“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Rob added hastily, sensing my annoyance.
“And up the stairs is where your bedroom is, and where my bedroom with Jake is. There’s a bathroom there, too, with a bath and a shower.” I took a couple of the stairs and glanced back to realise that Aiden wasn’t following us. “It’s okay, take your time.”
I shared a look with Rob. Concern laid low in my belly along with a mouthful of the tea Denise had made me. I’d never thought of this. I knew that Aiden walked with a stiff gait, and that he hadn’t had much opportunity to move around over the decade of captivity, but I’d not even thought of the fact he might not have walked up stairs for years and years. It was one of those moments where the extent of Aiden’s trauma hit me with full force. This was what he’d been through. This was what he had been forced to endure. This. Not even able to walk upstairs. Any other sixteen-year-old would be able to run up them, taking two at a time. I saw them running up and down the stairs at school all the time. I usually chastised them for it and received a ‘sorry, Miss’ in return.
Aiden stood there, with his gaze fixed on the bottom step. I walked down to meet him and hesitantly placed my hand on his arm.
“Okay, so one big step and then another.” Gently, I coaxed him up the first few steps. There were beads of sweat forming on his forehead. His brow was furrowed in concentration, but after the first few steps, he got the hang of it, and I let go of his arm.
Rob met us at the top with his arms folded and his mouth in a tight line. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about the things he’d do to the man who had taken our son.
“This way, Aiden.” I was getting sick of the sound of my own voice. It was obvious that underneath the bright, cheery tone were the cracks of my own distress. I sounded sickly and weak, desperately trying not to burst into tears at any moment. Part of me wished that Aiden was still in the hospital just so I didn’t have to see his haunted expression in our home. It was worse here, somehow. Hospitals are full of sad or blank faces, but a home should be happy. Aside from the odd row, it should be filled with smiling faces and laughter, not the eerie quiet of the traumatised. “This is your room. I hope you like it. I’ve put some clothes inside the drawers, look, and the wardrobe. There are jeans in here, and underwear here. There are towels in the cabinet in the hall outside. And look, I know it’s silly, but here’s Walnut.” I lifted the dragon out from the covers and held it aloft as if it were some sort of precious artefact. Aiden just stared.
“Come on, mate, you remember Walnut,” Rob said. “You used to sleep with him every night.”
“Dad used to call him Wally sometimes, and Grandad used to call him…” I trailed off, remembering that I still hadn’t told Aiden his grandparents had died.
Before I could say any more, Aiden took a step forward and took the dragon from my hand in a swift motion that seemed jarring after his stillness. He stared down at the dragon and my breath caught in my throat. Would this be the moment he broke his silence? I watched him turn the dragon over in his hands, waiting for something… anything. A squeak would suffice. A scream. One word. One letter. Anything to indicate that my Aiden was still in there somewhere, alive and kicking and waiting to tell his Mummy all the bad things that had happened to him.
But he lifted his head and looked at me with the same blank expression on his face. His chestnut eyes were exactly the same as before, without any trace of emotion.
“Okay, well, I’ll show you my room next,” I said, and this time my voice really did crack.
* * *
When my voicegrew tired of filling the silences and Rob ran out of things to say, we put the television on in the living room and left Aiden watching a children’s channel. I made him a cup of milky tea along with toast and Nutella, and left him sitting on the sofa gazing at the colourful pictures on the screen.
It was in the kitchen that I let myself go. I let the tears come, and I cried into Rob’s t-shirt until I couldn’t cry anymore. He made me a peppermint tea and sat me down on the bench next to the table. Denise hovered awkwardly around, mopping up spilled tea, washing the few plates we’d used since we’d been home. Marcus spent most of the time checking his phone or leaning awkwardly against a chair. After Rob glared at them both for a while, Denise excused herself from the kitchen, and grabbed Marcus on the way out.
“What the fuck am I going to do?” I ran a hand over my stomach and thought about my pregnancy with Aiden. It was hell. I threw up, I had back pain, I had a terrible labour. I never expected to bond with Aiden, but as soon as the midwife placed him in my arms I realised I’d never known love until that moment. The pain and the sickness melted away. It had been someone else throwing up in a bin near the school hall, someone else who had been in labour for almost twenty hours. That had never happened; my beautiful little baby just arrived and was plopped into my arms and that was that for the rest of my life.
“He just needs time.” Rob sipped his tea and grimaced. “What is this shit?”
“Badly steeped herbal tea. How long did you leave the bag in for?”
“I dunno, Em. You’ve changed. Cream carpets, herbal tea? That’s not you. Remember how we celebrated Aiden’s birth?”
“Half a bottle of vodka on the bench outside Rough Valley. I remember. I had to sit on a cushion because my stitches still hurt. We sat there with Aiden in a sling until it got cold and then ate mints before taking him back to my parents. It was a good job I expressed milk before we drank the vodka. But Jesus, Rob, do you think that wasgood? We were messed-up kids. Imagine if we were still sitting around drinking vodka now. Aiden needs stability.”
“Yeah, I know.” Rob tapped on the ceramic mug and stared down at his tea. “It’s just how much you’ve changed. You’re… I dunno…”
“What?”
“Does this really make you happy?” Rob waved his arm around the kitchen at the neat shelves and the pristine finish on the cupboard doors. “Where’s the character? Where’s your influence? This is all him. There’s that one painting of yours, which, by the way, is the only bit of colour in this place, and everything else is just… sterile.”
I hated the truth in his words and I hated him at that moment. I stood up, took his mug and emptied it into the sink. He wasn’t going to drink it anyway.
“You’d better go.”
“Don’t forget to rinse that mug.” The chair scraped as he moved away from the table. He snatched up his jacket from the back of the chair and began to yank it on over his arms. “You won’t want to leave any tea stains on the perfect cream surface. And for fuck’s sake don’t spill any on your grey dresses in your beige house. I’ll go and say goodbye to Aiden.”
I put the mug down in the sink and sighed. “Don’t go.”
He paused. The jacket came off, and almost immediately his arms were wrapped around my waist, stretching across my back with the baby bump between us. His head leaned against my shoulder.
“I’ve missed you, Emma.”
“No—that’s not… That’s not what I meant.” I pulled away, removing his hands. “No. We… We need to figure out what we’re going to do.” I ducked around him and avoided his eyes. I felt my cheeks, felt the flushed warmth of embarrassment. “I mean, we need to figure out a plan for how we’re going to deal with the press and how we’re going to cope with Aiden until he’s better.” I finally lifted my head and found his gaze. “I’m carrying his child, Rob. I can’t do this.”
