Cath Staincliffe - The Kindest Thing

I look across the courtroom at Adam again and try the smile. A little better, perhaps, though Ms Gleason frowns. I am to be the grieving widow for the duration of my trial, a hollow shell of a woman. They have warned me against sly remarks or clever answers. I must show some humility. It’s not me, at all.

My brother Martin is not here. I didn’t know whether he would come or not. We’ve grown apart – not that we were ever that close. There was a flurry of contact when Mum was sick. Adam was only a month old when she first saw her doctor about her weight loss. She was dead before he was three. He was a wonderful baby but he never slept and he couldn’t bear to be alone. He’d be up at five every day and happy as Larry if he was carried everywhere. It was exhausting. We had a baby sling, and for the first year we lugged him about in it constantly. I remember hoovering with him strapped to my back. Then we bought a back-pack with a frame. Those years were a blur of broken nights and driving back and forth to my mum’s, Martin and I conferring over who would do the next hospital visit.

Neil and I were both shattered, ill-tempered with each other, bickering about the chores – all the new ones that came with parenthood. I didn’t cut him any slack; he would do everything bar breastfeeding or die trying. I knew other couples where the advent of a baby seemed instantly to dissolve any intentions of domestic parity, to rob them of political intelligence and plunge them back into the stereotypical gender divisions of the fifties. The man was working harder than ever, all the overtime going, quickly losing faith in his skills as a parent; the woman did all the housework, the shopping, cooking, cleaning, the baby. She was up night after night, simmering with resentment and careful not to disturb him because he was tired and he had to go to work the next day. As if child care wasn’t twice as demanding.

No, Neil and I worked at it. Some days I’d wait at the front door for him coming in from school, ready to thrust Adam into his arms so I could set off to see my mum – or even so I could just get out into the garden and have ten minutes’ peace. I went back to work part time after six months and we took turns dropping Adam at the child-minder. It was shaky for a while, the parent thing, but we made it work. Not rocket science, just a little social engineering. Oh, I know I can be a smug bitch but, hell, I didn’t drop my beliefs when I dropped the placenta. I’m proud of what we did. I’m proud that Sophie and Adam can look at us and know we were both fully involved in their care, their schooling; we both wiped and fed, changed and scolded. We both did the fun stuff too, and there was plenty of that: Play Doh and puddle-jumping, castles made of cardboard, bedtime stories. Huge pleasure. Having children gave me glimpses of my father, rare flashbacks to his whistling, letting me sip the whisky from his glass (it smelt like wee and tasted horrible), him playing the piano in a honky-tonk style and me plonking the black notes, him watching me master my pogo-stick one Christmas morning.

Sophie was born in the shadow of my mother’s death and the clamour of Adam’s toddlerhood. Either she was born self-contained or she immediately adopted that as a strategy in the face of the competition. As long as she was fed and her nappy was clean, she would watch everything around her with steady interest.

There were times when I felt ripples of guilt that she got so little attention and I would engineer it so Neil could take Adam off somewhere, leaving Sophie and me to ourselves. I would lie down on the floor with her and sing and play. She’d give a gummy smile and gurgle or make little shrieks as she flailed her fists about, but I got the sense that she was just playing along. That it didn’t matter to her whether I was giving her my undivided attention or not. That she’d have been exactly the same with a babysitter or Grandma Veronica.

When I tried to explain this to Neil, he gave me an indulgent smile. ‘She’s a baby! She’s just a different character from Adam, thank God. You’re used to him, the way he has us running round in circles. She’s the second child.’

‘Like me. But they’re usually more difficult. What if she turns out to be some wilting feeble, Barbie doll, all inept and fluffy?’ I speculated.

‘By way of rebellion, you mean? I think that’s pretty unlikely,’ Neil said.

And he was right. She’s a little solemn but she’s bright and articulate and ferociously independent. As soon as she could dress herself she chose her own clothes. As a four-year-old on holiday she always picked a seat away from us on the coach or bus, quite happy savouring the view.

She made friends at playgroup and nursery but not with the passionate attachment that Adam brought to his alliances. She did well academically and was reading by the time she reached Reception. She seemed to soak it all up effortlessly, while Adam became mute and mutinous if we tried to get him near a book. We had countless meetings with his teachers about his lack of progress.

My girl thrived and I was buoyed by her success and always felt the lifting of my heart, that lightening sensation, when I clapped eyes on her, but I knew she loved her father more than me. Or perhaps her love for him was less complicated. I understand. I made the same differentiation in my feelings for my own parents. My love for my father was visceral, unsullied, simple, direct. But the emotions my mother called up in me were contrary, critical, double-edged. I hated her at times but never my father. Did Sophie learn these patterns from me, or discover them for herself? If Adam had been any different would it have changed the dynamics? Sophie thinks I love Adam best. I don’t. I just love him differently. Is it because he’s a boy? Or because he’s Adam?

None of that differentiation was going to happen when I had children. Boy or girl, they would be treated equally. No gender-based toys or colour-coded outfits, no breastfeeding a boy for longer or over-protecting a girl when she headed for the climbing frame. Any girls I had would be tomboys like me, any boys sensitive and caring. Of course, there’s another side to the equation that I hadn’t factored in – Adam and Sophie as individuals with personalities and predilections fully formed.

I miss them so. And how much harder must it be for them? Losing Neil and then, before they can get their breath back, I’m gone too. Locked up. It was never meant to be like this. I rage at Neil, floating around in the bloody ether. Well out of it. You’re off in your Elysian Fields, mate, but look at us. See where we are? You sacrificed us all. You sorry now?

It was just before Easter 2007 that Neil first complained of stiffness in his hands and arms. I wasn’t very sympathetic. It’s the sort of reaction I get myself if I’ve been doing something that involves a lot of manual work: cutting tiles or screen-printing, repetitive movement that strains the muscles. I said as much but he replied he hadn’t been doing any physical jerks. Try paracetamol, I told him.

He didn’t go to the doctor until the summer. The GP gave him a course of anti-inflammatory drugs and asked him to come back afterwards. They didn’t help.

After his next appointment, when he came home, I could see straight away that something was wrong. His face was sallow and he’d an artless, vulnerable look in his eyes. Sophie was in the kitchen, sorting out ingredients for her food-technology class – pineapple upside-down cake.

I sent a warning glance to Neil, not that he needed telling, and walked after him into the lounge.

We sat down. He looked at me, gave a little ‘huff and swallowed. ‘They want to do tests.’

My guts clenched. I assumed he was talking about cancer.