Dare to Breathe (10 page)

“In loving memory of Kate.”

This is Kate? The girl Carrie spoke about to Nathan the morning I was so hung-over?

I look closely at the pretty girl with the long fair hair spilling over her shoulders. She has a big smile that highlights her bright jade eyes and long tanned limbs. I wonder what happened to her but I snap out of it, return the frame, make the bed and reluctantly leave the room.

Chapter Twenty

I have to take a cab from the airport to my old house as Dad has decided to stop driving. The traffic makes him go crazy and between his ailing eyesight and arthritis we all agree it is safer for me and for him if I take public transport. I get out the cab, grab my bags and pay the taxi driver. I look over at the house I have known for the last twelve years. It is every child’s dream home with a large front garden, white picket fence and even a tree house my dad built many years ago.

I look at the tree house fondly and recall many a night when I first arrived here, sleeping up there where I thought it was safer. That tree house symbolizes hope for a better future and I desperately want to go and climb it now.

I shake my head and instead head into my home.

“Mom…Dad! I’m home!” I yell, throwing open the door they have never locked for over twenty years, despite my protests.

I hear voices coming from the kitchen and quickly go to find them. The house is fully decorated with tinsel, Christmas baubles and other glaringly tacky decorations my mom won’t throw out because I loved them so much as a kid.

Mom is drying her hands and walking out to greet me already. “Honey!” she shouts, coming to give me a huge, bear hug. This is the one person I have always hugged freely. The only person who has been able to touch me without making me freak out. I throw my arms around her and hug her back. We stand like that for a minute before I hear a gentle cough behind me. I look around and see my dad. He looks frailer than I remember, with tired eyes, but he still holds a great big smile for me.

“How’s my birdie?” he asks me gently. He knows not to crowd me but I am so happy to see him I let go of my mom and hug him tightly. He stands frozen for a minute, shocked by my embrace but then relaxes, returning the hug. When I open my eyes, I see my mom quietly wiping away tears.

I step back and look at them both. “So, how have you been?” I ask.

I head to the table and grab a piece of Edam my mom has grated for the cheese sauce. I take a close look at them as I eat the cheese. My mom’s gray hair has gotten slightly longer and I think I may take her out to the hairdresser’s while I am here as a treat. My dad is looking older and thinner than I remember. He has on his favorite tan pants which I can see are a little looser on him than usual.

My mom starts talking about her world here and all they have been doing in their community. Both of them have always believed in giving back to the people around them and I know that they are well loved here. I shift my focus and my attention onto her. We talk and talk and talk. It is as though I have never left. All those warm, safe memories I have ever had here return and surround me in a warm embrace and I relax into the only world I have ever truly loved or known.

Christmas Day comes too quickly and I know I have to head back soon. We exchange presents and I am delighted by my new iPad from them both. I open the parcel from Nathan in my room away from the family; my feelings for him are too raw to allow them to see this gift. I also would never be able to explain my feelings about this man to them as I hardly understand them myself. I unwrap it and am blown away by feelings I never knew possible as I look at the delicate dream catcher he has bought for me. It has a beautiful topaz stone in the center of it, just the color of my own blue eyes.
I wonder if he did that on purpose…?
No one could have bought me a more perfect gift. I look at the tag attached which simply says, ‘to look after you while I am away’. I hang it up over the window and then head back to my family who are busy in the kitchen.

I feel sad about leaving the two people who mean the most to me in the world but I am excited to go back and see my friends. Well truthfully, I have missed Nathan the most but whatever, I haven’t heard from one of them since they left and it’s not as if they don’t have my cell phone number! We sit at the table and eat mounds of turkey, mashed potatoes and cherry pie. No one asks me to help cook the food (luckily). I do help with the clearing up afterwards though. As I stand in the kitchen with my mom, I decide this is the perfect time to start asking questions. The sink looks out onto the back yard and I see it has started snowing again. The world always looks cleaner and fresher underneath a blanket of snow and the sight of this new clean world makes me braver.

“Mom, you remember when I asked about a shrink?” I ask.

She stops in her tracks and slowly looks over at me.

“Well, just so you know, I found one,” I tell her while I continue to dry the plates.

“Oh,” she says and turns back to washing the dishes. I know she is trying to appear casual but the tension in her body is a dead giveaway.

“Yeah, she is pretty good, Mom. We’ve been talking about my nightmares a little,” I continue.

“Uh hum,” is all she replies.

“Anyway, we started talking about Alex and Fred, you know my little brothers, and Mom, I can’t remember what happened to them. I really need some answers here,” I add a little desperately.

She stops what she is doing and pulls me towards the kitchen table and onto a stool. She sits down next to me and holds my hands.

“Okay, Sam. Now you know we didn’t get a whole heap of background information on the rest of your family when you arrived, but if you feel ready, I’ll tell you what we know,” she says.

I wiggle in the chair while I decide if I am ready or not. Her worried eyes scare me and I know the news can only be bad. I close my eyes for a moment to get some clarity.

“I think I need to know,” I say. “Doctor Sandy says I need to face my past in order to let it go. If I don’t start doing that, I don’t think I will ever be able to move forward.”

I open my eyes and look at her lined face. She may be older now, but to me, she is still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I remember the first time I saw her. She had come out the house to meet me, the sun shining behind her light hair framing her face and for a second I was sure she was an angel.

She leans back and sighs for a moment and then comes forward and holds my hands again. “When you got here, you were so skinny. You were also so skittish. I thought you were never going to leave that tree house.” She smiles at me fondly. “The truth is, you were always far stronger than anyone could possibly believe. You started coming down to see what we were doing in the garden. You would hover behind the tree, ready to dart up if we did something sudden or made a loud move but still you came to investigate. You were so curious. We carried on digging and planting, talking to each other, pretending we hadn’t noticed you so you would get to trust us more. That’s when Dad stared calling you ‘Birdie.’ Anyway, one day, you finally came right out, grabbed a rake and started working right alongside us, not saying one word. We both knew from that day on, you were a survivor.”

I have tears in my eyes and I see them reflected in my mom’s own eyes too.

“When they told us about you, they told us you had a family; a mom, dad and younger brothers.”

My breath catches as I listen closely to her words.

“Honey, you also had an uncle who lived at your house. They said it was an accident. We were told he fell asleep while trying to boil a pan of water on the gas stove but whatever the reason, the whole house burnt down that day killing everyone except your uncle and you.”

“How?…Why were we the only ones to survive?” I choke out at her almost smelling the fumes of the fire engulfing me and being brought back to a vague memory of burning.

“Your room was closest to the kitchen and I don’t know, somehow he grabbed you and got you out.”

“Why don’t I remember any of this except for when I’m asleep?”

“Honey, you were only about six years old. The boys were sleeping in the same room as your birth parents…They…they all died together.”

Seeing me crying, she pulls me closer and holds me tight.

“I am so sorry, Sam,” is all she says.

I cry for the family I never knew. I cry for my siblings who never had the chance to grow up. I cry for my life I must have lost that day. I cry until all my tears are exhausted. Then I stand up, try and give my mom a weak smile, and go lie on my bed, falling into a dead sleep.

I have a nightmare that night,
of course I do
. Dad and Mom come into the room and sing me back to sleep, like they have done so many nights in the past. I think of that hawk, flying high above me, looking at the earth from a distance. When I calm down, they close the door and back away. I think about what I have learnt. I have so many more questions.
Why do I remember hiding in a cupboard with the boys and being scared?

I wonder if my mom has told me all she knows as I have other horrible thoughts floating in my mind, thoughts I know I will have to confront in the morning.

When I come downstairs the next morning, I have one final question I need to ask her. The question is consuming me, making me feel sick to my toes. When I walk into the kitchen she is sitting at the table with my dad.

“Mom,” I say to her with my stomach tensing, “what happened to my uncle?”

I find a seat and look over to her. I need to have these questions answered; I’m done hiding in the dark pretending the first six years of my life never happened.

She looks over at my dad as if asking him to answer this question. He looks frowns with concern at the sight of me. I know I look pale, tired and unwell but I need to know.

“When you were six, you were found walking in the streets at midnight,” he says warily. “No one really knows what happened as you wouldn’t tell anyone. You weren’t much of a speaker when you were little. Anyway, a police cruiser picked you up only once you started walking on the highway. They eventually figured out who you were and took you back home. When they got to the trailer park where you lived with him, they discovered purely by accident, that your uncle was selling drugs, a lot of them. Short story is that he went to jail and you were brought to us.”

I am shaking as he tells me this and I can’t understand why this information is so new to me.
I was six! I should remember this, I should remember him!
I shut my eyes as vivid images invade my brain. Images of a man around thirty with a huge beer gut, browning teeth and a slightly balding head flash before me. I smell a stale beer stench and I try and shut my mind down as these images are scaring me but they continue. I see him walking towards me with a horrible leer and a dark look in his eyes. In the next image I see him coming into my room at night and forcing his hands between my legs, hurting me unbelievably, bruising my soft six year old skin, his rank breath invading my mind. I feel his dark hooded eyes on my face and I start gagging. I turn away from my family, who look at me in shock. I run into the bathroom, throwing up last night’s dinner and anything else that may be there. I keep going until there is nothing left and then I sit down on the toilet seat and cry again.
Will I ever be able to stop?

Knocking cuts through my defenses. I fling open the door and run into my mother’s arms, weeping. She doesn’t understand that my tears are not for my lost uncle but for my lost innocence but holds me as I weep regardless.

The last few days at home are spent with me trying to get it together. More and more pieces of my terrible early days fall into place. I start to remember how I hated that man. I even remember his name; ‘Uncle Dean.’ I remember he lived with us for as long as I could remember. I remember the trailer we lived in and various people coming in and out at all hours of the night and day while I was locked away in my tiny room. I try and remember my birth mom and dad, but I can’t. Their faces just hover out of view. I start to remember more about my tiny brothers, the way that I felt so protective of them and the way I was more of a parent to them than my own invisible ones. It upsets me hugely that in burning down my house, my uncle not only destroyed my family but any memory of them that may have been there. I think about the picture sitting at home and am grateful for them one piece of proof I have that they existed at all. Of course, I wake up most nights, drenched in sweat, crying and reliving all those terrible moments with him. I thought when I started remembering, I would get better, but all the remembering did is make things much worse for me. By uncovering some of my past, I have awakened the beast and the memories just keep coming, bringing my nightmares alive.

My parents want me to stay with them and get support. They see their news has affected me badly. “We can always call the college and get you a transfer here?” my dad says as I get ready to leave, tears streaming down my face. I look over at him standing in my doorway and see the uncertainty reflected in his eyes.

I wipe my tears away and stand up. “No, I need to get back. I want this degree and I want to get better. I know you’re sorry you told me but I needed to know and I promise I’ll go back and see Doctor Sandy. In fact, I’ve already got my first appointment booked!” I go over and give him a hug, reassuring him I will be okay. “Thanks, thanks for taking me in, making me yours and for loving me. I am so lucky you and Mom did what you did for me, and I really realize that now.”