and experts poured to invade the Clement family home and inspect their kitchen drawers, their private lives and health and hearts at any time night or day, and all in the pretext of doing good and helping them.
Scott often had guilty and troubling thoughts about Aaron. He often tried to remember the time before Aaron was born, those precious years of his life when there was only Scott and his mother and father in the little house out on the edge of the woods. He tried but could not remember anything, there was no sense of how peaceful that might have been, how glorious to be the focus of his parentsâ affection and labour.
Worryingly he did remember something from a time just after Aaron was born, but it was so unnerving that by now â through that process of remembering and remembering â he often dismissed it as a bad dream or perhaps a nasty childish fantasy. And when he recalled it, it came to him like a picture on a flash card, or one of those scenes in a film which are barely on the screen long enough for you to properly absorb them. It was horrible and whenever it came to his mind (usually at moments of stress or anger) he had to fight to escape it, to distract himself any way he could.
And hereâs what it was. A crib in a darkened room. His parentsâ bedroom, but strangely they arenât there. He has no idea where his parents are. In the crib he sees Aaron, snivelling in his sleep and beginning to whimper. And there is this bad smell. A really bad smell of shit, pungent and stale and slightly cheesy. And in Scottâs hands is a pillow â the pillow from his own bed which has repeat motifs of the Lone Ranger astride his rearing - stallion. These specific details are the worst part of it because they make him think that itâs real, that it actually happened and is no dream at all. Scott lifts the pillow in two hands and carefully, deliberately he pushes it down onto Aaronâs sleeping face.
And thatâs all he remembers. Just that. He doesnât remember how long he held the pillow in place, nor thankfully can he recall the tiny body of his brother squirming, fighting, gasping for air.
What happens to babies deprived of oxygen? Scott knows the answer. Was Aaron born damaged? Or did something happen to him? The different doctors Scott and Aaronâs parents consulted said it was a chromosome thing, a genetic problem, or possibly something caused during the course of the pregnancy â a virus, a particular sort of food poisoning. But Scottâs mother always says that unlike Scott who was difficult and colicky, Aaron was a perfect, blissful, good baby.
Of course, their mother wants to believe that Aaron was once fine, because that suggests heâll be fine again; heâll just wake up one morning and start talking about college and girls and football.
Maybe it wasnât such a terrible thing for his mother to believe that. It gave her hope, and hope can wake one up in the morning, it can set the coffee percolating, put a smile on oneâs face, it can send one scurrying off to the mall, make one joyfully sign the credit card receipt for hundreds of dollars. Hope could sit beside you on the bus as you made your way home; it listened and looked on admiringly as you displayed the Nike trainers you just bought for your youngest son, the orange Puffa jacket with the embroidered logo on the chest â the one that marks it out as the genuine article, not some cheap rip - off copy. Hope can even make you believe that your older son has only ever felt love for his younger more helpless brother.
Who would take that away from her?
The Golden Girl
Peroxide burns. Lucy had a sudden and visceral awareness of the chemical actuality of the process. She should have known. Cursed herself as she sat in the kitchen with the evil - smelling stuff on her head. It itched and stung and turned her (now she thought about it) beautiful dark brown hair a yellowy orange colour.
And
Scott often had guilty and troubling thoughts about Aaron. He often tried to remember the time before Aaron was born, those precious years of his life when there was only Scott and his mother and father in the little house out on the edge of the woods. He tried but could not remember anything, there was no sense of how peaceful that might have been, how glorious to be the focus of his parentsâ affection and labour.
Worryingly he did remember something from a time just after Aaron was born, but it was so unnerving that by now â through that process of remembering and remembering â he often dismissed it as a bad dream or perhaps a nasty childish fantasy. And when he recalled it, it came to him like a picture on a flash card, or one of those scenes in a film which are barely on the screen long enough for you to properly absorb them. It was horrible and whenever it came to his mind (usually at moments of stress or anger) he had to fight to escape it, to distract himself any way he could.
And hereâs what it was. A crib in a darkened room. His parentsâ bedroom, but strangely they arenât there. He has no idea where his parents are. In the crib he sees Aaron, snivelling in his sleep and beginning to whimper. And there is this bad smell. A really bad smell of shit, pungent and stale and slightly cheesy. And in Scottâs hands is a pillow â the pillow from his own bed which has repeat motifs of the Lone Ranger astride his rearing - stallion. These specific details are the worst part of it because they make him think that itâs real, that it actually happened and is no dream at all. Scott lifts the pillow in two hands and carefully, deliberately he pushes it down onto Aaronâs sleeping face.
And thatâs all he remembers. Just that. He doesnât remember how long he held the pillow in place, nor thankfully can he recall the tiny body of his brother squirming, fighting, gasping for air.
What happens to babies deprived of oxygen? Scott knows the answer. Was Aaron born damaged? Or did something happen to him? The different doctors Scott and Aaronâs parents consulted said it was a chromosome thing, a genetic problem, or possibly something caused during the course of the pregnancy â a virus, a particular sort of food poisoning. But Scottâs mother always says that unlike Scott who was difficult and colicky, Aaron was a perfect, blissful, good baby.
Of course, their mother wants to believe that Aaron was once fine, because that suggests heâll be fine again; heâll just wake up one morning and start talking about college and girls and football.
Maybe it wasnât such a terrible thing for his mother to believe that. It gave her hope, and hope can wake one up in the morning, it can set the coffee percolating, put a smile on oneâs face, it can send one scurrying off to the mall, make one joyfully sign the credit card receipt for hundreds of dollars. Hope could sit beside you on the bus as you made your way home; it listened and looked on admiringly as you displayed the Nike trainers you just bought for your youngest son, the orange Puffa jacket with the embroidered logo on the chest â the one that marks it out as the genuine article, not some cheap rip - off copy. Hope can even make you believe that your older son has only ever felt love for his younger more helpless brother.
Who would take that away from her?
The Golden Girl
Peroxide burns. Lucy had a sudden and visceral awareness of the chemical actuality of the process. She should have known. Cursed herself as she sat in the kitchen with the evil - smelling stuff on her head. It itched and stung and turned her (now she thought about it) beautiful dark brown hair a yellowy orange colour.
And
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