Gordian Heart

Life was an awakening. He knew that now. And once he was awake, there was no return to blissful ignorance. The glass bridge to the fantasy he’d dwelt in had shattered along with his heart. He wished he could take it back, but there was only the now and the forward movement in the river of life.

The past month had been experienced in a daze. Somehow he retained the pretence of what once was. Seeing everything anew was dizzying. His insides thrummed and shook. He’d gaze upon his hand and wonder at how the maelstrom within him wasn’t visible to the outside world. But then nothing was seen beyond these walls. It was a beautiful and deadly trap.

He sifted through the past to find answers that wilfully evaded him. The idyl of a happy blended family had been tested to its very core when he discovered Beth’s biological father had been hurting her. The why of it would never be answered. All that mattered was Beth, and doing everything possible to ensure she knew she was loved and she was safe.

Beth had opened up to him when he sensed the growing anger she so struggled with. After the initial awkwardness of their new family situation, she’d warmed to him and enjoyed his company. Talked to him. Asked him the questions a kid needs answers to. He sometimes had to resort to a sneaky Google search, wanting to provide her with the input she needed. Listening to her and learning as much as she did as they chatted about the world around them.

Jonny loved his new older sister from the off. For both children the gift of the other freed them from the loneliness of being an only child. There were the occasional squabbles that punctuate childhood. Nothing more than a hiccup in the midst of joy and happiness.

Whenever he collected Jonny, the boy would light up when he saw his Daddy. As they set off back home he’d enquire as to whether Beth would be there. Looking back on that, he experienced another rip of his inner fabric. That had been their thing. Him smiling at his diminished role as taxi driver for Jonny and Beth’s weekend playdates. Jonny always asked, even though he knew Beth would be there. Securing the basis for his weekend became a habit. Father and son enjoying the prospect of what was to come. Back then, they both thought Beth would always be there. That was the way of things. That was their life.

Everything changed when Beth started to open up to him about how things were in her other home. They had to go no contact and Beth’s biological father let her go without the blink of an eye. Soon it would become clear that he was very broken and always had been. He’d been deconstructed by his own parents. A dark gift cascading down from generation to generation.

Although hurt, Beth remained Beth. She kept going. She kept talking. That was what counted. That was what mattered. Beth being OK. Finding help was a Herculean task. There were few resources available and those that were stretched wafer thin. He believed in the resilience of children back then. Still did. Had to believe in the best of people in order to survive the darkest of times.

He devoted all that he had and all that he was to help and support Beth’s healing. Those were difficult times. He’d hoped that they would see those out and better days were ahead. The legend being that better days were always ahead. Those days had eluded them and eventually he discovered why.

Beth became his everything back then. She was injured and she needed his help. The intensity of her hurt and the help required was severely isolating. The people around them receded. Bad mental health was dirty and highly infectious. Even talking about it could spread the disease that ravaged minds and smothered souls.

In the midst of that chaos, Dawn seemed to fade away. She was there, but she was nowhere to be seen. When he reached out to her she moved further away. Always there was a distance between them. A distance that was only ever breached when she lashed out at him. He thought it was the shock of what had happened to her, so he kept the faith. He didn’t see the way she transformed for others for what it was. He’d experienced that behaviour before and normalised it. The happy smile and cheerful words were to him a clown mask to show the outside world everything was fine. An act to protect the privacy and sanctity of the home.

The spell was broken as a line of domino truths toppled.

“You know Dawn’s making Beth worse?” the school welfare officer had asked him in to provide an update on Beth. He’d been intrigued, as he’d come to realise that as a step-father he didn’t count to any of the organisations now involved in supporting Beth. He was tolerated at best. Only biological parents held any currency. He sometimes found himself thinking of the words that were trotted out when these very organisations let down a vulnerable child yet again; lessons have been learned. He could see the results of those lessons. Stilted and brutal processes and procedures. Box ticking exercises to cover arses. The humanity of looking after a hurt child had been stripped away. Again he saw the false smiles and the words imbued with performed cheer. In this case, he saw them for what they really were. Falsehoods to hide unpalatable truths.

He'd looked at the school welfare officer in something like shock. He guessed he’d looked idiotic. Vicky Turner was a good person doing a difficult job. He’d warmed to her from the start. Now she was dredging up a truth and thrusting it upon him. Now the words were there to be seen, he knew she was right. He didn’t know what to do with this truth and before he found it within him to speak he knew Vicky didn’t have the answers either. Not the answers either of them would want. There was nothing workable here. Hadn’t been even before this key jigsaw piece had been slotted into place. The prognosis was grim and he felt another part of him buckle in the fires of a damnation he couldn’t comprehend.

He'd nodded and said earnestly, “what do I do?”

Vicky had reached out and taken his hand. It was all he could do not to burst into tears. He knew that if he had, he would never stop. The wall of the dam was crumbling. If it ever broke, he would be lost for a very long time. Never the same again. He couldn’t afford for that to happen. People needed him. Beth needed him. Jonny needed him. Damn it, he needed him. He had to recognise the tired, grey man in the mirror and retain the hope that one day he’d be colourful once again.

They’d shared a moment of silent communion. An intense connection that would soon cease, leaving behind something like hope. Vicky sighed, “I don’t think there is anything you can do.”

He’d felt so much in her words. Knew that she shouldn’t be holding a parent’s hand. Had probably breached several rules in inviting him to the school, “you’ve seen this before haven’t you?”

Now it was her turn to nod, “it doesn’t play out well I’m afraid.” When she sighed this time her whole body shuddered and he realised she was also holding her own dam. Holding back a catastrophic collapse. “I thought you needed to know what you’re dealing with. All too easy to be distracted by the immediate crisis and not see what lies behind it.”

“Thank you,” he’d said it quietly, squeezing her hand so she knew he meant it.

As they parted, he smiled, “you’ve done the right thing.” He needed her to know that, and he’d needed to say it for his own sake too. It was always about doing the right thing. If people ceased at least trying to do the right thing then the world would fall into darkness. That was what it all came down to. Stand up and be counted or cower in the dark as it all turned to shit.

As he drove away from the school he realised he’d no destination in mind. Ended up outside a café with some notion of ordering a cup of tea that was likely to fall prey to the cold as he neglected it. He remained in his car. Attempted to do something about the numbness he was experiencing. Vicky had used the word play. This word was already unfurling within him and he would see Dawn anew as it grew in power. The way she was playing with them all, especially him. An Oscar winning act to hide the dark truth of her.

Quietly watching Dawn after that was a torture in itself, even before he considered his options. All that once was, had disintegrated before his eyes. It’d likely never been there in the first place. There was no way of knowing if any of it had been real. Whether he’d once mattered to Dawn.

In a way, he supposed he’d mattered. As a means to an end. This hurt all the more as he watched Dawn with Beth. The child she’d brought into the world didn’t matter to her. She’d never had an interest in being a mother and never would. The worst of it was that she knew what she was doing. She knew she was using the people around her and she didn’t care about the consequences.

He'd thought Beth’s woes were all down to her cruel, callous father. That in her loving home she would heal and lead a good, fulfilled, sometimes happy life. Beth was a bright and loving girl, but already he could see her light dimming. Her own mother was thwarting her recovery and dragging her further downwards. Turning Beth inwards and against herself. Compelling her to be just like her father. Just like her mother.

The apple wouldn’t fall from the tree. The legacy of pain binding them forever. He thought he’d saved Beth. Knew that he had. But here was yet another dangerous trap of which he was a part. He questioned this. The willingness with which he’d entered Dawn and Beth’s life. A life that was a dark fiction. And he’d brought Jonny along for the ride. Exposed his poor, innocent boy to a cruel and damaging pathology. The weight of his guilt made it difficult to think. But think he must. He couldn’t afford to become a passive statue when he was the only one that could do anything about what was occurring before his very eyes.

What could he do?

No one would believe him. Not family or friends. And Beth’s support services had frozen him out. A bit part player made redundant by the machinery of their processes and procedures. He tried though. Trying was all he’d left to him. Throwing everything he had at the growing problem with the hope something might stick. Acutely aware that he was sitting on a ticking time bomb. And time was the one thing Beth didn’t have. Neither did he. The toll of the situation was tipping him towards an edge he would fall grievously from. He was barely surviving now.

He couldn’t look at Dawn any longer. She was the architect of her own daughter’s demise and Beth didn’t stand a chance. There was nothing he could do for Beth as long as Dawn was undoing all his efforts and perpetuating what she and Beth’s father had set in motion before Beth was even born. This was always how it was going to pan out for Beth. Dawn’s need for control shaping Beth into a facsimile of herself and her father. A twisted notion of revenge coiling down throughout the ages. A punishment for the sins of the fathers. Paying darkness forward. Sacrificing everything in the ultimate act of blame. The worst of betrayals repeated over and over.

For a month he watched it play out. Knowing the truth of it. Wishing it wasn’t so. Willing it to be different. Praying for a way to make it all right. Hoping against the absence of all hope. And as he prayed he also considered his options. Going through those options again and again in case another one presented itself. Fighting for the win when all he saw was loss.

Then there was Jonny. He’d made himself a promise. That he’d be the best father he could and give Jonny a good childhood. That meant protecting Jonny. Being the bubble within which Jonny grew up and became all he needed in order to face the world and live his life well. Now, seeing the effect Dawn was having upon them all, his heart broke over and over again. He’d gotten this so wrong and he finally knew he couldn’t go on like this. For his son’s sake. For his own sake. Damage limitation. The damage already done was beyond anything he could comprehend. That it was continuing sickened him. The ultimate betrayal. A mother destroying her own daughter from the outset.

Acknowledging that Dawn had always known, crushed him. She’d known what her ex-husband was capable of. What he was doing. Saw how her daughter was changing and why that change was occurring. And yet she’d waved her off again and again. Sent her to her torturer’s dungeon with that smile and those cheery words. All was fine. Beth learning that it really wasn’t fine. Not with her father and certainly not with her mother. Beth knew her mother knew too. All the way down to the marrow of her bones. Children understood far more than the adults around them.

Knowing that he must act, he considered his options. The first was what he was currently doing. To stay and to know that he’d chosen to do nothing. That all his best efforts were for naught. To stay and witness Beth go through the most terrible of deaths. To look on as she was lost to him, to his son and to the world, never to love again.

The next was to flee. To walk away and abandon Beth. To leave her to her dark fate. This he knew he couldn’t do. He would never be able to look himself in the mirror, and Jonny was his mirror. The guilt and recriminations would eat away at him and further diminish him. Dawn would win her game as he was ultimately destroyed and his son was broken in the process.

The only sensible option was to take Beth from the situation that was killing her. Ideally he would find a way to remove Dawn, but that wasn’t going to happen. No one would listen to him, let alone believe what Dawn really was and that she was intent on hurting people in the most insidious of ways. That she was aligned with what her ex had done to Beth, validating it, perpetuating it, living it.

He searched for locations where they could flee in order to save Beth. Countries that wouldn’t easily allow his arrest and return to his home country, a country so broken it allowed so many children to suffer in silence.

As he made his plans, he tried not to think of the consequences of his actions. All that mattered was that Beth was safe. That she’d get to live the life meant for her. Was that too much to ask? Try as he might, he couldn’t ignore the effect his disappearance would have on Jonny in particular. For all the hurt he would save Beth from, he would inflict hurt on Jonny and everyone else he cared about. None of them would understand and he wouldn’t be there to explain his side of the story. Dawn would have another stage upon which she could act and gain all the attention she so hungrily craved. Not until Beth was old enough could they return and perhaps then Beth’s truth would undo some of the damage he’d had to cause in order to free her from the secret brutality of her cruel mother.

He laughed mirthlessly as he imagined the news headlines; Stepdad Abducts Underage Stepdaughter. Dawn would play the distraught mother and thrive on the attention of her feigned victimhood. He would become a pariah, never coming back from the fallout caused by what he’d been compelled to do. And yet that was the best course of action. Better than leaving Beth to a fate worse than death.

The damnation he faced tortured him. Dawn was a master at creating loss. He had no way out, even if he left her. This was a carefully constructed living hell. As the doomsday clock ticked deafeningly and his desperation cut him a thousand times, he at last saw a way for them all to survive the sausage machine they were being ground down by. He spied a whisper of light and he embraced it eagerly.

Necessity being the mother of all invention, he found the planning of the deed was far easier than expected. The execution more so. They drove to a quiet spot. They had the talk he’d told Dawn they needed as they walked in rain that gently caressed him and urged him on. At last he could tell her that he knew. No longer did he fear unmasking her. The cruel twist of her real face a vindication. The look of shock and surprise as he pushed her away caused no doubt in him as she stepped out into a nothingness that welcomed its sister eagerly.

After it was done, he stood watching the rain fall for an age. Washing away the dread he’d lived with for far too long.