Blame by Nicole Trope

Author:Nicole Trope
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2016-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

‘I’m sorry I keep going on about this,’ says Anna.

‘It’s okay,’ says Cynthia. ‘Take your time.’

Walt sits up straight and looks at his watch. ‘It’s getting late, Anna, and I can see that you’re tired. I think we need to get to the day of the accident, so we can work through what happened.’

‘I don’t really want to—’ says Anna.

‘Anna,’ says Walt, interrupting her, ‘can you tell us why Maya was upset on the day of the accident?’ He meets her gaze and Anna feels trapped.

‘I didn’t say she was upset,’ she says, looking away. She feels a chill run through her. She hadn’t said that, had she? She’s been so careful.

‘Yes, you did,’ says Cynthia gently. ‘Remember you said that you knew she liked to run when she was upset but you still left the front door open.’

‘Would you like to see it on the tape?’ says Walt, but Anna shakes her head. She doesn’t know why she has let this slip, doesn’t know how she is going to explain away the words.

‘She was always upset,’ she says, ‘over one thing or another. She liked routine, but not just ordinary routine, strict routine. She preferred to eat the same thing every day, and wear the same thing, and do the same thing. Every morning, she woke up and had to have her toast cut into perfect triangles with the butter spread to the edges. She didn’t like eating solid food but I’d managed to get her to eat toast for breakfast. If I didn’t cut the triangles correctly, she wouldn’t eat it.’

‘Is that what happened on the day of the accident?’ asks Walt.

‘What?’ says Anna. ‘Oh no, no; I made the toast perfectly that morning. It was Saturday, so she didn’t go to school, which meant I had to be really careful to stick to the Saturday routine, and I did, I did stick to it, but in the afternoon, she . . . she was tired or something and she just . . . got angry with me.’

Anna leans forward and rests her head in her hands. She knows what she did to upset Maya. She had been raising an autistic child for nearly twelve years and knew exactly what she had done to set Maya off.

Breakfast had been easy, and then she had switched on the television and Maya had watched the DVD about space. It was the same one she had been watching for ten years. When she was three, Keith had bought twenty copies of the same DVD. They were down to two, but he was going to get a friend of his to burn many many more. As she cleaned up the kitchen, Anna had watched her child. Maya’s whole body was relaxed, a smile playing on her lips. She could actually see her breathing slow, as though she were meditating, which, Anna supposed, was exactly what she was doing.

Anna had wiped her cloth across the kettle and then stared at the face reflected back at her.

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