Blame (16 page)

‘We found a wonderful school for Maya, and I spent most nights researching diets for autistic children and new therapies for autistic children, and how to handle an autistic child. Keith and I both threw ourselves into that world. I think we thought . . .'

‘You thought?' says Cynthia, leaning forward. Anna can see that Walt isn't really paying attention anymore. Perhaps he is thinking about being at the gym, or about the beer he's going to have after work, but he seems to believe that none of what she is saying is relevant to what happened. Cynthia is interested because Cynthia is a mother, and Anna can see that she knows how easily Anna's experience could have been her own.

‘I think we thought that she could be cured, that she would get better, that there was a key we would find that would unlock our daughter, and we just needed to look hard enough. I suppose that's stupid.'

‘Understandable,' says Cynthia.

Anna bites down on her lip. She wants to say, ‘What would you know about it?' but knows the words would be aimed at the wrong person. She has heard every platitude in the book, every well-meaning piece of advice, every piece of information from an auntie's friend's friend who'd read of a cure. She's heard it all and she never wants to hear any of it again. Never, ever again.

‘Understandable, but silly, really. If there was a way to cure autism, it would be headline news all over the world. I've read some freaky things on the internet by parents who say they've cured their child but I don't think they mean children like Maya. There were very few children like Maya, or maybe I just never met any of them because their parents, for the most part, kept them at home, hidden away, so they couldn't harm other children. I spent a lot of time at home with Maya, just trying to keep her calm.'

‘That must have been so difficult,' says Cynthia.

‘Not difficult,' says Anna. ‘Impossible.'

She sees the detectives exchange a look but she doesn't care. She wraps her arms around herself and repeats the word.

‘Impossible.

‘Impossible.

‘Impossible.'

Chapter Ten

Caro touches the back of her neck and finds that her hair is wet. It is boiling in the interview room but both detectives look calm and cool.

‘I really think I'd like to go home,' she says.

‘Caro, it would really help if we could get to that day, and then we can end the interview. You don't have to go into detail, just give us a general overview of what happened—what you think happened,' says Susan.

It sounds easy enough and Caro thinks that if she said she was done talking, then there would be nothing they could do to keep her at the police station, but there is also a bit of an edge to Susan's voice, something Caro has not heard before. Susan wants this information and Caro is not sure how far she will go to get it, how long they will
keep her here, and if they would—if they could—simply place her under arrest to keep her here.

She drinks the last of her Diet Coke, feeling the cool drink settle in her stomach.

‘Maya is . . . was autistic,' she says. ‘Most people know what that is nowadays, especially since that idiot doctor who linked vaccines with autism, but I know a couple of autistic children and they're nothing like Maya was.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Along with most of the usual symptoms of autism, Maya was mostly non-verbal and she had a temper. She wouldn't just get upset and throw a fit, she would rage. When she was little, it was okay because Anna could control her. I saw it happen a lot when I used to take Lex over there. Lex and Maya would be playing next to each other, and Lex would touch something, or move a certain way, or say something that upset Maya, and she would just go off. She would start screaming, and then she'd start kicking and pulling her own hair. It was fairly scary to watch, and I learned that the minute it started, I had to grab Lex out of the way. The last time I ever took Lex over there, I wasn't quick enough and Maya ripped out a whole chunk of her hair. Lex was terrified of her after that, so I never made her come with me again.

‘When Maya was two and three, and even until she was about seven, Anna would grab her and hold her tight, really tight. Some would say too tight, but if Anna managed to hold her, and whoever else was around put on the sleep
machine that made this hideous static noise, then Maya would calm down fairly quickly. At the end of any one of her tantrums, Anna would be completely exhausted and Maya would simply go back to doing what she'd been doing like nothing had ever happened.'

‘That sounds pretty intense.'

‘It was. It was heartbreaking to watch. Anna spent all her time trying to make sure that Maya stayed calm. If she'd had a good day the day before, then Anna would spend all the next day trying to make sure that it went exactly the same way—right down to the clothes Maya was wearing and the food she ate. Once Maya started school, it got even worse.'

‘Even worse? Surely having her at school made things easier for Anna?'

‘Maybe not, Susan. It meant that Anna couldn't control her days—am I right, Caro?' asks Brian.

‘Yes, Detective Ng, you're right. Anna would pick up a fairly calm Maya from school, but once they got home, all hell would break loose. It was like Maya had to get out all her frustrations from school and the only person to take them out on was Anna. She started hurting Anna, really hurting her. She didn't mean to but she did.

‘We used to meet for coffee some days, just before school pick-up, and Anna used to sit hunched in her chair, sipping coffee with her hands shaking. The problem was that the bigger Maya got, the more difficult it became to calm her down. She started hitting Anna, and not just
hitting her—kicking her, scratching her, pulling her hair. By the time she was ten, she was doing real damage. It was hideous. Last year, Anna went to the hospital twice in a month—once, because Maya pushed her into a wall and she swung her arm out to protect her face and broke her wrist, and then again, because Maya pushed her down the stairs at home, and she twisted her ankle so badly, she thought she'd broken it. She was always covered in bruises. “I'm a victim of domestic abuse,” she used to joke but it wasn't Keith who was hurting her. It was Maya.'

Both detectives are quiet.

‘Couldn't anyone help her?' asks Susan.

‘No, not really. Children aren't supposed to hurt their parents. Isn't it usually the other way around? I don't think anyone knew what to do, because Maya was so young and because it couldn't be explained to her, no matter how many ways they tried.'

‘Sometimes,' says Brian, ‘we do see cases of children lashing out at their parents. It usually happens when a parent has been abusive towards the child and the child finally gets big enough to fight back. Do you think that may have been the case here, Caro?'

Caro fights the urge to stand up and yell, ‘You take that back!' at Brian.

Instead she says, ‘You have no idea how off base you are. Anna would never have hit Maya, never. I watched her feed Maya lunch once and it took her seventeen tries just to get her to take the first mouthful. I would have gone insane,
but once Anna knew that Maya was autistic, she tried to stay calm all the time. She never yelled at her, never even raised her voice a little bit, and when I asked her how she did it, she said, “It would serve no point. It's my own anger and frustration, and I'm angry and frustrated with her condition, not her.”'

Caro doesn't tell the detectives that sometimes she found Anna a little too calm, almost as if she was zoning out. Her hands would repeat actions, and she would say the same thing again and again, but her eyes would be glazed. Caro put it down to Anna coping the best way she knew how. Now, she's not so sure.

‘Wasn't there a way to control the temper tantrums?'

‘I think calling them tantrums is . . . is minimising it,' says Caro. ‘They tried different drugs and techniques. They tried everything, really, but sometimes Maya would just explode and then there was nothing for Anna to do but ride it out.'

‘It sounds like you were pretty involved with Anna and her family,' says Brian.

‘I was. We've spoken practically every day for the last ten years; except for the last two weeks, when we haven't spoken at all.'

‘Anna is saying that you were drunk the night of the accident. Now, before you get upset, I just want to explore why you think she's saying that,' says Susan.

‘She knows that I drink. I'm the perfect scapegoat.'

‘Did you often drink around Anna? Did she know the extent of your drinking?'

‘We spoke all the time, Susan. I knew about every step she took with Maya, about every up and every down, and she knew about me as well. She knew about all the miscarriages, about the lost babies. She came to see me in the hospital each time and she knew that a few days, and then some days, and then most days, and then every day, I needed a drink to help me through the rough patches. I'm not excusing it, I'm not explaining it. It just was and . . . is . . . what it is.

‘Some nights, she'd call me after the girls were in bed, and our husbands were watching television or sleeping, and I would pour myself a glass of wine and she'd make a cup of whatever herbal tea she favoured, and we'd talk through the day. I'm sure there are a lot of women clinging to sanity because of a friendly voice on the other end of the telephone. Until you have a child, you have no idea how difficult it can be, no idea how your life will change, how isolating it is, how much it makes you question everything you thought you knew and understood about yourself.

‘It was even worse for Anna, because she missed out on a lot of the joys of having a child. I used to try and keep my anecdotes about Lex to myself. I always felt awful for her because she never had many about Maya to tell me. She had progress reports and steps forward—or steps backward—to talk about but never anything cute or funny to report. By the time Lex was speaking in full sentences, Maya had just gotten her diagnosis. I did try to listen more than I talked. I did try to be a good friend to Anna.'

‘It sounds like you were,' says Brian.

‘I thought so,' says Caro, ‘I really did. I tried to be there for her whenever she needed me, so when she called me on Saturday and asked me to come over I went. She needed me so I went.'

Caro watches Susan write down something on her notepad and wonders if anything she is saying is making a difference to what the detective thinks happened.

‘When do you think your drinking habit changed to every day, Caro—how long has it been?' Brian asks. Caro sits back in her chair and folds her arms. She knows where this is leading.

‘Are you allowed to ask me that question, Detective Ng? This isn't a therapy session. I'm not your patient.'

‘You don't have to answer.'

‘You know I went to a psychologist . . . actually, I went to many psychologists. After each miscarriage, I tried again, sometimes with the same one, sometimes with someone different, but in the end, they were no use at all. Anna and I used to exchange names, and laugh about how little they helped us . . . sorry, Brian . . . I don't mean anything by that.'

‘That's fine,' says Brian. ‘I don't take offence easily but I do wonder why you say that?'

‘Because they didn't give me the answer I wanted. They talked about giving myself time to grieve, and allowing myself to feel angry, and communicating my feelings to Geoff, and blah, blah, blah. All I wanted to hear was that
I would have another baby; that I would go on to have as many healthy babies as I liked. None of them could tell me that, so, inevitably, I realised that they were basically all full of shit and had nothing to say that could help me.'

‘So you thought alcohol was a better solution?' asks Susan.

‘I'm sure that's not what she thought at all,' says Brian and Caro is pleased he's said something.

‘I'm sorry, Caro; I shouldn't have said that.'

‘I really need to use the bathroom again,' says Caro. She's going to throw up and she wants to get there in time.

Brian can obviously see what might happen because he leaps up from his chair and opens the door of the interview room.

‘Okay, you know where it is,' he says, and Caro flees to the small toilet cubicle, where she hunches over and throws up her lunch. Afterwards, she sits on the floor, trying not to think about how dirty it might be, and waits for her body to stop shaking. The nausea is all consuming. It is worse than pain because there is no way to dull it. She closes her eyes and vows to leave the alcohol alone tonight, and then, because she knows herself, she changes this to a wish that she will only have one or two, and not keep going until she is unable to walk straight.

She thinks about a morning, a few months ago, when Lex found her in the bathroom on her knees, throwing up the two bottles of wine she had consumed the night before.

‘What's wrong, Mum, are you sick?' she asked, just as she had done all the other times she had found her mother in the same position.

‘Just a little, baby,' Caro had said as she stood up to rinse her mouth.

‘You had too much to drink last night,' said Lex. She didn't shout it, she didn't cry, she just stated it like it was an obvious fact.

‘No . . . no, I didn't. Why would you say that?'

‘You drink too much every night,' said Lex.

‘Did your father say something to you? Why are you saying this?'

Lex had studied her with Geoff's big brown eyes. ‘I am eleven, you know,' she said. ‘I'm not stupid.' And then she had turned around and walked away.

Caro had no idea what to say to her, no idea how to defend herself. She realised that Lex had known for a long time that the reason she threw up in the mornings was because she drank, and she only asked the question every time because, somewhere in her mind, as children did, she was hoping for a different answer.