Silent Child(14)

I let go of the balled up material. “Thank you. I appreciate it. Now, can I see him?”

I needed a few minutes with him before calling Rob’s parents. Perhaps it was selfish, perhaps it was reasonable; I didn’t know at the time and I didn’t care. I didn’t dwell on my feelings, I was protecting my son. The last thing he needed was to be bombarded by well-meaning visitors and professionals. I followed Schaffer and Stevenson through the corridor, avoiding the stares from the nurses walking up and down. For the first time I realised that there were other children on the ward. I tried not to stare into the rooms as we walked along, but through open doors I saw giggling children and fathers making silly faces. There were pots on arms and legs. Broken limbs. They were normal reasons for a child coming to hospital. And when they went back to school they’d get all the signatures and doodles of their friends. They’d have fun stories to tell—“…and then next-door’s Doberman chased me over the fence but I caught my jeans and face-planted…”—and scars to show off. They would be louder and more boisterous for a while, emboldened by their escape from ‘death’. But not my son.

“Hey, Aiden.” I kept my voice bright and cheerful as I entered the room. Aiden sat with his back propped up against the headboard. He had a cup of juice in his hand and he sipped on it slowly. I walked over to the bed, cleared my throat as I moved the chair closer to him, and held back tears. I was determined to avoid thinking about what he had been through. I would not. I could not. “I bet you’re sick of people bothering you when you’re trying to watch cartoons.” I let myself really look at him this time. I took it all in: the rich brown of his eyelashes, the boniness of his shoulders, the thick, straight hair. They melded with my memories of the dark-haired boy with scrapes on his knees and a grin on his face. Now there was only a neutral, placid expression on his face. Every one of his movements was slow: the turn of his head, blinking, reaching out to the table next to him for his drink.

The baby moved inside, kicking its feet. I longed to take Aiden’s hand and place it on my bump for him to feel, but I only put my own hand there instead. “That’s your little sister saying hello. You see, you have so many people wanting to say hello. And you know I would have come sooner, but I didn’t know where you were. I’m sorry, Aiden. I’m so sorry I didn’t know where you were. I’ll never not know again, I promise. We’re going to fix it all, you know. We’re going to mend it together. You and me. We’ll be a team again, like we were when we lived at Nana’s house, remember? We fought crime, you and me. You were Superman, obviously, you had the cape. I was just your sidekick but you made sure we caught the baddies every time. We’re going to do that again, I promise.”

And that was as much as I could say without breaking down. For another five minutes I watched cartoons with my son. I rested my hand on the bed next to him, and although his eyes flickered towards the movement, he didn’t flinch away. Still, I didn’t try to touch him.

I found him oddly self-possessed then. I knew the doctors thought he was in shock, but he didn’t seem shocked or afraid. He seemed comfortable in his own skin. He seemed quite at ease ignoring us all and casting his attention to what mattered the most to him: cartoons. And who could blame him? He’d been hurt by someone—an adult. Why would he want to interact with more adults after that happened to him? I didn’t blame him for ignoring us all.

It was Jake who brought me out of the spell cast over me in that quiet room. “Emma, honey. You need to call them.”

I nodded my head. What time was it? I hadn’t checked the time on my phone for what felt like hours. I’d given Jake my handbag and forgotten all about it. He handed it to me now, after I crossed the room on unsteady legs. I pushed my hair away from my clammy forehead and reached for my phone inside the bag. It was almost seven. We’d been here just under three hours. Sonya and Peter would be sitting down to eat their dinner at this time. I pictured them in back of the B&B. Peter was tall and broad like Rob—a boxer’s physique, which was something he used to do as a hobby in his youth. Sonya was a slip of a woman; stooped, thin shoulders on top of two matchstick legs. Her voluminous blonde bob always made her look a bit like a lollipop. The two of them dressed in Marks and Spencer cashmere sweaters and ironed jeans. They were the epitome of a nice, normal countryside couple.

The thought of telling them what I needed to say made me light-headed and nauseated. But I thought of how they had loved Aiden when he came along. We would walk to the B&B after school and Sonya would come running out with a box of Liquorice All-Sorts and a comic book. Aiden never really liked liquorice and they always got him the wrong comic book, but he was always grateful and laughed at Peter’s bad jokes. They took him to the farms outside the village to see the lambs, and to the rural shows when they came around every year. They held his little hand and pointed out all the sights for him to see. They bought him candyfloss and little trinkets for him to keep. I stepped out of the room and found a quiet space to call. When I placed the phone against my ear, I started to cry.

“Bishoptown Bed and Breakfast,” Sonya answered.

“Sonya, it’s Emma.”

“Emma, dear, you sound terrible.” She sucked in a breath. “Is it about Aiden?”

“Yes.”

There was a sob on the other end of the line. “Peter. Peter, it’s Emma. It’s about Aiden.”