"While I'm in, I need you to be the bravest you have ever been. Don't disappear in here. Be you. Bubbly. A silly little girl. Soften my brothers' lives."
I'm trying, Max. I'm trying.
Looking back on that first five months, I suppose I had succumbed to a kind of depression. Every happy event was shadowed by his absence. Seeped into my bones, into marrow, it festered there. I was low. So low I could barely move.
"I had no idea how good it would feel to make you smile. Fuck me, I’d do just about anything to make you smile."
I worked hard at smiling for him; the sad smile that now accompanies his memories, but a smile, nonetheless.
When Clara acts like Max - broody and protective - I like to imagine him kneeling down and giving her a pep talk about what he expects of her while he is gone. Her floppy puppy ears flipping to the side as she tilts her head, listening intently to her master. I imagine him telling her to cuddle me every night. To lick all my tears away. To growl whenever a stranger approaches me. To bite any male who touches me.
I imagine this a lot.
With my sad smile.
Max is never to be disobeyed; he'd be very proud of her.
Pulled from my thoughts by her wagging tail, I catch the taillights of a car as it pulls away from the house. I scruff her crown, tighten the drawstring around my waist, and finish making my way to Bronson's room. Without knocking, I push the door open.
"No mommies," I hear her say through a giggle, her voice coming at me from under a canopy of sheets - a blanket forte. The multicoloured fabric hangs like shade sails through the centre of the bedroom with one pegged at the front to create a wall. I press my lips together to stop my grin because I shouldn’t love this so much. I should be firm and consistent with her. I want us to keep to a routine - I really do. All the ladies in my mother's group say that it is all about a steady routine so that our children feel safe and understand what is expected.
Ugh!
Those ladies don't have a completely love-struck Nànnu and four Butcher boys constantly stealing their child away - they aren’t that lucky.
We could leave, begin a life of normality. Of structure. Our new house in Brussman is finished, has been for a month now, but I don't want to be there without him. So having the boys a few metres away, a constant interruption, a constant distraction, is a great comfort to me. Even if it means no rules, chaos, and a lack of schedules.
I run my fingers down my face, still waking up. "It's six. You should be in bed, Kelly. We spoke about this. We don't leave the room until the sun comes up. Remember the light? Bright out the window?"
Her high-pitched plea meets me again. "Uncle Bonson pay."
I let out a long sigh and try to address the other 'adult' in the room. "Bronson?"
"Tell her that I'm a troll," Bronson whispers.
She giggles. "I. A. Toll."
"No, I am a troll," he mutters with feigned secrecy. "Not you, Outlaw."
"Am. A. Toll." She tries again.
"Yeah, he's a troll alright. Trolling my schedule," I murmur through a chuckle. "Okay, I'm going to have a shower. Have you at least changed her nappy?"
"Tell her trolls eat nappies." I hear a nom nom nom sound and Kelly burst into a fit of laughter, her broken giggle contagious. He must be pretending to eat her belly or something; I'd recognise that overexcited sound anywhere. Shaking my head with a huge smile etched in my cheeks, I leave them to act like toddlers together.
I nod to myself; at least her nappy is clean.
Or ingested.
After a shower, I get dressed in a pair of black leggings and a dusty-blue shirt and begin my morning ritual. As I sit down on the mattress and pull the bedside drawer out, I can hear Kelly and Bronson wandering down the hallway. She screeches with excitement about something. I dig into the drawer in search of Max's letter, riffling around to no avail. My chest aches as if a fist has broken into the cavity and is squeezing my lungs. I yank the entire drawer out, dislodging it from its track. I slide onto the floor with it in front of me. Where is it? Why can’t I find it?
I need to cross it off.
Frick, what if Kelly took it? I jolt up and rush through the bedroom door as flashes of Max's letter in tiny pieces or covered in crayon nearly brings me to my knees. Clara follows me with meaning; she reads me and is on high alert. As I hurry down the staircase, I twist my wedding rings with my thumb, rotating the bands around my finger. A habit that has soothed me since-
"Daddy!"
I jerk to a stop, my feet and lungs motionless.
Warmth spreads through me and only one person has that effect on me. In my peripherals I can see him, but I don’t dare twist my head in case it's a lie. A mirage. His face in a shadow. In a crowd. I was so often crippled by hallucinations of him.
Gripping the railing for dear life, I try to stay upright, but my legs lose form and structure and buckle. I don't look down. Don't look at him. I hear Clara growl with uncertainty. Her response to the shift in energy, the quickening of my pulse, the gathering of my pieces, all the pieces that have been missing for so long.
Unable to walk or even stand, I just sink down onto the jarrah step. Staring straight ahead, I take a few moments to come
