No matter which we she looked at it, her mother was right. She just wasn’t smart, not like her brothers. They were able to get on with their lives, do what was expected of them and make something of themselves. But her? She seemed to be a screw up from such a young age, a disappointment for her mother who desperately wanted a loving daughter but ended up with Jo. She tried to be a good daughter, tried to be everything her mother wanted. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, she seemed to always miss the mark. And her mother made her disapproval very evident.
But Jo knew it was her fault her mother had to be like that. She wasn’t an easy child, and certainly not what her mother had signed up for when she gave birth to her. She just never seemed able to get it together enough to be what her mother, what her family needed her to be. And here she was an adult, and still disappointing everyone. She couldn’t make herself do anything with her life, she couldn’t even seem to be present for a whole day anymore. God, she was so stupid!
Don’t worry, it’ll wash off. She physically jumped and whirled around, automatically looked behind for the male owner of the voice. But of course there was no one there.
And now there was crying, crying in her head which she could hear. How crazy was she, to think she could now hear crying?
Don’t worry, it’ll wash off .
She tried to stop the voice, tried to stop all the voices. But whatever she tried, it didn’t help. She just wasn’t strong enough to fight it, she was too weak and tired. So, so tired.
Don’t worry, it’ll wash off .
Why could she hear that voice, repeating the same thing over and over? Why couldn’t she stop doing this? Her mum was right, she made things up because she liked the drama and attention. And now she had been doing it for so long, she didn’t know how to stop it.
Unconsciously she started to hit the side of her head, trying to stop the voices.
Don’t worry, it’ll wash off .
‘Stop! Stop saying that!’ Jo screamed in her head.
‘It’ll be ok, Jo. Hang in there.’ A kind female voice came from within.
‘Stop it! Stop making this up! You’re just crazy!’ Jo said to herself, hitting the side of her head.
‘You’re not crazy. Hang in there.’
Jo just curled up in a ball and rocked, trying to block out all the noise from within. Why did she do this? Why did she make all this up?
‘You’re not making it up. You are not crazy.’
The tears started to form in her eyes, but even they were too tired to fully form and drop down. They remained in the corners of her eyes, unable to free themselves from the confines of the eye lids.
The looming black cloud that had been hovering over her started to descend once more. It lowered until it rested squarely on her shoulders, weighing Jo down until she physically started to shrink into the chair.
‘Pull her back, now.’Jo heard an authoritative voice command, before she felt herself disappearing.
Toni
“How have things been for you?” David was asking.
She never knew how to answer that question. How could somebody who controlled their own life, who was in charge of everything they did understand what it was like for them? It was commonplace that one of them would find themselves out here, and another had been in the middle of a task. It could be very unnerving for some, and different members coped with it in different ways and managed to varying degrees.
Last week, for example, Toni found herself in the house, and she could see someone was watching a movie on Netflix and was having a cappuccino. But on the coffee table was a cup half full of tea that had long since gone cold, next to some knitting that had been obviously interrupted mid row. And on the side table next to the chair was an empty bag that once contained pretzels (which would have not been from the same person who had the cup of tea, or was watching Netflix), an empty glass that seemed to have contained soft drink and the iPad was out with a horse game still paused.
How could she explain how that felt?
Once Toni arrived back home, she went out into the lounge and found plates and glasses on the coffee table as well as an empty packet of Fruit and Nut chocolate. Teens, she sighed. Linda would not be happy to know they had been eating chocolate yet again.
Toni had to prioritise her time out here, as she never really knew how long she would have. First things first, she had to check the bank account and ensure there was money in the account and that the bills were up to date. She was the one that was responsible for those things, and obviously things like paying bills was not something that could be put off. As much as possible she had things set up on automatic payments, but the money still had to be kept in the account to cover everything.
Satisfied that everything was in order (except for a purchase on eBay for jewellery – she would have to keep an eye on that in future) she collected up all the plates, glasses and cutlery from the lounge room and, filling the sink with soapy water, started to do the dishes.
She was aware of the voices from within, but they didn’t bother her. Not carrying a lot of emotions meant she was able to just perform the tasks that were required, without being weighed down by feelings. So she heard the conversations, the voices from within, and she was able to just keep going.
The crying from within, that wasn’t quite as easy to ignore and at times, it could become distracting. But Toni carried on regardless, washing the dishes and setting them to drain on the rack, focused on the task at hand.
Josephine
Shift, switch. Josephine found her hands in the sink, obviously doing the dishes. The mother had brought her up knowing how to do all the household chores from a very young age, and so Josephine was happy to help out here when she could.
She washed the last plate and then set it to drain and looked at the stack in the rack. Picking up the tea towel to dry the still dripping dishes, she realised the mother would be really angry if she saw just how many dishes there were. And she would have been right, this was too many dishes. Dirty dishes had no place in a sink, they should be washed up immediately, then dried and put away. No wonder the mother would get so angry with her, she couldn’t even keep up with the simple chores. No, Josephine corrected herself. It wasn’t that she ‘couldn’t’ keep up with them, it was more that she just wouldn’t. The mother was right, there was nothing wrong with her - she was just lazy.
All her life she had tried to do things the way the mother wanted, but she just never seemed able to get it right. Why couldn’t she get things right?
Josephine started to get upset as she kept thinking of what a huge disappointment she was, and how much she had let the mother down, before she was thankfully pulled from the front and taken back within to safety.
Danielle
Danielle was trying to help the Collective by checking the mail box when she heard a man walk past on the footpath out the front and immediately her heart started to pound. She whirled around to go inside to safety, but not in time. Not in time to stop the movie that started to play in her head.
Flick. The-man-with-the-red-shirt was smiling. He had his fingers at his lips, saying ‘Sshh’. Then his smile became cruel. He slowly moved his hand down to his pants, to his belt. Then very slowly, he started to unbuckle his belt, grinning cruelly at her sobbing.
Dani ran inside and shut the