The House of Memories (8 page)

Mum smiled at Walter, then at Jess. “Do you know, a kitten around the house would be cute, wouldn’t it?”

I stepped in. “But, Mum—”

“You’ll all get to share it, Ella. It won’t just belong to Jess.”

Of course, we didn’t get anywhere near it. Jess chose the kitten from the pet shop and she ruled over it like a warlord. If either Charlie or I tried to pick it up, she would roar at us. “That’s my kitty!” If we put out milk for it, she’d tip the milk out of the dish and refill it. “I feed my kitty, not you!”

The kitten soon realized who was in charge. It let Jess do whatever she wanted with it. Jess carried it in a sling for the first few weeks. Not a mew of protest. For the next month, she carried it everywhere in a plastic shopping bag. Not a squeak of complaint. Mum and Walter thought it was hilarious. They took dozens of photos. Wild Jess, with her wild hair, half-naked, carrying her cat around in a plastic bag.

“That child!” they’d say. “What will she do next!”

“Run away to the jungle?” Charlie said to me. “She already looks like Mowgli.”

Jungle Girl, we called her from then on. Until she told Mum and Walter, who told us off. “She’s your little sister. Be kind to her.”

“She’s only half my sister,” I remember saying.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Ella. You’ve got very jealous again and it’s not nice to see.”

Charlie and I spent hours discussing the situation.
We’d
move out, we decided. They didn’t want us, their two half-kids, not now that they had a full-kid in the house. That was how we thought of ourselves, full and half, as though we were cartons of milk.

Lucas tried to give me good advice via his faxes during all of this.
Try to be kind.
Make your own life.

Easier said than done. I’d asked once if I could do violin classes. “I don’t think so,” Mum had said. “Concentrate on your studies for now.”

Jess had after-school piano, theater and dance classes.

Charlie asked if he could go on a school trip to the skifields. “Money’s a bit tight at the moment,” his dad said.

Jess got a new bike that birthday.

I know how this sounds. Jealous older siblings. Poor little Jess. But the truth is, she would drive a saint mad. Whether it was her personality or the fact she’d spent her whole short life being indulged and gazed on with endless pride, she was difficult company. It was all “me-me-me.” “Look at me!” If either of us ever dared to tell her off, she’d turn into a fury in a second. “Stop ganging up on me, you two, or I’ll tell!”

Charlie in particular always tried to be patient. “We’re not ganging up on you, Jess. We’re trying to play a complicated card game and you are too young to play it.”

“Can’t you play a game Jess can join in on?” Mum said. “Fish or Snap?”

“No!” Jess said. “Let’s play musicals. I’ll be the singer and you be the audience!”

And so the game of cards would be abandoned, and we’d find ourselves sitting beside Mum and Walter on kitchen chairs watching Jess dance, prance, jump and do somersaults, over and over again.

“It’s like being on Broadway, isn’t it?” Charlie said to me once in a stage whisper.

I got the giggles and was sent to my room.

Of course, the especially infuriating thing was Jess really could sing and dance. It would have been easier if she’d had two left feet, was tone-deaf and looked like a troll. But to paraphrase her favorite song of that time, “Close to You,” it seemed the angels had gathered the day she was born and made a dream come true.

I still can’t listen to that song. I can’t think about Jess anymore. Thinking about Jess means thinking about—

Stop.

It was too late. She was in my head now. What she’d done was in my head now.

M
y son, Felix, died at 2:10 p.m. on Friday, 18 June 2010.

He was twenty months old. He had black hair, like his dad, like a raven’s wing, so black and shiny it sometimes looked blue. He had blue-green eyes, also like his father. He was tall for his age. When he was born, he was all curves and softness. Within months, he’d grown long and skinny, the skinniness from me, the height from his dad. He got his first tooth at six months. He started to crawl aged nine months.

He started speaking the day he turned one. His first words were
ta
and
bye
. His favorite toy was a blue knitted rabbit. He liked pumpkin, apples, carrots and oranges. He hated chicken, tomatoes and bananas.

His bedroom was multicolored: His cot was painted blue, his quilt was bright orange and his favorite pajamas were a rainbow-patterned flannelette pair, with a matching pair of slippers that he never wore.

He called me Mama. Aidan was Daddy. To our astonishment, and his own delight, one of the first phrases he learned was his own name. It was part toddler-babble, but we were convinced he knew what he was saying: “I’m Felix O’Hanlon!” He’d announce it out of the blue, shout it out—in a supermarket queue, at the doctor’s surgery, all sorts of places. It always made me laugh, made him laugh and, mostly, made the people around us laugh.

He liked jigsaw puzzles. Blocks. Trucks.
The Wiggles. Play School.
He didn’t like going to bed and he didn’t seem to need much sleep. Some nights he’d go down for eight or nine hours, but more often he’d sleep in bursts of two or three hours. Each time he’d wake up and yell, literally yell, until Aidan or I came in. He’d always be in a good mood when we appeared, smiling or waving—ready for action, as Aidan put it. It was as if he’d got lonely in his room or was bored sleeping and wanted company. That was Felix. It was as if he knew—as if he had so much to do in his life he didn’t want to waste time sleeping. So we would try to soothe him, talk to him, read to him. Sometimes we were successful and he’d be coaxed back to sleep, but more often he would yell again until we took him into our bed with us. If we were still up working, he’d sit on my lap as I edited or on Aidan’s lap as he did some translating. He especially loved to bang our pens or pencils on the desk, laughing at the noise. It used to drive me crazy if Aidan so much as ate an apple while I was editing. Felix’s pencil banging never bothered me at all.

It was wintertime, mid-June. He’d been through a stage of being particularly energetic, even for him—waking up five or more times a night. It lasted for eight nights in a row. Aidan was very busy at work. There was an international trade conference taking place in Canberra and he was working sixteen-hour days and collapsing into bed as soon as he got home. So I got up for Felix each night. I didn’t mind. The conference was a big deal for Aidan, I knew. It was a quiet time for me workwise, so I was able to cope with the lack of sleep. I caught up on an hour here or there, while Felix had his afternoon nap.

Aidan’s conference was due to finish on Thursday. The delegates would be in Canberra for one more day, but Aidan’s official role in their visit was over. The timing was perfect. It was Walter’s birthday, and to celebrate, he, Mum and Jess were coming up to Canberra for what Mum called a cultural weekend. They weren’t staying with us—our flat was too small—but in a hotel in town. They were going to have the Friday to themselves to go to the museum and galleries, and we’d all go out together that night for dinner.

There had been some recent tension between Jess and me. She had an on-again, off-again relationship with a fellow drama student, Canberra-born and now Melbourne-based, and had been up to stay with his family several times. She’d visited them—and us—most recently a month earlier. She’d arrived at the door, called out, “Hi, it’s Jess!” as usual, swept in, kissed us all on both cheeks, Felix included, told us how cute he was—“He’s going to break
so
many hearts when he’s older!”—then spent the rest of her hour-long visit telling us about the dance award she’d won recently, the roles she’d auditioned for or planned to audition for, how much she was enjoying doing guest appearances on Mum’s TV show and how great it was being stopped in the street and being asked for autographs.

I was extremely tired. Felix had barely slept the previous night. While she was talking, he started to nod off in my arms. I quietly excused myself and carried him into his room. I laid him down, stroked his cheek, relieved to see him start the slow, deep breathing that promised a few hours of sleep. Then, outside, Jess sprang up out of her chair and started showing Aidan a new tap routine she was learning. In her winter boots. On our wooden floor. The noise shocked me as much as it shocked Felix. He sat up in the cot, wailing. I went into the living room and shouted—really shouted—at Jess. I called her selfish. Self-obsessed. Self-absorbed. She burst into tears and started shouting back. Felix started crying even more loudly. Aidan tried to intervene. I shouted at him then too, telling him to keep out of my family business. “You’re just jealous of me,” Jess had said, as she tearfully, dramatically, gathered her bag and coat and ran for the door. “You always have been.” Walter’s birthday dinner would be the first time I’d seen her since that day.

On Thursday night, Aidan put down his first postconference celebratory beer, took one look at the bags under my eyes and said, “Arabella Fox Baum O’Hanlon, you are beautiful but you are exhausted. I hereby pronounce myself in charge of the world. Through the powers I’ve just invested in myself, I grant you a full day to yourself, starting tomorrow at eight a.m.”

I remember laughing. “Sure, Aidan. I’ll ask Felix to look after himself, will I?”

“Of course not. I, his loving, biological, capable father, will take care of him.” He held up a hand as I started to protest. “Ella, I want to. I need him as much as you need a break from him. He won’t ask me about trade tariffs, the French phrase for exclusion areas or the German word for extrapolation, will he?”

“He might. He’s very advanced.”

Aidan grinned. “Say yes, Ella. Leave Felix and me in peace for the day. We’ve got swings to swing on. Playgrounds to play in. A box set of
The Godfather
to watch.”

“But your work—”

“It’s finished.
Fertig. Fini.
”

“You always say that and they always call you in.”

“They won’t this time. They promised. But if they do, I’ll bring Felix. He can take the minutes. Make the coffee. He loves making coffee. I told him that every time he pushes the plunger down, there’s a huge explosion somewhere.”

“Aidan, I’d love it, a whole day, but you can’t. This conference, I know how important—” I was so tired I could barely make sense.

“Was that pidgin English, Ella? I’m not familiar with that dialect.” He pointed to an area above his head. “Can you see that lightbulb? I’ve just had a brilliant idea.” He took out his phone and dialed. “Meredith? It’s your favorite Irish son-in-law. All set for your travels? Wonderful. I wonder if I could ask a big favor? Can I please have you on standby tomorrow, as Felix’s beloved and loving grandmother, in case of any urgent babysitting?” He listened, laughed, said good-bye and hung up. “She said yes. How could she say no to a silver-tongued devil like myself? But I won’t need her, of course. That ruse was just to appease you. Did it work? Are you appeased?”

I was completely appeased. I spent the rest of that evening making plans. A whole day to myself! I could go shopping, get my legs waxed, go and see three films, whatever I wanted. Aidan was amused at how often my ideas changed.

“You could make it up as you go along,” he suggested. To both of our surprise, I agreed.

On Friday morning, the pair of them waved me off. Felix was on Aidan’s hip, smiling and blowing kisses. He’d just learned how to do that.

“Bye,” he said. “Bye, Mama. Bye, Felix.”

I laughed, and repeated it. “Bye, Felix!” I kissed Aidan and I kissed Felix. Felix kissed me back, on my left cheek, then my right cheek and then on my chin, our own little ritual. I didn’t know then that it would be the last time we’d ever do it.

I checked I had my phone with me.

“Leave it behind, Ella,” Aidan said. “Have a proper day off.”

“I’ll take it, just in case. Ring if you need anything, a pint of milk, a stiff gin—”

“I won’t ring. Forget about us. You’ve never seen us before. You are about to go back in time to your free and single days.” He turned around so he and Felix were facing away from me. “Can you see her, Felix? No, me either. That’s because she’s disappeared. She’s now invisible. You have an invisible mother. Isn’t that amazing?”

I walked into the city, an easy forty minutes from home. It was a beautiful morning, crisp and bright. I went to the library, into bookshops, clothes shops. I rang Aidan at eleven.

“Who is this?” he said. “My wife? She left me this morning in a time machine. I’m not expecting her back until tonight. She may even be full of champagne by then. What am I to do?”

I laughed. “Is Felix all right?”

“Who is this stranger asking me about my own son? Are you a Russian spy? Has someone bugged this phone? But let me ask him. Felix, are you all right?”

I heard his reply through the phone. His shout. “I’m Felix O’Hanlon!”

“Did he eat his breakfast?” I asked. “There’s extra juice in the freezer if you need it.”

“Leave us alone or I’ll call the police and report you for harassment. I’m turning off my phone. What do you say, Felix?”

I heard it again. “I’m Felix O’Hanlon!”

I was still smiling two hours later, possibly helped by the glass of very good white wine I had with my Italian lunch. I was trying to decide whether to see a film or go to the botanic gardens when I passed a beauty salon. The door was open. Classical music was playing. Inside, it looked calm and relaxing, the decor a luxurious combination of velvet and soft shades of blue. There was a price list on the window, including a special offer on massages. An hour-long massage, with scented oils and soft music, suddenly seemed to be the thing I wanted most in the world.

I was in luck. The beautician was free. “Leave your belongings in the locker. Just bring your key.”

I was relaxed and obedient. I left my phone in my bag, my bag in the locker. I would be in the massage room for an hour. What could possibly happen?

Felix died in that hour.

In the treatment room, I had a brief conversation with the beautician before she began. Had I had a massage recently? she asked. I laughed and told her no, not for years. I explained that my husband had practically pushed me out the door and told me to treat myself. A husband in a million, she said. I agreed that he was.

She gave me the best massage I’d ever had. She found all the knots in my shoulders and teased them loose. She pushed deep into my back and relaxed muscles I didn’t know I had. She gently excused herself toward the end of the hour, tiptoed out and then a minute or two later came back. She didn’t have another client for an hour. She’d just learned a new facial technique. Could she practice it on me at no charge? I’d be her guinea pig. Did I have the time to spare?

Of course I said yes.

I came out of the treatment room forty minutes later, in a dreamlike state. I got dressed and then took out my phone. Only then. Not the moment I came out. That’s how bad a mother I was. How selfish I was. In those ten minutes I could have been on my way to the hospital.

I don’t care that the doctors say I would still have been too late. I might not have been. I don’t care what the coroner said about the time of death. If Felix had heard my voice, if he had felt my touch, he would have done all he could to fight whatever it was that was pulling him away from me. I’ve relived those moments over and over. Why didn’t I check my phone the moment I came out of the massage room? Why didn’t I take the phone into the massage room with me? Why did I accept the invitation for the free facial? Why did I even take the day off? Why, why, why . . .

I had thirty missed calls. Three from Jess, the rest from Aidan. The phone rang even as I was registering there had been so many.

I answered. “Aidan, what is it? Is something wrong?”

“Ella—Ella, it’s Felix—”

I screamed when he told me. The receptionist ran in. I was standing there with the phone.

“Miss? Are you okay?”

I couldn’t speak.

She took the phone. She talked to Aidan. I don’t remember it happening, but she must have called a taxi and given them the address of the hospital. She came with me. I never found out her name, and I can never go back and thank her. But she came on that taxi ride with me and held me the whole way until we arrived and she could hand me over to Aidan.

Felix was already dead. He had been dead for fifty minutes.

It was Jess’s fault. It was Aidan’s fault. It was my fault.

That morning, ten minutes after Aidan had joked and teased and told me to forget all about him and Felix, he’d got a phone call from his office. An emergency. Last-minute trade negotiations, a senior interpreter urgently needed. The ambassador had requested him. How quickly could he get in? He couldn’t, he said. He was looking after his son. His wife was away. He was very sorry, but—

There had to be a way. They needed him now. It had to be him. It was about contracts worth millions of dollars. Hundreds of jobs were at stake. No, he couldn’t bring his son with him. It was a high-level meeting. “Can’t someone in your family look after him, even for an hour? A neighbor? Anyone?”

Aidan rang my mother’s number. She answered on the third ring. She, Walter and Jess had just landed, just collected their luggage, were at the taxi stand about to find their way to their hotel. Walter wasn’t well. He’d got a nosebleed on the flight. He’d be fine, it wasn’t serious, but he just needed to lie down for an hour or so. But of course Jess could babysit Felix. No problem at all. They’d get two separate taxis from the airport. She’d be there in ten minutes. The timing couldn’t have been better, they all agreed, marveling at how wonderful fate was sometimes. What were families for, but to appear just when you needed them?