Fractured (32 page)

‘Silly?’ She shrugged him off and stood up. ‘Silly? I didn’t see you trying to help! You just sat back and let me make all
the hard decisions, and now you blame me —’

He looked up at her. ‘I’m not blaming you, Ursula. You’re blaming yourself. Come on, sit down.’

She wiped away her tears, furious with herself for getting so upset. She wanted to scream at someone, but she knew it wasn’t
Jim’s fault. Over the last few months she’d focused all her anger on Anna, but maybe the person she held the most vitriol
for was herself.

‘What am I meant to think? First Lisa’s baby, now Tony’s. What have I done to deserve this?’ She put her hands over her face
and sobbed. Jim stood up and embraced her, then drew her down onto the couch again.

‘Oh Ursula,’ he whispered. ‘Lisa was so young – you know we made the right decision. Look at how well she’s doing now. Anyway,
this has nothing to do with that.’

Ursula could remember that conversation with Lisa as though it had happened only minutes ago. Lisa was only fifteen then;
just a child. It was some older boy’s baby, of course, some monster who took advantage of a young girl at a party after she’d
had a few drinks. Lisa wouldn’t tell Ursula who he was, and had begged her not to tell Jim, but she’d had to. It wasn’t the
kind of decision she could make alone. That day had been terrible. They’d sat here, in this very room, and cried and shouted
at each other. Ursula had tried to listen to Lisa, tried to be supportive, but she couldn’t show anything but fury. In reality,
she had been frightened. Lisa was so naive, thinking she could have the baby then put it up for adoption. She couldn’t have
hidden the preganacy – what would they tell people? Besides, Ursula knew that once a mother held her newborn in her arms,
they were bonded forever. Lisa – at fifteen – couldn’t understand the pain and endless longing she would suffer if she didn’t
keep the baby.

Exhausted, Ursula had gone to church the next day. She lit a candle; she fingered her rosary beads; she prayed. Why had she
gone there? She knew its stance on abortion – it was the same as her own. It was wrong. Until it involved your own child.
Perhaps she had gone there hoping that something would change her mind. A sign, a message, to renew her faith. But there was
nothing in that church that could counter the image of her own child being teased and ostracised and judged. Nothing that
could overpower the image of her own child sobbing when she realised that she had to say goodbye to her baby. There was no
choice: she couldn’t let Lisa ruin her life. She had walked out of the church, and as the heavy door swung closed, left part
of herself behind. She called the clinic, made an appointment for the next day, then told Lisa what was going to happen. Lisa
screamed and cried, but Ursula stood firm. She knew what was best for her children.

But now, years later, she wasn’t so sure she’d made the right decision. She looked up at Jim. ‘We shouldn’t have done it.
It’s come back on us, full circle.’

Jim held her until eventually she stopped crying. Then he said, ‘Ursula, I love you, and the kids love you. This is not your
fault.’

Ursula nodded brokenly. She wished she still believed in God, so she could accept that there was some warped, divine reason
for this. But she knew there wasn’t. She curled up under Jim’s arm. As her breathing settled and her mind calmed, Ursula felt
safe for the first time since that morning in September when she had called Tony to say Anna and Jack weren’t at home.

Ursula had done her best; she had always done her best to look after her family. It just felt like it wasn’t good enough.

Saturday, 16 January 2010

Anna watched Tony’s car drive towards the house. When he pulled up she opened the passenger door and got in.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ he said, without looking at her, as he drove off.

She shook her head. ‘No. Just wanted to get away from Mum, though I’m sure she’s been watching through the window.’

She saw Tony smile slightly and then they drove for the rest of the five-minute journey in silence. She tried to keep her
legs still, though her limbs crawled with anxiety. She clenched and unclenched her hands, then smoothed down imaginary strands
of her hair, wishing they could get there faster. As soon as Tony slowed down near an empty parking spot on a side street,
she knew he was taking her to the little trattoria nearby. Before they had Jack they used to eat here at least once a week.

Tony reversed into the space, then switched off the engine. He looked at Anna; she wanted to reach over and touch him, but
instead unbuckled her seatbelt.

‘Do you want to go and get a table?’ he said.

‘OK, see you in there.’ She got out of the car and closed the door. It was just like before: she would go and get a table,
and Tony would go to the bottle shop next door and buy a bottle of red. What did he mean by bringing her here? In one way,
she was thrilled: perhaps he was telling her that they could recover some of the life they used to have. But she was also
incredibly sad as it reminded her what she had lost.

The restaurant was cramped and noisy, and strong smells of garlic and oregano spilled from the kitchen. Anna was shown to
a small table near the window; she squeezed past the couple huddled at the next table and sat down. The waitress left a bottle
of water; Anna poured two glasses. As she tried not to listen to the couple’s conversation, she realised that Tony must have
chosen this place for practical, not emotional reasons: it was so public, they would have to be civil to each other, and it
prevented them both from talking about the real issues. She stared at the menu, trying to distract herself from the impulse
to cry and run out of the restaurant.

When Tony walked in she sat up straighter, waving to him as he looked around for her. He smiled, then made his way over and
sat down. He took a bottle of pinot – one of their favourites – out of the brown paper bag and unscrewed it. She pushed the
wine glasses towards him and he poured them both a large drink.

She took a sip of her wine, hoping the alcohol would relax her quickly. Tony took a big gulp of his, then topped up his glass
and leaned back. She watched him over her glass, wishing that this was just a normal meal out together. She had missed him
so much.

He picked up the laminated menu, frowned as he looked at it, then put it down again. ‘The usual?’ he said.

She nodded, and smiled. ‘Sounds good.’

Tony raised his hand to attract the attention of a waitress. Anna wanted to put her hand on his and tell him to slow down.
She wanted to spend every minute she could with him, but he seemed intent on getting this over with as quickly as possible.
The waitress came over with her notepad, and Tony ordered: one bruschetta, one caprese salad, and one large ham, olive and
artichoke pizza. When the waitress left, Anna watched Tony fiddle with his napkin, then his glass.

‘I’m glad it’s cooled down a bit,’ he said.

Oh Tony
, she wanted to say,
let’s not talk about the weather
. He looked so sad, so lost. She wanted to reach over and grab him and never let him go. He hadn’t deserved any of this. Her
stomach wrenched with pity and regret.

She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Me too, after such a humid day.’

He nodded, then twirled the wine bottle towards him and started reading the label.

‘So, how are you, Tony?’ She cringed: her attempt at conversation was no better than his.

‘I’m OK,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ve been better.’

She nodded, looked down at her place setting, then straightened the napkin.

‘How about you?’ he asked.

She tried to smile. ‘Same, been better …’

‘Is everything OK with, well, the illness? Your tablets?’

‘Yes. I’m “normal” now, apparently. I’m seeing Dr Morgan again on Monday, and I’m still on the antidepressants, of course.
I just have to keep seeing her every week and take it as it comes.’

‘That’s good to hear. I’m glad.’

She looked up at him and frowned. ‘Are you? Sometimes I think it would be easier for everyone if I’d stayed crazy, or if they’d
locked me up. People could forget I ever existed.’ She shook her head and bit her lip at the bitterness in her voice. ‘Sorry.’
She picked up her wine and took a sip. ‘I suppose what I mean is that it would be easier for me to be a coward and be locked
away so I could avoid dealing with life.’

‘Don’t say that, Anna. You’d never survive in prison. That’s not where you should be.’ His voice quivered; he reached for
his wine glass.

Anna blinked a few times, trying not to cry. So he didn’t want her jailed; did he forgive her? She spoke quietly. ‘Do you
hate me, Tony?’

He closed his eyes and didn’t answer straightaway. She wished she hadn’t asked him: what if it wasn’t the answer she hoped
for? She was still playing games with him, trying to get him to say what she needed to hear.

‘Sorry, forget I said that. I just keep feeling so bloody sorry for myself and I hate myself for it.’ She grabbed her glass
again and took a gulp of wine.

Tony sighed. ‘I did hate you, Anna. Shit, I didn’t know how to feel. I still don’t. I’ve gone through every emotion you can
imagine,
emotions I didn’t even know existed. I just couldn’t understand how …’ He looked around him, then spoke quietly. ‘I’m still
trying to get my head around it. I know, logically, that you were ill, really ill. But I can’t help it – when I look at you,
I just don’t know how you could have done it.’ His eyes glistened with tears.

She looked away and dabbed at her own eyes with her napkin. ‘I don’t know either.’ She rubbed her hands over her face then
looked up at him. ‘All I can say is that I’m so sorry. So sorry.’

Tony shook his head. ‘Don’t say sorry again.’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘I still keep picturing him —’

Anna put her hand up in front of her. ‘Don’t, please, I don’t want to talk about Jack.’

He glared at her. His eyes were dry now, and he looked at her accusingly. Anna’s heart pounded as she waited for him to speak.
She knew that he was preparing himself for something, and that she needed to let him say it, no matter what it was. This was
why she was here. But what he did say shocked her.

‘I got your letter.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What? What letter?’

He shook his head, eyes narrowed. ‘Your letter, the letter you left for me to find.’

‘Tony, I —’

‘Do you have any idea what that did to me? There I was, assuming that something terrible had happened to you, that someone
had raped you or tried to kill you and Jack, and then, just like that, out of my bag falls an envelope with my name on it
in your handwriting! I defended you, Anna, trusted you completely. I told them to look for some other explanation: there was
no way that my wife, Jack’s mother, could have done something like this!’

Acid and thick red wine churned in Anna’s stomach and rose up her throat; she felt sick. She didn’t know what he was talking
about. ‘Tony, I don’t —’

‘Do you want me to show you your suicide note? It’s still in the glove box of my car. I had to hide it there so the police
didn’t arrest you immediately or use it against you. I had to lie to everyone: my
family, your family, the police! I told myself that maybe I’d misread it, misunderstood what you meant, that maybe you were
just going to leave me, that you didn’t intend to actually kill yourself —’

‘Please, Tony! I don’t know what you mean!’ The room spun around her and she wanted to run, but she couldn’t move. All she
could do was stare at Tony in horror.

He lowered his voice and practically spat his words at her. ‘I’ll remind you. I know it off by heart – I’ve read it hundreds,
maybe thousands of times.
Tony, I’m sorry to do this to you, but I’ve got no choice. This is the only way to save you and Jack. He deserves better than
me, you both do. I’m sorry, I’ve got no choice
.’ Tony gritted his teeth and Anna could see that his eyes were wet again. As she stared at him, her mind blank, he spoke more
gently.

‘But you
did
have a choice, Anna. That’s what I can’t bear.’

She shook her head, unable to take any of this in. Did she write a letter like that? Had she even known what she was doing?
Had
she had a choice?

‘At first, I thought maybe the letter meant you were leaving me, leaving us, just going away somewhere, and there’d been an
accident. You’d left Jack’s clothes, his milk. But then you would have taken your clothes, your phone. You knew you wouldn’t
need them, didn’t you? God, there was less than an hour between me leaving and Mum arriving at the house – how long had you
been planning this?’

Anna’s mouth was bone dry. ‘I don’t know,’ she rasped.

He pointed his finger at her. His face was red. ‘You wanted to top yourself, but why the hell did you have to take the baby?
Why the hell didn’t you wait for Mum like I told you to, or just leave Jack behind in his cot? Then he’d have been OK.’

His chin shook and he collapsed back in his chair. Anna watched him take deep breaths and wipe his eyes with his trembling
hands. She opened her mouth to speak, but had nothing to say. She just shook her head, shocked. Leaning over the table she
reached for his hand.

‘Don’t! Don’t you dare!’ Tony glared at her, then scraped his chair back and stood up. ‘Excuse me.’ He walked towards the
restaurant toilets.

She reeled back in her chair as if she’d been shot. She had vague images in her mind of scribbling something on a piece of
paper and finding an envelope in the kitchen drawer, but the memories were too hazy. Tony wouldn’t lie, though; she must have
written those things.

The waitress sauntered over to the table and put the bruschetta and two side plates down, politely pretending not to notice
Anna’s tears. Anna didn’t move.

When Tony came back, he picked up a piece of the bread and chewed furiously. Anna made herself take a piece too. They were
both silent. She wished that they were having a normal argument about money, infidelity even. She wished she could tell everyone
here that none of that mattered, not really. She slumped in her chair. She still didn’t know what to do. Any hope that Tony
would tell her he forgave her and wanted to come home was gone.

As they continued to eat in silence, she sensed the tension fade. Each of them let the past slip away, replaced by sorrow
and regret. Anna ate automatically, and was surprised and sad when she realised that the meal was almost over. Tony insisted
that she eat the last piece of pizza, and smiled at her almost apologetically; she could have wept.

‘Do you want to go for a walk?’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

‘I’ll go and pay. Meet you outside.’

* * *

Anna and Tony walked along the street until they reached the park. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but the floodlights shone on
the rugby pitch, where some teenagers were throwing themselves into tackles. They sat on a bench at the edge of the grass,
both with their hands in their laps, and watched.

‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.

Anna noticed that he had said ‘you’, not ‘we’. She sighed. ‘I don’t know. Mum’s asked me to go back to Western Australia with
her, but I don’t want to. Maybe I’ll go there for a break, but ultimately I want to stay here.’

Tony nodded.

She bit her lip, then glanced at him. ‘How about you?’

He didn’t return her gaze; he focused on the kids, now sprinting up and down the pitch between cones. ‘Well, I’m just doing
what I always do. Going to work, that’s about all. Had enough of living with Mum, though,’ he said, smiling.

Anna paused. She spoke quietly. ‘I can move out if you want. Or … you could come back home.’

Tony immediately shook his head. ‘Sean’s offered me his spare room. I think I’ll go there for a while.’

Anna’s lip started to tremble. She should never have asked him like that; now, she had no hope left. He’d told her where she
stood. She nodded, kicked at a tuft of grass at her feet. ‘That’s a good idea.’ She had to ask, even though she didn’t really
want to hear the answer. ‘What about us?’

Tony stretched his neck back to stare at the sky. He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t know, Anna.’ He was crying
now, she realised. ‘I miss you … but I just can’t … I just can’t be with you.’

‘Ever?’ she whispered, her heart thumping.

‘I don’t know. I hope it gets easier … with time. But it just hurts me too much. It wouldn’t be any good for either of us.
I’m sorry.’

Anna nodded slowly. ‘It’s OK. I knew you’d say that.’

Tony moved his hand across the endless space between them and put it on her knee. ‘I’m sorry.’

She longed to grab him and bury her head in his chest, but instead she put her hand on top of his and squeezed tightly. A
few moments later, they stood up without saying anything and headed back to the car.

They both had tears in their eyes.

* * *

That night, Anna lay alone on her half of the soft king-sized bed. She had never found the gold wristwatch that Tony had given
her for their anniversary, and her wedding ring was still loose on her finger. She curled her left hand into a fist and felt
the ring slip towards her knuckle. She hadn’t noticed if Tony had been wearing his. She had been too afraid to look.