Blame (26 page)

Anna thinks carefully about her words. They haven't
accused her of anything yet. All they've done is imply that she was somehow at fault. This morning, she had gone through the previous day thoroughly and realised that the detectives didn't know anything at all.
Caro obviously hasn't said anything to the two detectives interviewing her and, anyway, what would she say?
Caro had been drunk, Anna was sure of it. She'd heard her voice on the phone that day, heard the way Caro spoke slowly and clearly, as if she were trying to speak over the top of some noise only she could hear. Anna had known Caro long enough to know that meant she'd been drinking, and it was Saturday afternoon. Caro always drank on Saturday afternoon. And if she had said anything, it would be easy enough to discredit. She was an alcoholic. Her word meant nothing. Anna feels how cruel her words are as she thinks them, but there is no going back now. Someone has to pay for Maya's death, someone has to be blamed, and in a choice between herself and her best friend, Anna chooses Caro.

‘She'll be fine,' thinks Anna.

As she watches Walt check the camera before they begin, Anna thinks about Caro putting her arms around her the day they met. She sees Caro leaving Lex on a blanket in the park to chase with Anna after Maya as she ran to the water. She remembers Caro coming over one day with a gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free chocolate cake, saying, ‘We can't have Maya missing out on the good stuff, can we?'

‘God, this tastes awful,' Anna had said after they started on the cake.

‘It does,' Caro had giggled, ‘but look how much she's enjoying it.'

Maya had been sitting in front of the television, absorbed in her space video, while she ate her cake. Her eyes remained focused on the screen, but each time she'd taken another bite of cake, she'd smiled. ‘You can't go past a good piece of cake,' said Caro.

Anna closes her eyes. She cannot think about Caro now.

‘All you have to do,' she'd told herself in the mirror this morning, ‘is repeat the same story.' Whatever Detective Anderson and Detective Moreno thought they knew meant nothing. Actual proof was the only thing that mattered and they would never have that. Caro wouldn't say anything, either because she couldn't remember anything or because she just wouldn't.

‘Anna?' says Walt. ‘Are you ready?'

She nods.

‘How many times can you say the same thing different ways,' she thought as she'd dressed to return to the police station and the suffocating little interview room. She's not wearing a dress today: just her usual outfit of jeans and a T-shirt. She has brushed her hair back into a ponytail and made minimal effort with her make-up. ‘Who cares, who cares, who cares?' she had thought to herself as she looked in the mirror.

She has not seen Keith this morning and assumes that he left without saying goodbye. She hopes that he simply doesn't come home. She would like to send him a text
saying,
Please go and stay at your mother's house
. Since Maya was born, she hasn't had more than a few hours to herself during the school day. The idea of being in an apartment with only a silent cat for company had become one of her greatest fantasies.

‘Walt, I've told you what happened. Maya had a bad day. She was sitting in front of the television when I thought it might be okay for me to get the post.

‘I went outside and I left the door open, and then Maya came dashing out of the house. I tried to catch her but she was too strong for me. She kicked me, and I let go and she kept running, and as she got to the street, Caro was coming around the corner. Caro was driving quite fast and she was drunk, and she didn't see my child and she hit her, and that's exactly what happened.'

‘You knew Caro would be coming around the corner.'

‘I had known but I didn't remember. And even if I did, it makes no difference. She was drunk and she was speeding and she hit Maya.' As Anna says the words, she feels the sting of guilt. She doesn't want to talk about Caro this way. Caro, who dropped in on the bad days and the good days, and who could be counted on to bring milk and bread if Anna felt she couldn't leave the house, and who told Anna over and over again that she was a great mother, that she was doing her best with Maya—Caro should not be talked about this way.

‘She wasn't speeding,' says Walt. ‘We've checked and she was going less than the fifty kilometres she should have been going. In fact, she was basically coasting to a stop. If
Maya hadn't fallen and hit her head on the road, she'd be a little battered and bruised but she'd be fine.'

Anna looks at Walt, wondering at the cruelty of this statement. ‘What is he trying to do?' she thinks.

‘Well, that's not what happened, is it, Detective Anderson?' she says.

‘How do they know all these things?' she thinks. ‘How is it possible to measure all this, and to know exactly what Caro was doing and how fast she was going?' Caro's car is a four-wheel drive but a small one.

‘Caro also says,' continues Walt, ploughing on without looking at Anna, ‘and this is according to the detectives who were interviewing her yesterday, that you didn't try to stop Maya running out into the road. In fact, she says that you
pushed
her in front of the car.'

Walt says the words without emotion, as though he is reporting that Caro said it was a sunny day. He looks at Anna briefly, and then goes back to doodling on his pad, as though her reaction holds little interest for him. Cynthia, though, focuses her blue-eyed gaze on Anna.

Anna feels the words settle on her, feels the charge in the air.
Caro had said something
. In the same way that Anna was choosing herself over Caro, Caro was choosing herself over Anna.

‘Stupid woman,' Anna thinks. ‘Obviously she was going to do that.'

Now she regrets not taking any of Caro's calls but she'd been afraid. She knew that Caro wanted to comfort her,
wanted to apologise to her, wanted to grieve with her; but she was also worried that Caro wanted to question her. If she had taken her calls, they could have discussed what had happened. Caro had been drinking and was probably confused about what she had seen. It would have been easy enough to convince her of that.

But now Caro has said the word ‘pushed', and that word changes everything.

Anna chews on her lip. The silence grows.

‘We think the reason she fell the way she did may have been because she was, indeed . . . pushed,' says Cynthia.

Anna looks from one detective to the other, and then glances quickly at the door and back again.
They know nothing. They think they know something but they know nothing. They're trying to push your buttons because they have no real idea.
Even though she repeats this to herself three times she can't convince herself of the truth of the statement.

‘Anna, we're going to need you to say something here,' says Cynthia.

‘She's lying,' says Anna. ‘She's lying. You have to know that she's lying. She's a drunk and she's trying to prevent you from finding that out. She doesn't want anyone to know. It's her secret but I know all about it. Believe me . . .' she goes on, nodding her head as though she is vehemently agreeing with someone, ‘I know. I know she drinks all day long. She drinks when Lex is at school and at night. She doesn't care about anything except alcohol. And she drives drunk all the time.
She's even driven drunk with Lex in the car. She should be in prison. She's not fit to be a mother. She shouldn't be allowed to drive a car. She's . . . she's a drunk.'

‘Anna,' says Cynthia, ‘you need to stay calm and listen to me. If Caro was drunk, it will show up in her blood tests. That's not really the issue now. What we'd like to discuss is why she'd say that you pushed Maya in front of the car. Is she right, Anna? Did you push Maya in front of the car?'

‘She's such a bitch,' says Anna. ‘All she knows how to do is lie and drink and feel sorry for herself. “Poor me . . . poor me . . . poor me.” She has no idea what a hard life is. No idea at all.' Anna is looking down as she says this, talking to the tabletop.

‘She was your best friend,' says Cynthia quietly.

Anna's head jerks up and she stares at Cynthia, causing her to sit back a little in her chair.

Walt folds his hands across his lap but doesn't say anything.

‘She used to be my best friend,' says Anna. ‘She killed my child, Cynthia. I think that would end most friendships pretty quickly—wouldn't you agree?'

‘Anna,' says Cynthia, ‘I'm a mother as well and my heart breaks for you, it really does. I can't imagine the pain you must be going through, but, as a mother, I have to confess that raising kids is not easy. It's never easy. I know all that crap on Facebook makes it look like a lot of mothers are living perfect lives but I know that's not the truth, and you know it too.'

‘I don't think you have any idea about how hard it was,' says Anna. ‘I'm sure your kids are fine, just average kids with average problems. You're just like Caroline . . . just like all the other mothers out there who think they've got it tough because their kid throws a tantrum, or because they didn't get their eight hours of sleep last night, or because a teacher thinks their kid is badly behaved. You all think you know but really you have fuck-all idea.' As she says the words, Anna realises that she's angry at Caro. She's angry at her for hitting Maya with her car and for trying to blame it on her, but actually she's been angry with Caro for years. Yes, she'd had a hard time with the miscarriages and losing Gideon, but she still had Lex, who said her first word at ten months and at two years old would not shut up for a second. ‘What colour is the sky in the dark, Mum? Why is that dog sitting down? Where is my dad? Can I have a lolly? I want Dora, Mum. I want my doggy. Why is it today?' Lex's endless commentary on everything she thought and saw was the background noise to every playdate she and Maya had until Lex stopped coming over forever, and all the while, as she listened to Lex talk and talk and talk, Anna would be saying to Maya, ‘Say “Mum . . . Mum . . . Mum”, Maya. Can you say “Mum”?
Unless your child couldn't talk to you, didn't look at you or smile at you, didn't even care whether you were there or not most of the time, you had no idea.

‘Maya was hard work,' says Cynthia.

‘You have no fucking idea,' says Anna.

‘Then tell me,' says Cynthia. ‘Tell me how you managed to cope with a child who was so difficult, because I'm not sure I could have done it.'

‘Tell me about your kids,' says Anna.

‘Anna, Constable Moreno's children are really not something we want to discuss. You were talking about Maya; tell us what happened on the day of the accident. The moment you do that, you'll be allowed to go home.'

Anna looks down at her hands. ‘Tell me about your children,' she says again. She needs to hear about Cynthia's life, needs to hear about her children. She doesn't know why.

Walt says, ‘Anna . . .' and she detects a note of warning.

‘It's okay, Walt,' says Cynthia. ‘I don't mind talking about my boys. I have two boys, Anna,' she says, and Anna is forced to look up and at her as she talks.

‘What are their names?'

‘Joel, who's five; and Jarred, who's seven.'

‘Joel and Jarred,' says Anna.

‘Yes,' says Cynthia, and she sits forward in her chair a little, so she is closer to Anna.

‘I didn't want to give them both J names but my ex-husband liked the idea.'

‘How long have you been divorced?' Anna says and hears Walt sigh.

‘Nearly three years now,' says Cynthia. ‘The divorce was pretty hard on the boys but I think they'll be okay. I have to say that they can be as sweet as pie but there are moments . . . moments when I find them . . . awful.'

Cynthia nods as she says this.

‘Kids can be awful,' says Anna.

‘They can . . . most days, I can calmly deal with Jarred throwing a tantrum because I made the wrong thing for dinner, or Joel saying, “I want to live with Dad,” whenever I tell him it's bedtime, but sometimes it's just too much.'

‘Yes,' says Anna quietly to Cynthia, ‘sometimes it's just too much.'

Cynthia sits forward a little more, so she is even closer to Anna. Anna can smell her perfume, can even smell the mint of her mouthwash. ‘Last week,' she says, ‘Joel knocked on the bathroom door for five minutes straight because I wouldn't come out and give him an iceblock before dinner. It was just over an iceblock and it turned into a battle of wills, and when I came out, I wanted to grab him and shake him hard, just make him shut up.'

‘What did you do?' asks Anna. Her voice is a whisper.

‘Well, um, that's when I know I need to get out of the situation. I went back into the bathroom and locked the door, so I could get away from them both, because Jarred had already gone on at me about having more computer time. Joel wasn't having any of it and he kept banging on the door, driving me crazy. Eventually, I turned on the shower and just listened to the water until he went away. It was a bad day, an awful day, and when I came out of the bathroom, I was sorry I'd locked myself away, but it had given them both time to calm down and given me some space.'

‘I never had any space,' says Anna. ‘I couldn't leave Maya alone unless she was watching her DVD.'

‘I imagine that would have made your life really difficult. Every mother I know sometimes needs a bit of time out from her kids—especially when they're being unreasonable,' says Cynthia, ‘so tell me how you coped with never having that.'

‘You don't get a choice,' says Anna. ‘You don't get to choose if they look like you or your husband, or if they're good at sports, or clever or funny, and I didn't get a choice with Maya and autism. She could have been on the easy end of the spectrum but I didn't get to choose that either. I coped because I had no choice.'