Silent Child(21)

While Aiden scribbled in the notebook I resisted the urge to step closer and lean over his shoulder. Aiden deserved a moment to express himself. There was a terrible tale inside him that one day he would need to tell the world. Let him breathe, I thought to myself.

Slowly, Aiden’s hand came to a stop. I wasn’t close enough to see what he had drawn, but I knew he had been scribbling rather quickly, veering his fist from one side of the page to the other as he worked the pen.

“That’s wonderful, Aiden,” said Dr Foster as Aiden pushed the book back to her. “And what is this a drawing of? Is it the place you were when you were away?”

My heart skipped a beat, but Aiden’s face gave nothing away. He was as blank and calm as always.

“Shall we show this to your mum?” Dr Foster asked.

He didn’t reply, of course, but I stepped towards the table anyway. With a face as pale as milk, Dr Foster lifted the sheet of paper. It was filled with one untidy, black scribble with ferocious pen strokes that almost completely filled the page.





11


I could’ve kicked myself for not thinking to give Aiden a pen and some paper before the psychologist saw him. Aiden was always a visual child. He hated colouring books as a child, preferring to scribble or paint on blank sheets of paper. I bought him his first watercolour set when he was four. Bishoptown-on-Ouse has an abundance of spots perfect for the exploration of young mothers and their sons armed with a painting set. We found a huge oak tree which turned into the HQ for a badly-behaved fairy king. Aiden painted orange and red leaves on a thick brown trunk. The Ouse was the perfect spot for a tsunami, so I drew little surfers on top of his blue waves. Aiden loved to paint with colours. He copied the pictures from his favourite comic books, creating his own messy versions of Superman and Spiderman.

He’d grown up with a set of parents who loved art and who loved to paint and draw. And of course he needed that outlet now. But the picture I saw in that hospital room was not Aiden. It was spiky and harsh. It was painful to look at. Dr Foster gave me the sheet of paper to keep and even as we were driving home from the hospital I took the paper out and stared at it, following the lines with my finger.

There were no recognisable shapes within his drawing. There was nothing that could be used in the investigation. Aiden had not drawn us a pretty picture of his prison, nor had he drawn us a map of where he had come from out of the woods. There was nothing except pain and anger in his work, and I didn’t need to be any kind of therapist to see that. But I did feel that it was worth visiting Dr Foster again, so we arranged some dates for over the next few weeks. She pushed things around but managed to fit Aiden in as a priority around her other clients, and I was grateful for that.

The next day, Dr Schaffer informed me that there was little reason to keep Aiden in the hospital. Aside from the old injury on his ankle, there was nothing wrong with him. His growth had been somewhat stunted, but otherwise, he was healthy. I would be taking him home tomorrow.

That Saturday disappeared in a blur as I rushed back to the house, made up the bed in the spare room, and placed the one stuffed toy I’d allowed myself to keep after I declared my son dead. It was a small, soft dragon with red scales that shimmered when the light hit them. My mum had given it to Aiden when he was a baby, representing her Welsh ancestry. I placed it on the pillow and folded the bedding around it to make it look like it had been tucked in. It was silly, but I used to do that when he was a toddler. Then I took the clothes from the shopping bags around the room and folded them into the drawers. Poor Jake had given me his credit card to use and I had gone a little wild, trying to somehow make up for Aiden’s ten years of hell with expensive jeans.

At one point I dug out a couple of pieces of his artwork and tacked them to the wall. Then I thought better of it and pulled them down again. Aiden wasn’t a little boy anymore. The dragon, though—that had to stay. He had never slept without it when he was little. He needed to know I remembered.

The next morning I woke with butterflies in my stomach at the thought of bringing my son home. With it being a Sunday, Jake was off from work, of course, but I suggested he give us the day to settle in. He agreed, eager to do what was best for Aiden, and, I think, a little guilty about the way he’d reacted in the hospital.

Rob picked me up to take me to the hospital, driving his dad’s car. We’d decided that it would be too much for Sonya and Peter to be there. We wanted to keep this simple and quiet. There was the threat of the press looming above us. They would find out soon, we were certain of that, but how much, and when? That axe was yet to fall.

“Are you ready?” Rob asked as I pulled the seatbelt across my body.

“Are you?” I replied.

He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and I noticed the hint of a tattoo peeking out from underneath the sleeve. It was black, with a slight tail looping down.

“A dragon?” I asked.

“Like Aiden’s,” he replied.

“I found it and put it on his bed.”

“He never slept without it,” Rob said.

“I know.” I pressed my finger into the corner of my eye and tried hard to stop the tears building up. “No, I’m not ready for this. But I won’t let it show. I won’t.”

“It’s all right, Em. You’re doing a good job. Fuck, you’re doing better than I am. And you have the…” He glanced at my belly.