The Shallows

by Holly Craig

The fact is, even after ten years, I don’t know my husband. But do we ever really know anyone?

My neighbour is dead, I’m complicit, and I don’t know where my husband is taking us. So I hold my children a little too tightly, as the waves harass the hull, as the sea smacks the boat.

You have to watch out when someone tells you they’re happy in their marriage. Anyone who calls their husband lovely is lying. You have to watch out for the ‘nevers’ and the ‘always’ people spill from their mouths. They’re wanting to prove something to you, to themselves.

But just like any perfect person who you admire from afar, you can’t invite them into your own house, otherwise they’ll notice the imperfections and the fragilities of your own life. We can’t have people comparing. It’s best to shut them out until you find a crack, a tiny fault in them that levels out the playing field. Then the invitation gets sent out. The olives are poured into ceramic bowls and champagne into flutes. We’re equal, we’re no better than each other. Now we can be friends.

The sun is almost too lazy to show up this morning and I’m guessing most of Sydney relishes it. The lie-in, the snug cosiness under the covers, the darkness.

Once he wakes, the noise of him readying himself for work will rouse Kiki and Coop. And then the day will begin. That’s why I need to allow myself these short fourteen minutes of silence before the day starts. It’s what every mother needs.

I want to know her faults, her issues, her insecurities. Something about knowing hers makes my own seem less frightening.

A recently single wife sets off a chain of subconscious, unquestioned thoughts. Am I happy? Are we happy? We’re happy, aren’t we? We fuck once a month and that’s considered ‘normal’ right? I mean, who defines ‘normal’ anyway? The newspapers? Sex and the City? Normal means what’s right for us. I gave him a blowjob for his birthday, and surely that’s all that’s expected, right? After all, we have kids. And we’re married. Everyone knows that sex lessens after saying our vows and popping one out. He knows that too, doesn’t he? Although he hasn’t looked at me like I’m sexual lately. The look he gives me is the same look he gives his mother on Sunday roast night. Does he see me as someone who just cooks his dinner? No, we’re happy. Aren’t we? Those thoughts set off a conscious chain of female bullying and fables. She’s a slut. No, I heard he was really prudish. I heard she always fantasised about his best friend. Whatever, she’s a slut. She left her husband for another man when her son was only two. And he’s rich, comes from old money and his mother fucking hates her. So, she’s a gold digger. She’s a slut and a gold digger and we need to keep her away from our husbands. Why would our men want her anyway? We’re happy. But she’s a maneater. She’ll come for my hubby next.

When those women who flee the marital nest come across hardships, it’s karma, apparently. They should have stayed with their ex-husband, and simply put up with the marriage. If they meet another partner, they’re neglectful and too interested in sex.

I see it, I shy away from it. That’s why I’ve put up with my marriage. That’s why most people do.

Still, even if we loved each other dearly, can you really ever know a person fully?

But the kids were there, and that’s all that mattered. The kids were the salve for me, the nourishing balm over a neglected soul.

Everything has to be perfect to welcome the imperfections in people.

I’d tried the rich pompous types before Charles came along. And his pompous name never did quite match his personality. He would be much more suited as a Gus, or a Brett. Charles seems too regal, too snobbish.

I don’t see him as handsome. I see him as a stranger who visits the house every now and then to eat dinner and fall asleep earlier than me. He’s not my husband anymore. He’s the ‘should man’. The man society says I ‘should’ have; ‘should make happy’ and ‘shouldn’t’ divorce, no matter how unhappy I am.

People only see success by who they know and associate with. Where they work and live. What car they drive. They never see the woman crying in the shower, the drinking to get drunk, the bingeing after starving, the relentless running to burn off the pent-up anger.

I do the parenting while he lives a life of solitude in a house we begrudgingly share.

It’s been this way since Cooper was born. No touching, no goodnights, no eye contact. It’s been this way since I had a son Charles has to compete with.

Trust is the treasure breeding safety, communication, intimacy, friendship. Lose the trust, and the partner strays.

She’ll see me laughing, her mother smiling and that’s all kids ever want to see.

Though with Jack, I see nothing but my own reflection staring back. There is no one before now. I am now and I am all that exists in him.

Happiness when you’re unhappy is easy to find in thick bedsheets, chocolate cake, privacy and time. Now, this is the only place where I smile.

In the rear-view mirror both my children are staring at me, hoping that I’ll have the answers. This responsibility of ‘mother’ sometimes feels too overwhelming.

A trickle of booze dribbles down his chin and I’m staring at the staircase, willing Kiki and Cooper to stay upstairs, away from their disaster of a father. If they see this, it’ll stay etched in their minds forever. Their father high on drugs and stressed like I’ve never seen him. Rave music matching his mood. Their mother scared out of her wits and trying to appease a useless drunk.

Still, even after meeting hundreds of clients a year, I’ve never encountered this – someone so wary, secretive, able to adapt and adjust their personality to fit the room. She can switch from alone and sobbing to joyous and bubbly in a blink of an eye.

It’s that tone. That forced, there’s nothing wrong with me tone, that’s starting to bother me. It’s the type of tone I hear in women who are abused or controlled and pretending to be content.

We won’t have moments like this for much longer. Our sex is a connection that ties us together like the leash of a straying dog. Life will soon get in the way and that connection will unclip, distancing us further into an unknown future. These moments are precious and need to be handled carefully. One slip and this bond can break into silent shards of grief that can’t be addressed or spoken of.

I don’t know why I feel like arguing with him, provoking a fight. My mind feels muddled and agitated, jumping and jerking, wanting to cling to security.

Self-reflection, self-analysis, self-enquiry, self-investigation. If you can do this often, then you have a higher emotional intelligence, you’re not afraid to pick at your scabs and gaze at the blood beneath them.

I think that’s why I care, I think that’s why I was listening, why I wait for her notes. Because if she can’t look beneath her scabs, then she needs someone stronger who can.

They’re just not grandparent parents. In fact, they’re not even parent parents. Half of the reason why I studied psychology, wellness and spirituality was because of the neglect I’d suffered at the hands of two extremely self-absorbed adults. I’d been raised by nannies, housekeepers and given everything I’d ever wanted. I blame them for everything I am.

I’ve never trusted friendships and I blame my mother. She taught me they’re not to be trusted, in fact, nothing and no one is.

You can’t go back to sleep but life just seems too hard to stay awake.

Such a vacant husband, I never saw the drug-taking before, never saw this side to him. I was blind because I wanted to be. How many women are?

I don’t know him and in fact, I can’t remember when we stopped knowing and started avoiding each other.

I’m so relieved they’ve seen and heard nothing that’ll damage their souls later on in life. I plan to keep it that way until I find a way out of this infernal mess.

And last and first nights can never be relived.

‘It’s okay.’ Two words. How often do I repeat them? Do they make me feel better? Do they work? Do they remind Charles to treat us okay? I’m saying it all the time and yet it doesn’t stop

Doctors all over have studied the effects of stress on unborn babies, especially survivors of trauma, whose stress and pain ripples through their lineage like a rotten spreading illness. I have to remain level-headed, even if these past days have been a living nightmare of ill-equipped events.

My throat clenches tight and I remind myself to breathe. Breath is the only thing needed to placate the body.

Being calm is having power. Being calm means making rational decisions, and everything will work out. So, I straighten and sniff back the tears. This fear won’t own me. I own me. I’m the queen of my own thoughts.

Is there such a thing as being loyal to a husband and a wife? A mother and a father? A brother and a sister? If one disappoints the other, whose side do you take?

My parents let me down time and time again and so do most people.

She’s too young to know such things and too young for this to not affect her later on in life. She’ll be in therapy in five years’ time, possibly with anxiety and blaming me. Her therapist will turn her against me and she’ll be spiteful and tense up whenever I say anything that’s deemed a ‘trigger’. Because we all go through that stage, me included. It’s almost unusual not to blame parents for issues in your life.

Blame is easy. Ownership of emotions is something else altogether. That comes later, when you realise blaming does nothing to move you on in life. It keeps you stunted in that childlike body, afraid to step up and grow up.

This small interaction lifts his face into normalcy. It’s like seeing my son again for the first time in weeks.

I’m proud of her maturity and then guilty that she possesses it. She’s too young for this.

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s only pain.

I can’t always be the brave mum for her. It’s okay to show emotion. Maybe not rage, maybe not aggression, but sadness, grief, fear – yes, those are good things to admit to your kids. I have to remember this. I’m not always strong. I am always human.

I’m brave. She thinks I’m brave. She wants to be brave. She wants to be like me.