That feeling increases as I see past the hole I have made there is a small window and it is wide open. I stare at it amazed. I take a moment, a beat. Compute everything this means. I stand up, move about as much as I can. I see that I am high up.
Oh God.
I can see a river, houses, some blocks of flats. It’s dark in both the room I’m in and the one I’m looking through and I’m at a distance from the window but even so, I think I know where I am. I recognise the view. I may not be as high up, but I think I am in my own apartment building. I am almost certain.
Daan.
My head is fuzzy now. Memories, thoughts, reasons are loose, scattered. I’m losing my grip.
I freeze for a moment. Not sure if I am devastated or relieved. There couldn’t have been good news. Whichever one I discovered was responsible for this would have broken my heart. At least this way the boys are safe; their father is not a madman. Daan, of course. I understand. More than anyone probably.
I needed something of my own. I wanted someone to love me more than anyone else. It’s not an excuse, but it is my explanation. My mother loved my father most. When he left, she seemed to step out of the world. Or at least step away from me. My father loved his new wife and new sons more than he loved me. He didn’t even love me enough to disguise the fact. Mark loves his children most. My children love their dead mother. That is the hardest, dead people are easy to love and impossible to compete with.
Having a favourite child is frowned upon. Poor parenting. The goal is to love them equally, even if it is differently.
I love Seb because when I am around him, I can soften, I can be still, peaceful, complete. He makes me laugh out loud. I’m always throwing my hand over my mouth and erupting into the sort of laughter that ultimately makes my ribs ache. He’s funny, irreverent, fast.
I love Oli because he is a challenge. He doesn’t care whether he makes me laugh or not, but I care whether I can draw a smile from his handsome full lips, whether I can ease out a grunt of approval. If I can lessen his seemingly endless mistrust of the world, his pain.
I love both my boys equally but otherwise. No favourites. Any right-thinking parent would rather die than admit to having a favourite.
And my men? My husbands? It is the same with them.
Thoughts whirl in and out of my head as my eyes rest on the chaos and rubble at my feet.
I wanted to be loved exclusively. Daan loves me more than he loves anyone else. Daan loves me so much but what did I offer him? Not the same singularity, not exclusivity. Of course, it is Daan who brought me to this, Daan is not a man who would accept sharing.
Nor is he a man who will forgive.
My instinct is to yell for help, but I doubt I’ll be heard on the street even through an open window, not from this height. I’m more likely to be heard by Daan, who is presumably close by. I pick up a piece of plasterboard and throw it towards the window. My aim is off, it hits the wall. I bend, pick up another piece and try again, this time it falls short. However, the third piece of debris sails out of the window. The relief is enormous. It isn’t a big piece, but I imagine it falling to the ground, maybe even landing on or near a passer-by. They’ll look up and wonder where it has come from. Excited, I reach for another piece of plasterboard. I throw that, it flies. The next doesn’t and I’m bitten by a sense of panic. I know I have to stay calm and focus. Systematically I hurl the pieces of debris out of the window. Eight, nine, ten scraps hit the mark and find freedom. I continue to break pieces of plaster from the wall and hurl them out the window. I imagine the debris collecting in a pile on the pavement below. Surely someone will notice that. Alfonso the concierge won’t like a mess around the building, he’ll want to investigate. The hole in the wall is now sizeable – I’ve snapped off every part I can reach. I’m getting tired and more of the debris is missing the target of the window and just coming to rest somewhere in the other room. My hands are cut, scratched, bleeding.
I need water.
I slump down against the radiator again and wait.
As the day leaks away, the cold night air comes through the window and the hole in the wall and chills me. I try to wrap my arms around myself to keep warm, but it’s uncomfortable because of the chain and the injuries. I carefully tuck both hands between my thighs instead. My fingers are freezing but trying to warm them leaves them smelling of my shit. I sit in silence. And wait.
But waiting is not enough. I have to do more. My progress with the wall has given me some hope. I have to keep trying. I slam my chain against the radiator. It makes a clanking sound in the room. Maybe the sound will somehow reverberate through the pipes of the building. The sort of neighbours I have will not like being disturbed, they will investigate. I slam the chain again. Crash. And again. Clatter. And again. Clang.
I will do this all night if I have to.
I will crash
