Rachel Weeping (11 page)

chapter 13

Rachel walked down
the tree-lined street towards the Jordaans' house, the winter sun shining through the bare branches that were usually so lush and heavy with leaves during the summer. She was laden with groceries and the handles from the plastic supermarket bags cut painfully into her palms. She ignored the pain and continued to walk steadily, at the same time running through the list of chores that still awaited her.

Winter had journeyed past its coldest point and Rachel was looking forward to the change in season that would come in the next month. Already the sun was rising later in the day but this had done little to take the bitter cold of the season with it.

It had been five months since Maia's funeral.

Michelle and Rachel had slipped into an awkward routine, which ranged from simple greetings at the beginning and end of the day to communication around the chores that were required of Rachel. The rest of their time in the same space was spent on separate sides of the house, with Michelle spending most of hers in the study and Rachel cleaning the study and the rest of that side of the house when Michelle went out to the shops, to meet up with one of her friends or to antenatal classes.

Rachel was about five minutes from the house when the weight of the bags became too much and she was obliged to stop. She rested the bags on the ground while she massaged her palms. Looking up, she realised that she had stopped at the park she and Maia used to go to on the weekends and sometimes in the late afternoon after she was finished for the day and Maia needed to work off some energy. She hadn't been to the park in months. As she waited for the numbness in her hands to subside, she watched the handful of people who were in the park on this cold day.

A young couple were tossing a ball to their dogs, two animals that looked as though they had been rescued from a squatter camp and given a new life that none of their counterparts had been afforded. Some teenagers were throwing a frisbee to each other on the far side of the park, while a group of adults sat on the benches and watched as their children played on the swings, slides and jungle gyms. They all looked so content, enjoying the weak sun and each other's company.

Rachel bent down to pick up the plastic bags when something else caught her attention, causing her to stop dead in her tracks. Climbing up the ladder to the slide with her back to Rachel was a little girl in a blue corduroy jacket and scarf. She had tiny black pigtails sticking out from the sides of her head.

Rachel's heart beat wildly. She tried to take a few deep breaths but it hurt her chest.

The child climbed to the top of the ladder and got onto the slide, her face hidden from Rachel's view as she sat down and pushed herself forward. The air filled with a joyous scream and glimpses of small legs and flashes of blue. Rachel couldn't help it. She took a step forward, her mind telling her that it wasn't possible but her heart convincing her that it could be. The little girl climbed off the slide, still laughing, and turned to go up once more. She came running towards Rachel as though she was coming to greet her.

It wasn't Maia. Of course it wasn't Maia.

Picking up the shopping bags, Rachel walked quickly away from the park, glancing once over her shoulder to see the child and her mother, an elegant woman in skinny jeans, close together near a bench. The mother was handing her a juice box, bending to tighten her scarf ...

Rachel walked as fast as she could, the heels of her shoes striking the sidewalk and filling the air with a sharp, urgent sound. By the time she reached the side gate at the Jordaans' house she was shaking and she struggled to get the key into the lock to let herself in. She ran down the path to her room, the heavy bags almost making her stumble, with a wave of sadness moving through her unlike anything she'd felt before. She recognised it as a longing for her child that was deeper than her soul.

Safe inside her room, Rachel leaned against the door. The bags dropped from her hands.

She was alone. So completely alone. There was no one to love or love her back. She was stuck in this fortified city, living amongst people who knew only how to be served. Until this moment she had been able to look beyond this cold reality because she was here for a greater purpose – to give her child a chance to be anyone she wanted to be, and her parents the chance to survive. But now she felt well and truly trapped, with no means of escape, the noose around her neck growing tighter with every day that passed.

Mixed in with the grief and desolation, she found another emotion. It was disgust. She was disgusted with herself, with her lack of pride and her ability to accept where she was. She wished she had the courage to take her life. Love for her parents and her fear for their well-being were the only things that kept her from doing so.

This was her lot then: an educated woman who cleaned for the woman who had let her daughter die.

 

 

 

Michelle closed the front door. She was sure she had heard Rachel coming in the side gate, but perhaps she'd been mistaken. She went back to the kitchen, walking a little more slowly than usual due to the size of her belly. Six months of pregnancy had taken their toll on her, from the overwhelming morning sickness that still assailed her every now and then, to extreme mood swings, to the horrible weight gain and embarrassing swollen ankles. Where some women seemed to thrive on this state of being, Michelle couldn't wait for it to be over. She wished constantly that there was a way to speed up the process.

There wasn't a chance she was ever going to do this again.

As it was the weekend Chris was around to keep her company and she sat down at the kitchen table and watched as he tore into the roast chicken he was busy carving for their lunch. After a couple of minutes spent getting her breath back, she fished out some cutlery from the drawer and a couple of plates from the cupboard, and took them across to the breakfast nook, where she laid two places. While the garlic bread was heating up in the oven, she thought she'd make a fresh garden salad.

She was happy Chris was there.

Where her life had once been a whirlwind of work and social events, it had now slowed down to a lonely pace that was lived out in a mostly empty home. Her friends all had their own jobs and commitments during the day and were it not for Rachel's footsteps through the house and the domestic sounds of house-keeping, it would have been easy to believe that she was completely alone from Mondays to Fridays. She went out for her appointments with Dr Pieterse, of course, and to antenatal classes when she could get up the energy, and occasional lunchtime salads with Karlien, but for the past couple of months, she mostly hadn't gone anywhere. She found herself counting the hours until Chris came home so that at least she would have someone to talk to. She wondered ruefully if the excitement and anticipation in her heart wasn't depressingly close to what she imagined housewives in the sixties must have felt like, waiting for hubby to come home from a hard day at the office. She grimaced at the image.

Chris placed the chicken pieces onto a serving dish and took the leftover bones to the trashcan, licking the grease from his fingers before opening the lid. The trashcan was already full. Michelle could hear Chris trying to push the bones into the bag, the trash below snapping and groaning under the pressure.

‘Can't you just take it out to the outside bins?' she asked testily.

‘There's still space,' Chris replied, pushing down with his fist.

‘But it's food,' Michelle protested. ‘The flies are going to come.'

She watched Chris thinking about whether it was worth it to argue with her and was relieved when she saw him decide against it. He grabbed the black bag out of the can and tied its ends together into a clumsy knot. Michelle held the door open for him to carry it out to the bins in the courtyard. She returned her attention to the salad, tearing up lettuce leaves and sprinkling carrots, tomatoes, croutons and seeds over them.

She placed the salad in the centre of the breakfast table, adjusted the knives and forks so that they were neatly in line, and waited for Chris to come back.

 

 

 

Chris walked across the driveway to the back courtyard where the refuse bins were, the heavy trashbag swinging in his hands. Michelle was becoming needier by the day and, even though she had been right about taking the trash out, her controlling nature was beginning to get to him. He lifted the lid of the nearest bin and tossed the black bag inside. The smell of food beginning to rot came up at him and made him slightly nauseous.

He stood for a minute in the courtyard, mentally preparing himself for the meal with Michelle. He was about to walk back to the house when he noticed Rachel sitting on the laundry room steps with her face buried in her arms. The sight of her pain was like a blow to his heart. For a moment he considered going across to comfort her but he stopped himself. He was probably one of the last people Rachel would want to see her grief. His eyes welled up with emotion and he waited quietly for a couple of minutes more before moving quickly across the driveway and back into the house.

Michelle had just placed the chicken on the table when she heard Chris's footsteps. He must have come in from the front door. She closed the door to the garden, shooing Hugo back outside, then busied herself with rearranging the portions on the serving dish, separating dark meat from white. She didn't turn around when she heard her husband walk into the kitchen and go across to the sink, where he opened the cupboard beneath it to retrieve the roll of bin liners.

Chris ripped a fresh trashcan liner from the roll with one fierce motion of his hand and shook it out with sharp impatient slaps, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together against the thin plastic to find the opening. Then he put it in the trashcan and closed the lid.

‘Don't forget to
clean
the bin before you put in a new bag,' Michelle called out, her attention still on the table and arranging their meal.

There was silence from behind her. Then she heard the cupboard door opening again and slamming hard, followed by the distinctive hiss from the nozzle of the disinfectant spray. It was prolonged and aggressive, and she could have sworn she heard Chris kick the plastic bin.

‘What's wrong?' Michelle asked, finally turning round.

‘Nothing,' Chris replied.

Michelle watched him trying to find the elusive opening to the bin liner, his fingers slithering impatiently, and resisted the impulse to take it from his hands and do it herself. There was a knack to it that Chris had never mastered.

‘Don't tell me you're upset because I asked you to take out the trash?' she said. She picked a piece of cucumber out of the salad and brought it halfway to her lips. ‘Chris?'

‘I said it was nothing.'

‘It doesn't
look
like nothing,' she retorted. She popped the cucumber into her mouth, watching him.

Chris ignored the comment and continued to struggle with the black plastic bag, the elusive opening amplifying his frustration.

‘Just look for the edging and you'll find the opening,' Michelle called out, her suggestion answered by a slamming door and the sound of Chris storming out of the kitchen.

‘Where are you going?' Michelle called. She was genuinely confused.

‘To take a
shit
if you really need to know!' Chris shouted back.

The slamming of the bathroom door echoed through the house.

Michelle stood in the silent kitchen, trying to figure out what had just happened. She jumped when the timer on the oven went off to indicate that the garlic bread was ready. Almost in slow motion, she took an oven glove from the hook beside the stove and opened the oven door. The loaf was hot and it smelled delicious. She put it on the bread board and began to cut it part-way, wincing as the crust burned her hand. She carried the board to the table in the breakfast nook, placed it next to the salad, and pulled out a seat for Chris. After a few minutes she began to dish up. She helped herself to some salad, using the silver servers they'd got as a wedding present. She pulled off a piece of garlic bread and put it on her side plate. Then she selected a couple of pieces of roast chicken, taking the white meat and avoiding the dark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

chapter 14

The house was
pitch dark as Michelle made her way to the kitchen. It was just before sunrise. She groped through drawers, looking for the matches.

‘
Lief
?' she whispered across the room, where Chris was rubbing the sleep from his eyes. ‘Where did you put the matches?'

‘In the drawer by the sink,' Chris whispered back.

Michelle rummaged in the drawer and found what she was looking for. On the counter where she had put it the night before was a round pink cake with the number 5 written in white icing on top and five candles puncturing the surface. A quick look up at the LCD monitor which broadcast the feed from their security cameras told her that Rachel was walking down the path with Maia, the little girl still in her pyjamas.

‘They're coming!' Michelle called out in excitement. Quickly she lit the candles, the flames filling the kitchen with a warm light. ‘Do you have the present?'

‘
Ja
,
ja
,' Chris said. He held a large box in his hands, the shiny wrapping paper reflecting in the candlelight.

Michelle picked up the cake and together they walked through to the entrance hall where they waited for Rachel to reach the front door and let herself in. They readied themselves as they heard the sound of keys jingling, taking deep breaths and trying to suppress their grins.

‘SURPRISE!'

Michelle beamed as she watched Maia's eyes grow wider, her shock fast replaced by excitement as she realised what was happening. She looked up at her mother, who was also smiling broadly, and Rachel motioned for her to go inside. Maia shyly approached Michelle, who was bending down and holding the cake out to her.

Michelle started to sing the traditional birthday song and Chris and Rachel joined in. Chris ended the tune with shouts and whoops, and all three of them urged the little girl to blow out her candles. Maia took a deep breath and blew, extinguishing four of the five.

‘That means you have one boyfriend,' Chris teased. ‘Quickly – blow it out before it comes true.'

Maia took another deep breath and was about to blow when she realised that all of the candles were burning again. She looked up at Michelle, her face a picture of astonishment. Michelle laughed delightedly and clapped her hands. She had purchased trick candles, the ones that ‘magically' re-lighted themselves once they had been blown out, and she'd been hoping they would work as they were supposed to.

‘You'll have to try harder, else you'll have five boyfriends!' Michelle laughed, holding the cake closer to Maia.

Maia took one extra-deep breath and blew as hard as she could, extinguishing all five of the candles. They all watched the mischievous candles closely and, once they were sure they were out for good this time, Chris turned the house lights on and they all went through to the kitchen. Michelle put the cake on the counter and picked up Maia's gift.

Maia was still trying to take everything in. So far she hadn't been able to say a word.

‘This is from your mommy and from us,' Michelle said, urging the little girl to take the box. Maia took it from her shyly. Cautiously, she pulled at the wrapping paper, clearly not at all sure how to handle the present she had been given. Michelle shook her head and knelt down beside her. She held the box steady so that Maia could open it properly.

‘You've got to rip it, Maia,' Michelle instructed and she pulled on one corner of the paper so that Maia could see what she meant.

Maia looked up at her mother to see if she was really allowed to do that and, after Rachel nodded her approval, she grabbed hold of the paper and tore through it, the air filled with the sound of the wrapping paper's rapid demise. While Michelle kept hold of the box, Maia took the lid off. Inside was a sparkly blue and green dress with a satiny bodice.

‘It's a
princess
dress!' Maia exclaimed. She lifted it out the box and held it against her body, enchanted. The soft cloth floated around her as she tried to get a better look at it.

Michelle smiled at Chris, who was looking almost as thrilled as Maia was. Then she glanced over at Rachel. Rachel, too, had a smile on her face but for some reason her eyes looked sad. I'm probably reading something into the situation that isn't there, Michelle thought, and she returned her attention to Maia, who was now trying to put the princess dress on over her pyjamas.