After the End(72)
There is an unspoken accusation—You took that away from me—and I hear again the venom in his voice that day at court. You signed your own son’s death warrant. I don’t turn my head.
“Please.”
The word holds the promise of tears, and anxiety builds, ready and waiting. If Max cries, I cry. And I don’t want to cry. I’m holding it together, I’m feeling as normal as it’s possible for me to feel, and he’s unravelling it all right before my eyes.
“I can’t,” I manage, staring at the dressing table. I count each object. Hair straighteners, jewellery box, basket of makeup. A trinket dish for coins and rings. An empty water glass, cloudy from the dishwasher.
“Why not?” This time he makes me look at him, pulling my shoulder round until we’re facing each other. “You were such a great mom.”
Were.
He’s crying openly now, and no matter how hard I swallow or blink or count to ten I can’t stop it happening. I’m breaking his heart all over again, and I owe him more than simply I can’t.
I find the words. “I can’t love a child all over again, only to lose them.”
“That won’t happen.”
“You don’t know that!” It’s me who’s crying now, noisy thick sobs that tear at my chest and wrack my body. “I can’t do it, Max, I can’t and I won’t.”
And for the second time in our marriage, there is no compromise to be found.
* * *
Max doesn’t bring up the subject again, but I know he’s thinking about it. I see it in his face when he smiles at passing children, and I feel it in the air between us when Chris Evans speaks to excited kids on his breakfast show.
“What are you doing for the first time today, Zak?”
“I’m playing the trumpet in the school concert.”
I can’t. I just can’t.
Sometimes I dream that I’m pregnant, or I take the gurgle of an empty stomach for the quickening of early pregnancy, and my heart stops for a split second until logic takes over again. Sometimes I see a child in a wheelchair, or a specially adapted pushchair—or read an article in the paper about accomplishments despite the odds—and I’m overwhelmed with fear and guilt that we did the wrong thing. That I did the wrong thing.
I know I have a problem. I know that it is not rational to cross the street to avoid an oncoming pram, or to make excuses at work not to speak to families. I know that grief and guilt have morphed into behaviour that is far from normal, but knowing it doesn’t keep it in check.
It’s May when things come to a head, when I’m working one of those flights where everything goes wrong. We’re delayed by fog, and when we eventually leave, even the upper-class passengers—placated with pre-takeoff champagne—are grouchy and impatient. It’s seven hours to Dubai, and three hours in, the place is in chaos. After an hour held on the runway, the passengers are fidgety and out of their seats, blocking the aisles and slowing down the drinks service. The noise level is building, and the queue for the loos is spilling through the curtain separating economy from upper class.
“Pip, can you lend a hand in economy?” Derek, unflappable and with enviably groomed eyebrows, is our flight service manager today. “Things are going south fast.”
There’s a buzz as the cockpit door opens, and Lars emerges for his rest break, catching the last few words and looking enquiringly at Derek.
“No biggie,” Derek says, “but we’ve had a spillage and two vomits, and there are newlyweds in row twenty-three conducting their own in-flight entertainment.”
“Put the seat belt sign on for twenty minutes,” Lars says.
With the aisles clear and no one queuing for the toilets, we can get the galleys straight. The vomiters are handed ice cubes to suck, and the spillage is mopped up, and Derek gives the newlyweds a blanket. I make a final check as I walk back to upper class.
“Excuse me, will the seat belt signs go off soon?” The woman in 13E is around my age. She has long dark hair in a plait over one shoulder, and a fringe that meets her top lashes. Next to her, in 13D, is a boy of around eight or nine. “He’ll need the loo and he won’t be able to hold it if there are lots of people waiting—I’d like to get there first if that’s possible.”
The boy is disabled. His head rests on his seat, but tipped to one side in a way that doesn’t look comfortable. His free arm makes small jerking movements. I smile at him and he beams back.
“You can go now.”
“Oh, thank you!” She unclips their seat belts and helps her son stand. He is mobile, but clumsy, each foot finding its place like a toddler’s as he makes his way up the aisle ahead of her. “It’s his first flight, and I’ve been ever so worried about how he’ll cope.” She lowers her voice. “The doctors said he’d never walk. Can you believe it?”
I feel suddenly cold, although the cabin is warm, and I make myself smile and say Incredible, he’s a lovely boy, you must be so proud, and then I walk back to upper class and to the galley, where Jada is clearing away lunch and Lars is leaning against the counter, drinking coffee and getting in the way. I think about the judge’s ruling, and about the evidence we heard that week; about Dr. Gregory Sanders’s conviction that proton beam therapy would take away Dylan’s tumour. I think about the professor, and his special school for disabled children. I picture Dylan, learning how to make sounds, to use a computer. On a plane, on holiday, in the sea. There’s a buzzing in my ear and I lean against the counter, too light-headed to stand straight.