bottle-feeding, it was just temporary, doctor’s orders. But the sales assistant didn’t seem to care. She paid with her credit card then shoved the carrier bag in the basket of the pram and walked out.
When she got back to her car, she strapped Jack into his capsule, put the pram in the boot then swallowed one of her tablets without water, straightaway. If she waited until she got home she knew that she might talk herself out of it. The pill stuck in her throat and she gagged. It tasted foul.
* * *
That evening, Tony made sure he left work on time. When he walked in, he smelled spices wafting from the kitchen. Anna was standing at the stove, stirring something in a pot. Music was playing from the television. Jack was asleep in his bouncy chair on top of the kitchen counter. Tony felt himself breathe out; Anna looked more like her old self. She loved cooking; she must have had a better day.
He smiled. ‘I thought I said no housework?’ He walked over to her and kissed her head. ‘How did it go at the doctor’s? You look happier.’
She shrugged. ‘It was OK.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said I was normal.’ Anna didn’t look him in the eye. ‘She said I’m tired, just adjusting, you know.’
‘That’s great, babe.’ It was fantastic news; it was all he had wanted, someone else – a professional – to check Anna out and make sure this really was just fatigue or baby blues or something. She’d be better in no time.
Anna added salt to the pan. ‘She gave me some tablets.’
She had spoken so quietly, so casually, that Tony barely heard her. His stomach flipped. If she was OK, why did she need medication? ‘What for?’
‘Oh, just to help me sleep a bit. They’re over there, in my bag.’
He took the box out of Anna’s bag and looked at it. He opened the box and unfolded the thin paper information sheet. ‘Anna, it says these are for depression and anxiety.’
She kept stirring. ‘Yeah, they are, but she’s not using them for depression. They help you sleep too, and while I’m breastfeeding they’re safer than sleeping tablets.’
‘Oh.’ There was something in Anna’s voice that unnerved Tony, but he told himself he had no reason not to trust her. Anyway, as long as she was taking the tablets, what difference did it make what they were meant for? He wondered if maybe Dr Fraser had told Anna they were to help her sleep to make sure she took them. ‘Did she say anything about Jack?’
Anna cleared her throat. ‘She had a look at him. He’s fine, no problems.’
Tony put the tablets down and smiled. ‘I’m so pleased that you went. Things will get easier, I promise.’ He put his arms around her from behind and kissed the back of her head. Her hand didn’t stop stirring the wooden spoon round and round in the pot. Chunks of brown meat bobbed on the surface of the curry sauce then sank into the thick folds and disappeared.
He rested his chin on the top of her head and relaxed for the first time in weeks; things were going to be fine.
&n
bsp; * * *
Anna took another tablet the next morning, but she didn’t feel better. By lunchtime, she felt much worse: she couldn’t keep still, every part of her body urged her to move, to scratch, to pace. She tried to lie down when Jack fell asleep in the afternoon, but her legs itched and tingled. She couldn’t eat; she felt sick. It was unbearable.
Giving up on trying to nap, she typed the name of her medication into her computer and started to read about the terrible side effects. These tablets weren’t going to help at all. Her hands shook as she picked up the box of pills from the kitchen bench and stared at them. What good could they do? She felt worse now than before she started them. And Dr Fraser had told her that the chemicals went into her breast milk – what were they doing to Jack? What about his brain?
She walked through to the bedroom, opened the drawer of her bedside table and put the box in there. She put a book on top of them, closed the drawer and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Three weeks after
Monday, 5 October 2009
Anna pushed away her half-eaten cereal. The milk was too thick and warm; it tasted like it was about to go off. She stared at the melamine plate and tried to ignore the other patients around her. Rachel wouldn’t let Anna eat her meals in her room any more; she wanted her to socialise. But Anna had nothing to say to the other patients. Initially, she had convinced herself that she was different, but now she stayed away because she knew that she was exactly like them.
She sipped her weak coffee, then grimaced. Caffeine was a drug that some people abused, Rachel said, so the nurses kept the jar locked in their office and spooned out daily rations of a few granules of cheap, bitter, instant coffee floating in tepid water. It wasn’t worth drinking.
She smelled Dr Morgan’s perfume wafting toward her, competing with the odour of burnt toast and rubbery sausages. She looked around and saw that Dr Morgan had cut her hair: the ends looked sharp.
‘Hi, Anna. Are you finished eating?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Great. I wanted to have a chat with you. Is that all right?’
Anna was glad for an excuse to get away from the other patients. She took her plate and cup over to the tray near the sink, then followed Dr Morgan towards one of the interview rooms off the main corridor. Her eyes darted around the room: she did trust Dr Morgan, but she still always expected a policeman to be waiting for her. The room was empty.
Dr Morgan sat opposite her and smiled. ‘How are you?’
Anna shrugged.
‘How was breakfast?’
‘Not good.’
Dr Morgan gave a small laugh. ‘No, it’s not very good at all, is it? The nurses tell me you’re eating a bit better now, though. What do you think your appetite’s like?’
‘It’s OK.’
‘Are you sleeping?’
‘Too much. I can’t keep my eyes open …’ As if to prove the point, she stifled a yawn.
‘I’m sorry about that, it’s a side effect of the medications.’
‘I don’t care.’ Anna looked at her, defiant. ‘I’d rather be sleeping.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Can you? I’m sick of the sympathy.’ Her eyes stung but she blinked back the tears.
‘I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me. You’re right: I can’t imagine how you feel. Anna, what do you remember about when you came into hospital?’
Always the same questions, and she gave the same answer. ‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing at all?’
She shook her head.
‘What’s the last thing you remember?’
‘I don’t know!’ Sometimes, at night, she could recall fragments of sounds, images that she knew must be memories of that day, but she chased them away. She didn’t want to remember.
‘Do you know why you were at the cliffs?’
She didn’t want to talk about this; she’d rather talk about her physical symptoms, or her childhood, as they often did. Going back to that day wasn’t going to help.
Dr Morgan spoke slowly. ‘Anna, when you came into hospital, you were psychotic – do you know what that means?’
‘Crazy.’ She knew what it meant; most of the patients in here were psychotic.
‘Well, I suppose some people might still say that, but when I say someone is psychotic, I mean that their thinking becomes disorganised – they lose touch with reality. Some people believe things that aren’t true, others have unusual sensations like hearing voices.’
She could hear what Dr Morgan was saying, could understand it, but couldn’t think of it as anything other than a lecture, something from a book that had nothing to do with her.
‘Does any of that sound familiar to you? Does it sound like what you were experiencing?’
It was impossible to imagine herself – a sensible, married schoolteacher – being like that. ‘It’s like you’re talking about a different person.’
‘I know it’s hard to hear. When you came into hospital, you could barely speak, and when you did, it didn’t make much sense. You seemed scared, you thought you were in danger.’
She remembered the fear. But it wasn’t she who had been in danger. The fear she’d had was for Tony and Jack – her husband and son. It wasn’t clear in her mind, but she had known that she was the dangerous one, and there was only one way to save them. The memory faded and she recalled the terror of being held down by countless heavy hands, having a policeman at her door, having no idea where she was. Those memories were clear, tangible, and she clutched at them. Her heart began to pound. ‘I was scared. I was locked up! How do you think you’d feel if you woke up in a place like this and no one told you what was going on? Not even your family.’
Dr Morgan nodded in that way she did when she wanted to look sympathetic. ‘But knowing what you know now, can you understand why Tony would find it difficult to talk to you?’
Always this, always skirting around the real issue. She glared at Dr Morgan. ‘Why can’t you say it? No one will even say his name any more. I know Jack died, and I know that it was my fault!’ She rubbed her hands up and down her face. ‘That’s what you wanted to hear, wasn’t it? That’s what the police wanted me to say. They didn’t want to hear that I couldn’t remember, they wanted all the gory details, for me to tell them everything and make their job easier.’
‘Anna, you don’t have to remember, or say anything. I’m not the police; I’m your doctor. I’m here to try to get you better.’ Dr Morgan sat back in the chair, crossing her legs. ‘It will take time – a long time – to come to terms with this. You may never remember. It’s quite common not to be able to recall things that happened when you were psychotic, but trauma itself can make us block out memories. Sometimes our minds do what they can to protect us.’
Anna bowed her head and folded her hands in her lap; she could say no more.
‘Let’s leave it there for today then. I just need to ask you one more thing before we finish. Do you have any thoughts at the moment about hurting yourself?’
Dr Morgan asked her this every day. ‘No.’
‘Because it wouldn’t be unusual – in fact, I think it would be quite normal in your situation.’
But how many people had been in her situation? Really, were there studies on people like her? She bit her lip. ‘No, I don’t.’
She stood up and followed Dr Morgan back down the corridor. The nurses had locked her room, so she had no choice but to go to the morning meditation class. Just before she entered the room, she paused and took in the patients lying on the floor. They looked unkempt. They had bad skin, bad haircuts, their fingers were stained with nicotine. But more than that, even as they lay stretched out on the floor, breathing deeply, they looked lonely. Lonely and sad.
She tiptoed in and lay down on the floor next to the nurse who was running the group. She tried to hold her body still, but her chest heaved. Her mind couldn’t rest either. Pieces of thoughts and memories flew pas
t her and she scrabbled to grasp them, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the strength.
* * *
Tony hesitated outside the doctors’ practice. It was on the fourth floor of a huge shiny shopping mall, opposite a gym. He supposed it was meant to make people think that going to see the doctor was just like buying a pair of shoes. He hadn’t expected that the shopping centre would be this busy on a weekday morning: there were mums pushing prams everywhere. He couldn’t look at them; they reminded him too much of Anna and Jack. Maybe he should have encouraged Anna to spend more time out of the house, to walk around the shops, have a coffee with these other mums – maybe that would have helped. He cut off his train of thought: what was the point of thinking about it? It was all too late now.
He pushed open the glass door. He walked up the stairs to the waiting room, then marched towards reception. Behind the desk, one receptionist processed an elderly man’s payment; the other rummaged under the desk. He walked to her side of the counter.
‘I need to see Dr Fraser,’ he said over the top of her head.
She stood up straight. ‘Your name?’
‘Tony Patton.’
She pointed at her computer screen with a long nail sparkling with tiny stars. ‘What time was your appointment?’
‘I don’t have one.’
‘If you don’t have an appointment, you can’t see her. All of our doctors are fully booked. If it’s an emergency —’
‘Just tell her I’m here, and it’s about my wife.’ He turned around and pointed to the chairs in the waiting area. ‘I’m going to sit here until she sees me. I’m not in a hurry. Just tell her I’m here.’
The receptionist started to argue, but he ignored her and sat in the chair nearest to the desk, so he had a good view of the doors to the consulting rooms. He heard the receptionists mumbling to each other. He waited. He would wait as long as it took. The more he had thought about it, the angrier he had become at Dr Fraser. He had done the right thing in insisting Anna see the doctor; Anna had done the right thing by seeking help here. So why was Anna the one to blame when the doctor had told her there was nothing wrong with her?
