The Marriage Act(87)
‘I’m really sorry to bother you,’ he asked, ‘but my mobile won’t charge and I really need to make a call to check on my mum. She’s not been well. Do you have a phone I could borrow? I can pay for my call?’
The man looked Anthony up and down and deciding he was legitimate, removed his phone from his pocket. ‘Be quick,’ he urged.
Then he removed a scrap of paper he had been carrying around with him since the woman he had met at the Freedom for All meeting had pressed it into his palm and dialled the number written on it.
70
Roxi
Roxi took a seat in her dining room where she had fixed her tablet to a stand. She pressed the video camera icon and gave her appearance a final check. She examined her teeth for lipstick stains, set the lightbulb above her to halo mode and closed a curtain to prevent the sunlight from giving her skin a washed-out appearance.
Today, there was no script for her to read aloud or bullet points scrawled on colourful Post-it notes stuck around the device. She would be speaking from the heart. She took one last moment to compose herself before she stared directly into the lens and pressed record.
‘I didn’t own very much when I was a little girl,’ she began. ‘And when I say not very much, I’m not exaggerating – a couple of books and a Barbie doll were the sum total of my possessions. Back then, kids like me in the care system travelled lightly because the more you had, the more you were likely to lose when you moved from family to family. The first time I ever had something to call my very own was my husband, Owen. Then, soon after, our daughter Darcy came along and then Josh and, before I knew it, I had what I always wanted. A family.
‘They gave me everything I never had. But recently, I’ve lost sight of that. Instead, I’ve focused my attention on wanting what other people have. If I’m being honest, I think my desire for more and better is an addiction. Gradually I’m coming to understand that I don’t need free holidays, luxury make-up and exercise equipment to make me whole, nor do I need the validation of strangers.’
Roxi allowed the recording to continue while she hesitated and looked beyond the lens to gather her thoughts. ‘So I’ve made a decision that this will be my last public appearance,’ she continued. ‘There will be no more Vlogs and no more spots on TV. I’ve enjoyed being a part of those worlds but it’s time to sign off. I know that my opinions have sometimes been controversial and, on occasions, I may have been guilty of getting caught in the moment and playing up to that. But that’s come at the expense of the people I care about the most. For everything else, I make no apologies for speaking my truth.
‘However, my aspirations are turning me into someone I’m struggling to like.’ She hesitated as a pin-sharp memory of the moment Cooper died came into view. ‘I’ve . . . hurt other people,’ she continued. ‘And I’ve put my marriage at risk. Not so long ago, Owen and I were informed by our Audite that we were being placed on Level One. He tried his best to get us back on track, but because I was too ignorant to take the threat seriously, it’s now too late. This afternoon, we’ve been informed that we’re about to join Level Two. And I don’t need to tell you what that means.
‘The idea of being under the care of a Relationship Responder, someone who can make decisions that will shape our future, scares me. I had enough decisions made for me when I was a foster child. And now here I am again. Although, this time, I’m to blame. And, to be frank, it’s humiliating, especially as I’ve been so vocal about supporting the use of AI and the Marriage Act. So that’s another reason for me to take a step back.
‘But before I do, I want to thank all my subscribers and followers for their support. It has meant so much to me. You made my dreams come true until I realized they weren’t my dreams any more. And I’ll always be grateful for that.’
Roxi smiled and waved to the camera before leaning forwards to press the stop button. And without adding any extra filters and only a new hashtag, #IDidMyBest, she pressed the upload button and allowed her tablet to do the rest.
She sank into her chair, expecting a weight to be lifted from her shoulders. Instead, it felt like a bereavement, as if she had lost a part of herself that she had only recently found. She could shout it from the rooftops until she was blue in the face that Vlogging and Influencing didn’t complete her and that her family did, but it wasn’t true. At least not yet. But she wanted it to be, and that must count for something, right?
Roxi switched from the present to the past, reliving again the moment of Cooper’s death. Last night Owen had gone to his scheduled counselling appointment while she had been hunched over her tablet following the car’s route on an App. He had only stayed five minutes before driving home and informing her that hockey practice had been cancelled. They had both been subdued that evening, but only she knew the whole story.
‘Are you for real?’ began Darcy, entering the dining room. ‘Have you really stopped Vlogging?’
Roxi focused on her daughter, glad of the distraction. It wasn’t just a cursory glance as she’d been prone to doing, but a focused, all-encompassing stare. The last time she had looked, a child had been standing in front of her. Today it was a young woman. Darcy’s teenage years were just around the corner and she was going to need her mother more than she ever had before. Roxi had been forced to charter those waters alone; she did not want the same for her daughter. But quite how she was suddenly going to be the mother her family deserved, she had yet to figure it out. Perhaps it would come naturally.