Eloquent Silence (30 page)

‘We weren’t planning on having any babies, Buddy,’ I told him gently. ‘We think we’re a bit too old.’

‘Well, they just seem to come along whether you want them or not,’ he informed me confidentially. ‘You might even have three or four,’ he warned, shaking his head with concern.

‘Thank you for telling me, Buddy. I’ll be sure to remember what you said,’ I promised gratefully.’

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S
itting outside the office building, his voice brought me back to the present.

‘No wonder you like working here, Nan. There’s not much to do, is there?’

‘No, love, not much to do.’

I thought about my unfinished weekly return, my ledgers that needed to be filled, my daily balance that I had no hope of getting done.

‘Better than being a doctor, hey, Nan?’

‘Yes,’ I laughed. ‘I’d be sure to kill off all my patients.’

‘Hurry up and drink your coffee, Nan and we’ll go and type up ‘Flopsy and Mopsy’. What do you do when I don’t come to work with you, Nan?’ he asked inquisitively.

‘Sweetheart, I really don’t know!’

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A
nd the king was much moved, and went up into the chamber over the gate and wept and as he went he said, ‘Oh, my son, Absolom, my son, my son, Absolom! Would that I had died for thee, oh Absolom, my son, my son!

Bible

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H
ow is it death enters our lives so suddenly, so remorselessly? Creeping up and pouncing like a tiger in the night, teeth bared, mouth slavering. How is it death alters the mood and the shape of our days with relentless finality? No closure possible. An unfinished life, a merciless retreat of the soul to another plane. Jaw-dropping shock that a youngster has chosen to leave this imperfect world before their allotted time has run out. Sinister, agonizing, endless pain after the tragic event has been accomplished.

Cruelly like an assassin who halts us suddenly in our tracks, causing us to spin, head ringing, eyes unfocused, on the cusp of the freedom of a dream that will never eventuate now. Poised there, we are  struggling to come to terms with the overwhelming contradiction of a young life gone forever, pointlessly. Now he will always be dead. He will never be not-dead again, his delicate features frozen for Eternity. Should he flounder and wish to return he will find the doorway padlocked and barred to him. What are the guidelines on how to be dead. Are there any for how to be undead? Not-dead. Regretfully, there is no out for him.

The telephone ringing in the dead of night jangles us up out of sleep, startled and puzzled. The doorbell trills alarmingly in the early morning stillness before dawn, striking urgent warning into our hearts. A shake of our head, disoriented, sleep-clogged. Confusion. Disorientation. A multitude of thoughts come and go in a second. Astonishment and a nebulous fear in the inky blackness of the night and the mind.

He would have been twenty if he were alive today, but he left the world on his eighteenth birthday in the still, early hours somewhere between midnight and dawn on the anniversary of his birth. He took my palpitating heart with him into extinction. It is not a matter of choice for me. I am destroyed by forces inside and outside of myself. Clearly, I cannot hope to get myself back on track.

I, who had taken for granted I would live forever, found only the helpless tenderness I’d felt for him all his life remaining in my soul. He, my son, would live forever, too, I had supposed. Who will fill the black hole he has left in my life? An eternal shimmering hole leading to straight to Hell.

This is how death mutates our future, alters our expectations, shifts our world view. When the telephone rings I may think for a split second that it will be him calling to ask how I am, but it won’t be him now, not ever. When the doorbell rings and the pudgy old dog rockets loudly to the door, I may have a quick flash of expectation that it’s him on the other side, but it will never be him. Not ever. As I gaze into the endless distance before me I try to accept I will never see him appear on the horizon of my future.

Unlicensed to drive on that fatal December day, he will not grow older, not be expert enough to obtain a driver’s license so that he can drive to my house. He is frozen eternally at eighteen, never aging, never changing. Always eighteen, my Benji, my beloved corpse, with his smattering of freckles on his bland, disinterested face, his skin startingly translucent and pale, his neck looking fit to choke beneath the tight, white collar of his school uniform.

He will never seek to find a significant other, never cause me to become a grandmother, nor come to my funeral in the flesh. Are there any guidelines on how to be a mother bereft of her child? What are the standards I am supposed to meet on this journey into Hell? What will his father expect of me; his stepmother; his peer group?

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W
hen I go to visit him at the funeral home the following day, this is what I find and it is destined to haunt my dreams forever more, this pale, bland, disinterested face, startlingly translucent, permanently frozen. I thought at that moment my heart would simply burst with sorrow.

He was beautiful, so beautiful and I loved him so, loved him so because of his gentleness and vulnerability.
Mea culpa
, to love him and not to be able to save him. I feel an astounding rush of love for him, knowing as I do that he is not present to acknowledge it. Thin to the point of wiriness, his lanky body lies at rest for eternity.

Silent me, mostly silent, speaking only to find my words misinterpreted, words of love and concern transposed into self-seeking words, manipulating for my own ends, purposely misunderstood so as to keep me in my place. Problematic me, who knows only too well that what is done cannot be undone. Trusting in my instincts for self-preservation I say as little as possible and feel that even this is too much. Can
they
take the high moral ground and blame me for this outcome in some way that I cannot imagine?

Things get in the way of love; circumstances that can’t be helped or avoided. Sometimes our absorption in ourselves and our own lives, or a mistaken sense of duty leads us away from where we should be concentrating our efforts at parenthood. I tried to get close to Benji from my remote home, thinking he was in trouble, but underestimating his life-draining emotions.

My useless brain is stuffed with meaningless clutter about what he would have done with his life had he survived this moment in time. Dreams abandoned, sadness to be borne alone by me in my solitude. Going back is not an option for either Benji or me.

I lost custody of Benji and his brothers, Paul and Andrew to my ex-husband, Joel, he of the hawklike profile and the flashing eyes. Paul was five, Benji, six and Andrew, eight. By then, after a bitter custody battle, I was a hundred years old, as I have been ever since the judge pronounced the boys’ best interest would be served if they lived in a ‘normal’ home with two parents. Apparently I could not provide them with a ‘normal’ home even though I had been doing it all their lives since their father absconded when they were hardly more than babies.

I have ceased to marvel at my perceived incompetence. The problem is insoluble and I was never resigned to the verdict that left me tossed by the wayside of their lives, collateral damage of a marriage gone wrong.

Thus they went, complete with bag and baggage, to live fifty miles away with my ex-husband and his new young wife, Poppy Lee, second in line after myself and following Anya, a bright young miss with a voice full of irritation. Third in line, actually, the beautiful Poppy Lee with her long, almond eyes glinting with perfectionism and self confidence. Might as well have sent my sons to another planet. Shipped them off fiendishly to Mars or the moon.

I shuddered at the awfulness of my loss while the judge droned on about stability and security, sounds that were barely comprehensible issuing from his whiskery mouth. Sounds like, ‘furthermore and transition and incapable,’ in his lofty, oily voice while I nursed the great hollowness inside me, the loss of my boys.

I was as good as deprived of access to the boys many times when their father, a school teacher, was transferred hither and yon, first with his second wife, Anya, and their new family when he would hold fast to the boys, often against their wishes for long periods of time. Then he and his third wife took me to court to claim full custody of my three children.

Because of work commitments and other considerations, I simply could not up anchor and follow them willy nilly around the country. I had to live a settled, stable life to preserve my sanity and to keep my employment so as to keep a roof over my head for when the boys were with me, to feed them and supply their clothing which their father and his wives did not seem to notice they had outgrown.

Time is supposed to be merciful and I prayed that time would heal my open, bleeding wounds. Nothing lasts forever, I always told myself, and things could not get any worse than they already were. But now they had.

There were many times I did not see my sons for months on end, until my annual holiday allowed me to travel the hundreds of miles between us. Joel refused to bring or send them to me. Too much strain for Poppy Lee and the babies and the other children of the second short-lived marriage. The boys,
my
long-limbed, wiry boys had sports camp on the school holidays and so on and so on.....always a story, always an excuse, obstacles enough to destroy a mother’s hope.

I did not dare to complain or this was seen to be selfish words spoken by an embittered, manipulating woman, locked into a stance used by maneuvering mothers meddling in lives and trying to alter outcomes. Better to be quiet than to be considered intrusive and lose the little contact I had. Must be rational and laid back at all costs or else. Or else they would see me as unstable and obliterate any contact with my sons. God forbid that I should express myself above a self-effacing whisper.

Watching, waiting for letters, phone calls, never giving an opinion under any circumstances, unable to state gut feelings for the boys’ sakes. Removed from being able to halt the roller-coaster ride. Having to watch and listen only or lose the small amount of family time I was able to enjoy.

I tried to insinuate myself into their lives by my never-ending agreement, a nodding puppet trying to keep my own control while the controllers cast haughty glances at me.

Andrew and Paul were strong and confident, blasé from a young age, able to cover up and carry out what was expected of them. At least, that was the impression they gave and I found no reason to suspect this was not the case.

Benji was different. He was born with a foot that was not quite straight. Not clubbed, but oddly shaped, lop-sided enough that he had to have special shoes made. It marked him, made him stick out from the crowd. Made a target of him in some of the schools he attended during the many shifts the family had.

There was emotional fallout from this within their household. Neither Anya, nor later, Poppy Lee, had the time to ‘baby’ Benji and give him a little extra attention, talk him through his days. That was all it would have taken—just for him to know that someone in the household was looking out for him.

Poppy Lee had our sons full time and Anya’s children, Luca and Adam,  part time. As well, she soon had the twin girls, Maya and Amy,  to contend with and that was about all she could do along with the housekeeping for her husband and the numerous children.

When the boys came to visit with me, if Benji became dark, moody, absent, keeping his distance from the adults, what else was new? Wasn’t that the way boys were expected to behave at that age?

If he was passive, more resigned on other days, for some reason that bothered me deeply. But I, legally removed from the responsibility, was roundly reminded of my place eventually by his father. The astounding disclosure to me one night in a telephone conversation, that I did not matter any more, brought me literally to my knees when my ex-husband hung up in my ear.

In hindsight there were times I thought everything that had gone wrong was my fault. Tears would come unbidden as I wandered through the years in retrospect, inconsolable about the loss of my sons, taken from me because I did not have a ‘normal’ household with the requirement of a residential husband. Yet there was much worse loss to come.

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S
o we stand at the open door, the police man and me. I am cold, shivering, wanting to collapse, listening to the bearer of the tidings without really comprehending what is being said while the telephone goes on shrilling unanswered in the background. 

Is this true? I’m not sure I heard correctly. He shrugs with a look of futility and compassion, a little dampness round his eyes as he stares at me soundlessly. I should be able to be more articulate than this. I have nothing that I can possibly say, feeling as though an unaccountable message had come to me from outer space.

Then, furious, heartsick, my world begins to unravel around my ears. I stare at this stranger wordlessly, flummoxed as I gaze into the hair of the sideburns next to me, ginger hair with slight flecks of gray. A little dandruff. Speckles of gray, clusters of gray, tufts sticking out from under his policeman’s hat, hair of the same vintage as mine. Neck scarred and pock-marked by something? Chicken-pox? Nose large and bulbous, mouth thin-lipped and looking like a piece of cord.

I wait for further confirmation and glance into his eyes. He is an abomination to me, I think illogically. If he knew how much I hated him he would disappear in a puff of smoke.

Stupefied, I make my eyes stay steady for as long as I can bear to and he looks at me with a kind, deliberate expression. He is willing me with his eyes to accept the tidings without making a fuss in the street in the middle of the night. He separates his syllables and tells me the truth again.

Suddenly, for some strange reason I find myself wanting to ask his forgiveness for causing him the trouble of coming around to my house in the dense darkness. Has my blood curdled in my veins? Why won’t my tongue move?