Rain-bloated clouds hung over our house. I put down the phone.
‘My mother is coming. My real mother.’ The words left me breathless.
Bruce looked up. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m not stupid.’
Bounce the goat was tethered outside the living-room window. She started to wail for her kid. We’d weaned it a few days before and sent it away in the boot of a friend’s car.
Bruce gazed out the window. ‘The rain’s stopped.’
I mixed the batter for muffins. We spent the day in retreat. Perhaps that was the moment the chill overtook us. Later, when the girls were in bed, I ran a bath, locked the door and turned out the lights. The dark was important. Only under its cover could I take off my clothes and uncoil into the hot water.
I undressed in front of the girls. Bruce had observed my body through six years and three children. There had even been a time long ago when we would get naked on the local shingle beach at the height of summer. Or along a tributary to the Māwheranui that once sparkled with gold flakes. It was only alone that I could not endure my body.
Bruce pounded on the door. The sound vibrated through the bath. I guessed he’d been knocking for a while. I let him in and slipped back under the water. He squatted down, curling his fingers over the edge of the enamel.
I could hear the sea in the distance. The first time Bruce found me under the water, he’d grabbed my arm and pulled me out. In fear, I struck him across the face. He’d let go and I hit the side of the bath, blood spouting from my nose.
Now he sat on the floor with his back to the wall. ‘It’s like you want to drown yourself.’
I tried to explain growing up in a house where they mistrusted privacy. Bedroom doors were always open. Sleeping was in full view with hands above the sheets.
‘It’s about being whole,’ I said. ‘For the length of my breath, I’m whole.’
‘But you’re a mother, doesn’t that make you a whole person?’ The light from the hallway cast his face in shadow. ‘You need help,’ he said. ‘I’ve called Jim.’
Jim Doak was the local preacher who believed in the power of demons. Bruce had begun to attend his meetings.
‘Jim will fix you.’ His voice was low and soothing, calming a skittish animal.
In the morning, I packed the girls’ clothes and placed their bags by the door. I wanted to leave right away, but Bruce shadowed my every move.
Jim arrived after lunch. I’d been expecting a doctor’s bag, a box, anything that might contain his magic. But he strode into the living room swinging his well-thumbed Bible. I’d always detested him. The way he parted his hair, slick and precise. And the way he washed dishes after our shared meals, scrubbing at them in a brisk and joyless way as though they were our souls.
Bruce took the girls to their bedroom and set them up with pens and paper. I watched Jim in the reflection from the kitchen window. He nodded toward the couch with the orange-crayoned flower pattern. Bruce returned and we sat together, our knees touching.
Jim positioned himself on the edge of the old armchair. He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you, Bruce and Barbara, for taking this step. It can’t have been easy.’ His smile revealed uneven teeth.
‘Barb’s a little nervous,’ Bruce said.
Jim cleared his throat. ‘Could you tell me why you feel the need for spiritual deliverance?’
I remember blushing. ‘I don’t.’ I felt embarrassed and violated at the same time.
‘She tries to drown herself.’ Bruce grabbed my hand as if it was he who was going under.
Jim leaned forward. ‘Drown? How?’
‘In the bath. She holds her breath under the water. Like she’s unconscious. Like she wants to die.’
‘Did you have a bad birth experience?’ Jim asked. ‘Your own, I mean, not your kids’.’
It was this one question that seared Jim into my memory. It struck me that I had no clue. Growing up, I knew not to mention birth in any way.
My new parents picked me up at ten days old. From where? No one remembers. My legal birth certificate shows my adopters as my birth parents. All other details are blank. My original birth certificate disappeared when I was nine months old and the adoption finalised. I received a copy in 1985 after the Adult Adoption Information Act came into being. But even that supposed original was stamped with the names of my adopting parents. As if I had always belonged to them, even before they trundled my mother into their lawyer’s office.
Mavis’s memory loss went further. The doctor’s name eluded her, even though her sister worked for him for years. She could not remember my mother’s name. Years later, when I showed her the papers she’d signed, her signature next to my mother’s, she declared them fake.
It was more than memory loss. It was the eradication of my past. As if Mavis and Max alone called me into being at ten days old. There appeared to be no curiosity. No nagging interest about where I came from, who my mother was, my father, my grandparents? I was a warm package delivered by the State, with feeding instructions pinned to a blanket.
Jim turned to Bruce. ‘If her birth was traumatic, the water might feel like a safe place.’
I hated that he spoke to Bruce as though I was not there. And that he was right. The bath was my sanctuary, the place of wholeness.
Jim lowered his eyelids. It was a habit that made you think he was deep in thought or prayer. I remember wondering if he was mentally undressing me. Or worse.
‘She’s never really here,’ Bruce said. ‘Not when she’s caring for the girls.’ He paused. ‘Or in bed.’
The energy in the room shifted. We were
