Finding You (13 page)

16 - Julia

‘I’m sorry this had to happen just as you’re about to leave for your dad’s.’ I put out my fingers to touch Charlie’s arm gently. In the small hours of the night, despite his even breathing, his back turned away from me, I sense he is not quite asleep. ‘Charlie?’ I snuggle a little closer when he doesn’t answer. ‘What are you thinking?’

Is he thinking what I’m thinking, I wonder? That it wouldn’t occur to most two-and-a-half year-olds to try and open a window? That Hadyn’s behaviour isn’t altogether normal and maybe Dr Fraser referring him on to that Developmental and Behavioural paediatrician isn’t just because of his feet? I can still feel myself trembling, recalling the moment Mum told me Hadyn had been standing on the windowsill, looking out, when she came into the room.

‘I’m thinking that was a near miss,’ Charlie says tersely. ‘I’m thinking that there’s no way a child of his age should have been able to get that window open.’ 

‘He
could
, though, Charlie ...’ I begin.  But Charlie is focussed on the logistics right now.

‘No,’ he says.

‘I wouldn’t have imagined it before,’ I tell him. ‘But when it comes to puzzles and locks and figuring out how things work, I have already seen how smart our son is.’

‘Well, sure he’s smart, but I doubt he could have managed this one,’ Charlie comes back, adamant. ‘I’ve had a text from our maintenance guy, and he’ll be in first thing to make them doubly secure, but I checked the mechanism myself, J.’ He turns to look at me suddenly and I can feel his upset and his shock, still reverberating in his body. ‘There’s no way he should have been able to undo it.’

His words sink in slowly, and I take in the fact that he is also angry.

‘You think ... someone
left
it open by accident?’ I put to him.

‘What else?’ He makes a slight movement with his mouth. ‘I swear, Hadyn could not have opened it ...’

‘He did,’ I say simply. ‘Because I checked the room myself before we left. It was locked, and Mum would never have opened the window. There
is
no more safety-conscious person on the planet.’  

There’s a small silence while he takes in this fact.

‘It may have been a faulty window mechanism then,’ he relents at last. ‘Hadyn might have heard a noise, thought it was us returning and gone to see ...’

‘He might,’ I agree. Then I add, ‘He didn’t need to push the window open, though.’

Charlie stares at me for a moment.  ‘What do you mean?’

‘I
mean
that even if the mechanism was faulty, the window surely didn’t open all by itself? He pushed it open.’

Charlie spreads his hands, as if to say
so what
?
  

‘He’ll have seen others push windows open before, Julia. It’s what people do. Who knows—we keep our windows locked for his security, but maybe where he was before ... she kept them open every night. Spain is hot. This might be what he is used to. He has to learn that he mustn’t do that here.’

Then he adds, ‘And we have to make sure in the meantime that he
can’t
do it. We need to keep one step ahead of him ...’     

Keep one step ahead. For some reason, that comment fills me with a deep anxiety. I think this will be easier said than done. I let out a small sigh and Charlie’s eyebrows rise questioningly.

‘I’ve already got the impression that Hadyn won’t be that easy to keep on top of,’ I tell him.

‘Won’t he?’ he asks softly.      

‘I
try
, Charlie. But he resists me,’ I admit eventually. ‘He resists me all the time. Hadyn’s ... a constant challenge.’ I’ve not made a big thing of every little misdemeanour to his dad because it would have seemed so unfair to Hadyn. As Charlie has pointed out, he is still getting accustomed. Maybe a few little quirks here and there are to be expected; he’s been living a different life with another mama in a faraway country.  But tonight’s episode has given us both a shock. 

Should getting our son accustomed back to his own home really be this hard?

‘Ever since we’ve got home, I find I have to be hypervigilant around him, Charlie. Always. I can’t take my eyes off him for two minutes and it’s becoming, frankly,
exhausting
.’ 

Charlie is looking at me in astonishment as if he’s never, up to this point, even been the slightest bit aware that there might be anything amiss.

‘Hypervigilant?’ he says. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ I sit up a little on my elbows. ‘Because ... because I never know what he is going to do next. Sometimes, it feels as if he’s never still for more than two minutes, Charlie.’

‘He sits for hours,’ Charlie pulls a half-smile, ‘doing his art. You’ve said so yourself.’

‘He will do that,’ I agree. ‘But I never know when he’s going to tire of it and go and do something else. He doesn’t come looking for me when he’s done with it. He’ll just up and leave.’

He puts a consoling hand on my arm. In the semi-darkness, I can see Charlie’s face and though his eyes are full of a tolerant compassion, I can see that he doesn’t really understand. He’s thinking ... that I am simply overwrought. That maybe, with all we’ve had to cope with over the past few months, it’s just too much.

Then I admit to him, ‘I keep the downstairs door locked in the daytime because I’ve already seen him drag a chair over to it twice, to try and turn the handle.’

Charlie stiffens. ‘Has he ever
opened
it? Has he ever got out?’

‘No.’ Pause. ‘The chair was in the way.’

‘Maybe he likes opening things?’ Charlie suggests. ‘He likes to feel the fresh air, to be outside. England is so cold compared to the south of Spain; we’ve been keeping him cooped up a lot more ...’

‘We’d already just been out, Charlie. It wasn’t that.’

He goes silent now, thoughtful. When he comes back to me at last, his voice sounds different, a little cracked. ‘What was it then, J? What do
you
think that was all about?’ 

‘Hadyn likes to run,’ I tell him softly. ‘He likes me to take him to places where he can run free.’ Charlie is nodding slowly. This fits in with his cooped-up theory. ‘But even when I let him run, like in the park where there’s a big open space boundaried by trees ... he just goes, Charlie. He bolts for it. Makes for the wide blue horizon and never looks back.’

‘That’s normal, isn’t it?’ Charlie’s not entirely sure about this, I can tell. ‘Running free. It’s what young lads like to do, honey.’

I shake my head. ‘He
isn’t
doing what others do, though. I’ve watched them. Other kids, they all run so far and then, they stop. They look back for their mums or dads or whoever they’re with, they don’t just keep on going. They seem to know ...’ I wave my hands, trying to explain it to him. ‘It’s like they have an invisible thread, binding them to their carer. With Hadyn, that’s just not there. It’s as if I’m not really ...’ I stop, feeling my throat jam up.
It’s as if I’m not really there. As if he doesn’t care if I am or not because I don’t signify. I don’t matter.
It’s as if—as far as he is concerned—I am not really his mum.

‘He likes to run,’ Charlie observes. ‘And he runs a bit further than the rest. Maybe he’s going to be a sportsman? He’s desperate to be outdoors, clearly ...’   

‘
Charlie!
He snuck out of the front door while I was occupied with the postman yesterday morning.’ That stops him in his tracks. ‘I swear, I have no idea how he did it,’ I rush on, feeling ashamed and bewildered as I tell it to him, as if it is happening all over again. ‘He just ... slipped out between us. I didn’t even see he’d gone until we heard a car’s wheel’s spinning and when I walked out onto the main road to see what had happened ... there he was.’

‘Christ.’ Charlie sits bolt upright, his eyes filled with horror. ‘I didn’t know things were that bad. You didn’t mention that before.’ 

‘No,’ I admit. ‘I didn’t like to. He was
fine
, and you’ve had enough to concern yourself over, what with your dad and going back to work and so on ...’

‘But he ... this sounds serious. Very serious.’ Charlie seems to be having trouble catching his breath now, formulating his words. ‘I can’t lose him, J.’ I’m taken aback by the sudden ferocity in his voice. ‘I can’t lose him again.’

‘We won’t.’ When I lean over and touch him, I can feel his heart hammering in his chest. ‘We are not going to lose him, Charlie.’
This little scrap of a child who means everything to you because you do not expect to ever father another, and everything to me because I am his mum.

And I
am
his mum, even if he doesn’t know it or acknowledge it yet.

‘Of course we are not going to lose him.’

I hear his deep shuddering sigh in the darkness.  Outside in the garden, a baby fox is mewling. A stiff breeze is shivering all the topmost branches of the trees, making a shushing sound. 

‘Okay,’ Charlie concedes after a bit, ‘we’re going to need to get some help in for you, plainly. We’re going to need some sort of rehabilitation program put in place.’ I hear him sniff in the half-light, swallowing his tears. ‘I’d hoped—
expected
—that it’d all fall into place naturally, that you’d both be able to cope but ... maybe not.’ He gives me a brief apologetic hug, and I see that Charlie has slipped back into executive mode. ‘I’m sorry, honey. But if you’re finding him this challenging, we need to nip this in the bud.’

‘Of course,’ I agree, a little stung at his intimation that I’m somehow part of the problem because I am
not coping
.  ‘Perhaps that consultant that Dr Fraser has referred us onto will be able to help?’

‘We’ll see,’ Charlie says. ‘I’m not sure that a Behavioural and Developmental paediatrician is what’s needed here.’

‘Well, no. Neither am I,’ I say, relieved that he doesn’t like the idea any more than I do. ‘It sounds so ... severe, doesn’t it?’

Charlie doesn’t answer. Right now, I see he’s looking pensive.

‘It makes it sound as if he’s got some sort of terrible problem.’ 

Charlie comes straight back to me. ‘Our little boy hasn’t got any
problem
, J. He’s perfect.’

‘No.’ I hesitate. ‘We do have a problem though, Charlie.’ At least,
I
do, I think, because I’m his mum. I’m the one in the front line when my little boy doesn’t do all the things that other people seem to expect him to be able to do.  

‘The problem is not, it seems to me, what Hadyn
can’t
do,’ I say. ‘It’s what Hadyn won’t do. Because he doesn’t want to. Because I haven’t found a way yet to convince him that he’s back where he belongs.’ I hate to admit it. I really hate to admit it, but ...

‘Sometimes I think maybe he misses her, Charlie,’ I tell him unhappily. ‘Sometimes, I think he misses her like crazy.’

Charlie looks at me in astonishment.

‘He doesn’t
miss
her, J.’ For the first time, I see his face crease into a disapproving frown. ‘Why do you even say that?’

I shake my head a little, my throat clamming up. How can I even explain this to him? That I have thought this ever since the first time I saw Hadyn make a bolt for the door? That I thought it again tonight, when I heard he had been found standing at the window.

‘I think that’s unlikely, honey,’ Charlie dismisses at last. ‘My concern is more that by taking him to a paediatrician who’ll be focussing on whether or not Hadyn’s reaching his developmental milestones, we’ll be looking at the wrong problem. All our son needs is help adjusting to his new circumstances. It’s as simple as that.’

‘You still think this is all a problem of
adjusting
?’ I say doubtfully. We’ve had him back in our care since December. We’ve been home in England for four weeks. Could Charlie be right, I wonder? God, I would love him to be right.

‘I think that’s precisely what it is. There is nothing wrong with Hadyn, darling. Nothing at all that won’t be fixed, given enough time and love. And ... perhaps, a little informed intervention.’

‘Informed intervention?’ I say slowly. ‘You mean like ... the health visitor? Or like the guy Dr Fraser wants us to see?’

‘I’d rather we used our own people where possible. Go private.’ A new thought occurs to him suddenly. ‘It so happens there’s a Dr Killman—an expert on trauma recovery—who’s just started at the Drapers Street clinic.  She might be a useful first port of call.’

Trauma recovery?

‘What’s she going to be doing at Drapers Street?’ I look at him puzzled.

‘She’ll be seeing the clients who come to us following injury and facial disfigurement, alongside our structural work.’

‘I see.’ I look at him doubtfully. ‘You really think her experience will be relevant to
us,
though?’ 

‘I do. Angus introduced us, and I was talking to her about her role earlier today. She’s all about helping people to adjust to their new circumstances. That’s her area of expertise, J. I think she might be precisely the right person for us to solicit help from.’

‘You think?’ I’m taking in this new idea, but I’m not sure ... ‘Hadyn hasn’t had any physical injury that he needs to adjust to.’