Silent Genius

Chapter 14

February 2011 continued

I can’t believe she left. She just packed up and left. How could she do that?

My knees start to shake. I feel myself falling forward but I don’t put a hand out to stop myself. Dad jumps forward and catches me before I hit the ground. He sits me on the ground. I’m crying. Dad’s crying. Tom comes back with Claire. She’s crying too. She crawls into my lap and I hug her tight. Tom wraps his arms around me and Dad wraps his arms around all of us. We sit in a huddle on the kitchen floor, crying.

We sit like that until long after the sun has set. A beautiful Saturday turned sour. Claire sleeps in my lap, her cheeks still wet with tears. Tom still has his arm around me and is reluctant to move. Dad is on the phone to the police, reporting Mum as a missing person. They say there is little they can do as she left by her own free will. He’s not happy. He calls her mobile but she doesn’t answer. Then he calls all her friends and family, but none of them know where she is. They say they’ll call back if they here from her.

That night we all camp out in the living room. We watch the door, listen for the sound of her footsteps on the front stairs. We pray and hope that she’ll come back, saying she didn’t mean it, that it was all a mistake and that she loves us and will never leave again. Claire is quieter than normal. Usually she is dancing and smiling and playing her instruments. But not tonight. Tonight she sits on my unmoving in the corner of the couch, hugging her stuffed octopus to her chest.

Tom sits in the corner, staring blankly at the wall. Dad stands leaning against the piano. I sit on the couch. I don’t know what to do. My whole family is in pain and I can’t fix it. My Dad is broken, my brother is numb and my sister is lost. I scoot closer to Claire and pick her up. She stares at me with her big blue eyes and my heart brakes.

Why?

‘I don’t know,’ I whisper, ‘I just don’t know.’

She frowns and points at herself.

Is it my fault?

‘No, Claire, it is most definitely not your fault,’ I say sternly.

There is no way I am letting my baby sister blame this on herself.

‘It’s none of your fault,’ Dad says, sitting beside me on the couch.

He hugs Claire and she hugs him back. Tom sits on my other side and hugs me. Then he gets up and goes down the hall towards his room. He comes back with a pile of papers with a red ribbon stuck to the corner.

‘I was saving this for Mum’s birthday,’ he says, ‘it’s for Claire to play. And Tanna, you can sing it.’

He hands Claire the papers and she smiles. She sets them up on the piano and wiggles her fingers. Then she starts playing. Concrete Angel by Martina McBride. I smile and go stand beside her. I sing along.

She walks to school with the lunch she packed.

Nobody knows what she’s holding back.

Wearing the same dress she wore yesterday.

She hides the bruises with the linen and lace.

Tom gets his video camera. Dad grabs his guitar and joins in.

The teacher wonders but she doesn’t ask.

It’s hard to see the pain behind her mask.

Bearing the burden of a secret storm.

Sometimes she wishes she was never born.

Through the wind and the rain,

She stands hard as a stone,

In a world that she can’t rise above.

But her dreams give her wings,

And she flies to face where she’s loved.

Concrete angel.

Somebody cries in the middle of the night.

The neighbours hear but they turn out the light.

A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate.

When morning comes it’ll be too late.

Through the wind and the rain,

She stands hard as a stone,

In a world that she can’t rise above.

But her dreams give her wings,

And she flies to face where she’s loved.

Concrete angel.

A statue stands in a shaded place.

An angel girl with an upturned face.

A name is written on a polished rock.

A broken heart that the world forgot.

Through the wind and the rain,

She stands hard as a stone,

In a world that she can’t rise above.

But her dreams give her wings,

And she flies to face where she’s loved.

Concrete angel.

We finish the song. We all have tears in our eyes again. Tom turns off his camera and claps. Dad starts clapping too. But it’s Claire’s clap that I love the most. I clap too, for her. After a bit we make beds in the living room. Then we all go to sleep, Concrete Angel floating around our heads.