“Can you draw your voice, Theo?” says the therapist. She gestures to the felt-tip pens, screaming with artificial brightness on the table.
I want to shout in her smug face. “You think I’m going to draw a bird in a cage or some shit like that? A bird of prey, too dangerous to set free? Forget it. I’m thirteen, not three.”
I don’t say it, of course. But my eyes must tell her because she sighs and stares at her ugly vegetarian shoes.
Afterwards, she and Mum shout-whisper in the waiting room about ‘giving me time,’ as though I’m deaf as well as mute.
“Shall we stop for ice cream?” Mum says in the car. She’s peering at me through the rear-view mirror. I shake my head, looking away to avoid seeing the hopeful shine disappear from her eyes.
The truth is, I ruin everything. With or without my voice. My parents are even more miserable now that I’m not speaking. Maybe they’d be better off without me? I don’t know why, but they’ve always treated me like some kind of angel who could do no wrong. But I knew I was no angel, I had bad thoughts all the time. They were bound to find out.
We were in McDonald’s when they told me Mum was pregnant. That proved it. If I was so perfect, why would they be having another kid?
“I don’t want a stupid brother or sister!” I yelled, then removed the gherkin from my burger and mushed it into a pulp.
“Oh, Theo!” they laughed.
The baby was the size of a gherkin when it died.
By the time we get home, I’m ready to burst. I run out into the garage. Everything in here is junk, so if I’m going to destroy anything, this is the best place to do it.
Maybe I choose the desk because it reminds me of today’s therapy session. Whatever the reason, I kick it repeatedly, not caring that it hurts my foot. In fact, the pain feels strangely good. Only when the drawer comes loose and crashes onto the floor do I stop and slump to my knees myself.
That’s when I see them. Grainy scan pictures. Four, five, six of them, all dated before I was born. And a letter with the NHS logo at the top. The words blur in my rush to read them. “Recurrent pregnancy loss.” “Probable chromosomal abnormalities.”
The door creaks open.
“Oh!” Mum’s voice cracks. She sits beside me, draping her arm around my shoulders. “Sweetheart, we didn’t want to upset you by telling you about the babies we lost.”
Upset me? By letting me know it couldn’t have been my fault? That it’d happened many times, before I was even born?
“You’re our perfect miracle, Theo.”
I realise something as the tears start to flow. It’s the unsaid words that have done the most damage.
I feel a tiny vibration, a bird’s wing flutter. And my voice flits to the surface.
