"A lot of medications, and updates from your mum."
"Yes. I suppose I just assumed, rightly or wrongly, that you were doing okay. Imogen was happy and hitting all her milestones and didn't really remember me… I still had a lot of'everyone was better off without me'to deal with."
"What changed that?"
Billy smiled. "Time." She nodded and continued, "There are things in life, we all have…things that leave a mark. The small t—little traumas that nobody notices, but they're busy building away in the background, brick by brick, until one day you turn to do something, and boom," Billy clapped her hands, "you hit the wall."
Rosa flinched.
"Sorry." Billy chuckled. She paused for a moment before continuing, "Some of those bricks were virtually invisible. They needed to be picked apart by someone who knew how to do that…knew how to probe just enough to find the detail in the marrow."
Chapter eighteen
"May I ask questions?" Rosa said.
Billy nodded and smiled. "I hoped you might want to." She held her hands up. "I'm an open book."
"What does…’little trauma’ mean exactly?"
Leaning back, Billy thought about the question.
"When I was a kid and my dad was at home, I suppose life wasn't fun always. Sometimes it was…really big fun, and then suddenly it wouldn't be. They argued a lot, but then the next minute they were all loved up and I was… I guess I felt like I was in the way of that. My therapist explained that as a small child, I learned that it was never safe, emotionally. Back then, both of my parents were very much…unavailable. Dad, because he was so walled off. And believe it or not, my mum was…overwhelmed and dramatic, needing me to be her sounding board."
"Somehow I can see that." Rosa grinned.
"It's not hard, right?"
"Sorry, go on." Rosa's smile didn't fade.
"Okay…so, there are a million things that added up, but the biggest was when my dad left. My mum fell apart, and I…I took on the responsibility for her emotions. I blamed myself for him leaving. If I'd just been a better daughter, a quieter child…if I'd just…the list went on."
"And all of this was in your subconscious the entire time?"
"Yes, just pecking away here and there. When I met you," she smiled, "I'd never been happier. Getting married, though, it somehow set off a chain of small events that just became an avalanche. Losing my job was a catalyst that pushed me over the edge, and then when Imogen was born… All I could see in me was my dad."
"You were scared you'd abandon her, and yet, that's what you did."
"I was scared I'd fail her. In my depressed fog, I worried I’d be just like him. My thinking got all twisted because I’d subconsciously blamed myself for him leaving. But the reality was, he was just a selfish sod who'd met someone else and abandoned us…me. But I rationalised it all as I'd fail her…fail you."
"So…" Rosa mused, "have we…did we fuck up Imogen without even realising?"
"Maybe…"
"You should have told me sooner." Rosa sat up straighter. "We could have headed it off."
Billy smiled. "When?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, when would it have been a good time to bring any of this up with you? Before now, we've barely spoken to each other. I pick Imogen up and you're either not there, or in a hurry to go somewhere. I drop her off and you're in a hurry to get her organised for school the next day. If I call, you don't answer. I’llget a text message later saying that you’re sorry you missed my call."
"That's not fair—"
"It's just facts, Rosa," Billy said. "We spent years after I left with us both walking on eggshells, and then these last years have been spent with you avoiding me and any real conversation."
Rosa bristled, her fists slowly clenching.
"I get it," Billy said. "It's not easy to open up and say what you want or need to say, and maybe…" Her head tilted as she held Rosa's gaze. "Maybe there are things you need to say…hurtful things? Angry things?" Billy held her arms open. "I can take it. I want to hear it and get it all out into the open so we can draw a shared line under it all and parent our child together."
