Silent Child(34)

My cheeks flushed with heat. He thought I wasn’t accepting the grim reality of the situation, but he was wrong. I knew exactly what was happening—I was just trying to shield Aiden from it. He wasn’t ready. How could anyone be ready for what was going to happen? If I, a fully-grown woman, wasn’t ready, how could my damaged, vulnerable son get through the ordeal?

“Basketball,” I said. I clambered ungracefully to my feet, walked into Jake’s study and took a few sheets of paper from the desk.

When I got back into the living room, Jake was on his knees talking to Aiden.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re just having a chinwag.” Jake grinned and patted Aiden on the shoulder. “I was telling him it might be a good idea for him to spend some time with his dad and grandparents.”

I dropped the paper. “What? Why? How dare you say that to Aiden without suggesting it to me first?”

He shrugged. “What’s the problem? He hasn’t seen them for days. It isn’t fair, you keeping him cooped up in here.”

“I’m protecting him. I’ve told Rob, Sonya, and Peter not to come. You know what Rob’s temper is like. The last thing we need is him yelling at the press and making a scene. I know Sonya is itching to help, but what can she do? No. Aiden needs some space from this circus. He needs time with just us so that he can adjust. Wherever he was he was probably alone for a long time. Too many people will just freak him out. ”

“He needs some time away from this house.”

“More like you just want him out of here,” I muttered under my breath.

Jake got to his feet. “What was that?”

I backed out of the room, then turned and walked into the kitchen, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the argument. “Look, I know you’ve been trying to make the most of things, but it’s so obvious that you don’t want Aiden around. You going up to him and basically telling him to get out doesn’t help.”

“Emma, I don’t know how I can make myself any clearer. I don’t want Aiden out of my house—I just want him to get some fresh air, to see people other than me or you, and to actually begin to face his own reality. It isn’t doing him any good being here with us.”

“He’s improving,” I insisted. “I can tell. He’s listening to me. He’s taking everything in.”

“You’re seeing something that isn’t there. Trust me, I have some perspective on this. He’s not improving. He’s a vegetable, Emma. He sits there without even the slightest remnant of human emotion on his face. The other day I walked out of the bathroom and he was stood in the corridor doing nothing. Just standing. Just staring.”

I rubbed the dry skin on my hands and paced up and down the kitchen. “Vegetable? What the fuck, Jake. How could you?”

He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That came out wrong.”

But it was too late. His harsh words had a cruel edge, but that didn’t mask the truth of them. When I spoke, there was a new quaver of uncertainty in my voice. “He’s not a vegetable, is he? He… he’s aware. Isn’t he?”

Jake moved forward, took me by the shoulders and stared deep into my eyes. “Emma, he is psychologically damaged. No matter how much you want to, you can’t do this on your own.”





17


The décor in Dr Foster’s office was designed to convey a bright cheerfulness that verged on the contrived. It was the kind of room I would have hated as a teenager. I sat on a bright red sofa and stared at the abstract painting hung on the wall on the other side of the room. Large, sweeping brushstrokes whirled together every shade of yellow known to the imagination. The carpet was patterned in interconnecting loops of the primary colours, like an 80s lunchbox design.

It was Thursday by the time I’d dragged us out of our withdrawal from the world, and the two of us emerged like a bear from hibernation, rubbing our eyes and squinting at the sun. I’d spent the journey to the surgery trying to stop my hands from trembling as they gripped the steering wheel, and avoiding eye-contact with the people around me. But it was important for Aiden to see a therapist. He’d had a slow adjustment to life outside hospital, and now I knew it was time to listen to Jake. Luckily, Dr Foster was prepared to see Aiden even before his status as ‘deceased’ had been repealed.

When the door opened, it scraped across the wooden floorboards, making a high-pitched squeaking sound. Aiden let out a sudden gasp and sat up very straight. His face paled in a way I hadn’t seen since we’d tried to force him into the woods. I placed my hand on his, moving very slowly as I always did when I touched him.

“Hello again, Emma. Good morning, Aiden.” Dr Foster was as cheerful as her waiting room, but she had an organic quality about her that was less contrived. Her image belonged on the box of organic muesli. She was very natural and easy; a people person. “Would you like to come in?”

Aiden followed my lead into Dr Foster’s office. After Aiden’s disappearance during the flood, I’d spent some time in therapy at a place in York. That had been what I would consider a typical therapist’s office to be like. It was very sparse, with comfortable chairs, a bookcase, and a large, wooden desk. This was the opposite. It was filled with colour, from the baskets of toys, to the artwork on the walls, to a couple of bouquets of fresh flowers on the windowsill.