Living Light- promises (2)

I can hear voices, a cold brush of air like breath ebbing along the bed sheets. I want to reach out, to stroke his cheek or hold my children’s tired bodies until they decide to stir. But I can’t do any of these, the impact of the sleeping pill fixes my limbs to the mattress. The wind is scattering their speech across my room. Fragmented dialogues bounce from the walls, the harshness of each sound hurts, the happiness of my children’s high pitched squeals taps into my consciousness. Beneath my eyelids colours fluctuate, I do not want to view the grey darkness of my bedroom, the echoic ramblings are speeding up or slowing down. My mind is starting to panic, trying to break away.

The sound of breaking glass finally wakes me, one of the neighbours children, Sahil has a collection of bottled ships. He has brought them round before tilting their gleaming turquoise-grey sail before Nicholas, who catches the rainbow reflections with his fingertips. Since that moment, he has developed a love for water and spent his sixth birthday helping me compile a model of the Titanic. I can’t help worrying that this obsession reveals the fragile balance between sinking and surviving. I think for now, he needs his ship and the thrill of adventure more than anything. I can imagine Sahil’s eyes filling with water and Susan drying his face, trying to explain to a five year old that things don’t always last, suggesting finding some glue, but the enchantment is lost, slowly leaking out into a clear wound.

I gently lift Nicholas’s ships sitting along his bedroom windowsill, like three twinkling sunsets, run the duster below them. I pick them up, carefully and attentively clean one after the other. I look down at their wooden stability, my hands are shaky and I am trying to balance the bireme ship which is catching shards of sunlight against its body. But the wild catatonic effects of the medication make the task scarily impossible, the face of the bireme smashes head first into the wooden floor. Suddenly my heart shatters. I jolt awake, the realisation is awful I drag my body from the ground, I can hear Nicholas and Annie playing in the hallway. I promised Johnny that I’d never take more than I needed, that the kid’s weren’t at risk. That I could control myself and I want to ring him and tell him that I’m sorry but I know he’ll come home. Cup me in his arms and tell me that it’s ok, that this is a one off and I desperately want to believe that. But I am shaky and guilty and don’t know which I want to avoid more my husband’s broken heart or my sons.

I struggle onto my feet and try to shake off the numbness from my throat, I want to call them in and hold them. But I’m not able the silence is consuming my breath, then I hear Annie’s voice calling me and Nicholas crying quietly. I stumble into his bedroom and watch him trying to piece the ship back into shape, crouch beside him, try to steady my body with my knees. His breath is staggered and his tears are forming a pool of silvery-blue around the ship. I hold him against me and stroke his hair, I have no more words and no promises left. I reach out for Annie who is playing with her auburn hair and looking weary, she folds herself into my lap and I hold them both close. The only sound left is our heartbeats.