Different Paths

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I am traumatised.

They have told me the most awful stories.

The bright optimistic article which I’d given them lies pushed to one side. No one is looking at the sunny picture of the little girl who had defied all the odds despite the difficulties of her premature birth and is now hale and hearty and thriving.

Instead they are telling me horror stories and sparing me no detail.
There is the boyfriend who had casually continued changing the cassette player in his car and had refused to take his partner to hospital even though she was miscarrying by his side.

There is the other boyfriend who’d insisted that his partner should get up, after just giving birth, and start doing the housework; only by chance was she whisked away to hospital before she’d nearly died from a severe haemorrhage.
There are other tales too gruesome and shocking for me to write down here.
Mobile Phone Lady tells me the worst stories.

‘Then there was that day when my son came into the room,’ she adds. ‘I looked at him and his cheeks were full like this.’

She takes a deep breath and blows out her cheeks.

‘And he had a lid in one hand and a bottle of turpentine in the other,’ she continues. ‘And as I watched he swallowed it in a big gulp.’

I’m horrified.

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘I ran.’ She said in a matter of fact voice. ‘I just left him. What else could I do? I ran screaming to my neighbour’s house. I couldn’t go back to him. My neighbour had to take him to hospital. I just sat in her living room and waited.’

‘How old was he?’

‘Only two.’

‘Then there was that other time when I just picked him up and threw him into his bedroom when he was driving me mad. I rang me mum and she said just ring for a taxi and bring him over here. So I did. And I sat in the front seat and he sat in the back seat. And he said “sorry mummy” and I said, “I hate you. Just don’t talk to me.”’

‘How old was he then?’ I ask

‘Only two.’

She tells me he is now a teenager in a school for children with behavioural problems.

I try to bring them back to the work. They have some simple sentences to write.
‘I can’t do this,’ Mother of Five complains. ‘It’s too hard.’

‘Well,’ I say helpfully. ‘You could write about what we’ve just been discussing if you like.’

She grunts and begins to write again.

Moments later she scrunches up the paper and throws it into the middle of the table. ‘I can’t do this,’ she says again and she storms out of the room in tears.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say to the group. ‘I chose this article because I thought it was hopeful and positive. I had no idea it would have this effect on you.
Mobile Phone Lady looks hard at me.

‘It’s because it is so happy and optimistic,’ she says ‘that’s exactly why it is so upsetting,’ and seeing my puzzled look she adds, ‘Well why couldn’t it be like that for our children?’

I look down at the picture of a hugging smiling family group on the last page of the article, a family that had held onto each other through the bleakest of times; and then I think of a small frightened two-year-old boy left standing alone in a house with his stomach burning with turpentine.

‘Yes,’ I reply.