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You’ve Gone Away by Tyde

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I remember it like it was yesterday...or was it? No concept of time anymore. Perhaps it was 13 days, perhaps it was 13 years.

I’d taken little Franny and Wanda to the park at Stanwell Tops. They weren’t identical but I’d dressed them as such. Little pale green & white gingham frilly caps with overalls to match. A white t-shirt underneath – size 0 I think. They were both growing so fast.

David had come to the park with us. He knew it was too much for just one person to be looking after my girls. They were in the habit of scurrying. They loved to scurry around now that they had mastered walking. We had a picnic lunch near the swing sets. Wanda just kept repeating the word swing over and over again so David put her on the kiddie swing and started pushing her.

Franny didn’t seem to want to sit still and she kept pointing out the ‘birdies’ to me. David said he would be fine with Wanda so I put Franny up on my hip and we started to walk along the edge of the cliff looking out at the seagulls seemingly floating on the wind. They looked so graceful and Franny seemed to be mesmerised by the gentle movements. We walked back from the cliff and towards a little stream that started well up the mountain and plateaued out by the slippery dips. Franny and I paddled our feet and played hide and seek until I thought it was time to get back to David to make sure he and Wanda were okay. I hoisted Franny up onto my hip again and as we headed back to the picnic area an odd feeling came over me. I felt as if I should be somewhere else. Like picnicking of all things was the worst thing to do in this situation. A slightly purple film seemed to fit itself over my vision and then it was gone.

Franny giggled and I ruffled her hair playfully as we looked out again at the seagulls. Then she fell and seemed to dissolve into the grass. I blinked several times but she was gone. My heart started to thump wildly. What had just happened? Then I thought I saw her poking her head out by a bush a while away but by the time I got there she had disappeared. I sat down on the ground and started calling out her name. ‘Franny, Franny – where are ya darling? Sweetie pumpkin, time to go home.’ My voice had turned into a hollow whisper. I didn’t like the way my unanswered questions bounced back at me from my deserted surroundings.

‘David, David – is Wanda okay?’

‘What’s that Bly? I can’t hear you.’

I walked mechanically towards him where he held my Wanda tight in his arms.

‘Franny’s gone’

‘Oh my God. The cliff?’ He ran towards the cliff face screaming out Franny’s name.

‘No’ He turned to look at me confused.

‘She’s just gone.’

He grabbed me in a sympathetic hug – he probably figured I was mentally unstable at that point. He was right.

‘Bly, did Franny go near the edge of the cliff. Did she let go of your hand?’

I shook my head numbly. ‘I had her on my hip and we were looking at the horizon and then she fell.’

‘Over the cliff?’

I shook my head with more certainty. ‘Into the grass.’

‘Onto the grass?’

‘Into the grass. She kinda melted into it.’

‘She mel…? We have to call the police.’

‘Yes, yes we do.’

I don’t remember much about when the police came. They asked a lot of questions, most I couldn’t or didn’t answer. The shock had set in pretty bad. In the middle of the interview I started to shiver uncontrollably (or so David tells me) and no matter how many blankets they wrapped me in it wouldn’t stop. They had to suspense the interview for several hours. I stared out the window the whole time. They released me to home care under David. I hadn’t really been able to fill in any blanks for them. Frances was listed as missing presumed kidnapped that evening. They said they would investigate David and my parents but I knew that she hadn’t been taken by a person. I think she was taken to teach me a lesson – don’t go playing God.

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You see, Franny and Wanda are my twins baby girls that were fathered by David. David and I have been friends for years but nothing romantic ever came of it. I asked him some years back if he would donate for me so that I could have children before it was too late. He agreed and Frances Jean and Wanda Louise are what came out of it. He doesn’t mind spending time with the children and has taken a really active part in raising them which I am very grateful for. I am also very grateful for the fact that while I fell apart he managed to keep it together for all of us.

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David stayed with me for the first week. On the very first night as I lay there in his arms I tried to sleep, I really tried but all I could manage was eyes wide open and a slight whimper in my breathing. Sometime around 1 am I saw little feet pattering past my closed door under the crack. She’d found her way back! It didn’t occur to me how absurd that sounded. I scrambled out of bed elbowing our puppy in the face on the way. I swung open the door to an empty hallway. The twins’ bedroom door was closed. There was no way she could reach the handle to go in.

Her cot had been slept in. the blankets were ruffled – her toys shifted. But she was nowhere in sight. The next day my cat started to meow. He could sense something behind a door, I opened it but there was nothing, he raced over to the cupboard and jumped inside. He could smell something but no matter how many times he went back he couldn’t find anything.

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Some years down the track Wanda asked me the most terrifying question I have ever heard. ‘Mum, where is Franny?’ I thought she was too young to remember any of that. Surely a 12 month old doesn’t remember things so complicated. I just looked at her terrified, wondering how I could explain when I myself had never gotten a true explanation.

‘Why did you send her away?’

‘Wanda I didn’t she just…disappeared.’

‘Where did you make her go? Where is she? I want my twin back!’

I gasped in horror. My normally sweet, gentle natured 14 year old now had her hands around my throat trying to throttle an answer out of me. I choked and started to cry. She removed her hands and just walked out. In the lounge room I could hear her searching through the old photo albums trying to find pictures of Franny to spark her dormant memories. I had long hidden them in the cavity in the roof. She threw the albums across the room one by one when they did not serve their purpose. I heard crystal glasses break, an ornamental vase smash to the ground. My little angel had turned into a little terror and she blamed me for it all.

She came back into the kitchen and I gave her a little half smile hoping she had recovered from her outburst.

‘Why didn’t you try harder? You should never have stopped looking. She could be out there bruised and bleeding – starving to death and you sit here in your comfy kitchen not giving a damn!’

‘Wanda I tried, god for years I tried. I went back there every day but I couldn’t find her.’

‘Was two of us too much for you? Couldn’t you handle us both? Did you throw her over the cliff so you could spend more money on your own selfish wants?’

I couldn’t believe what she was saying to me. All the things that had haunted me since that day were now coming out of her mouth. Could I have thrown Franny over the cliff? Had she been taken away because I was selfish? Was she living on the streets trying to survive and thinking bitterly of her mother?

The back door clicked open and someone came in from the garden. I turned expecting to see David. It was Franny. She sat down at the kitchen table like she’d just returned home from school. She was pale but alive.

‘Could you get me a cup of Milo please Mum? I’m very tired.’

I resisted the urge to envelope her in a hug and shower her with kisses. I was probably imagining it all like I’d done so many times before. Had the trauma of Wanda’s accusations brought this out of me? But the difference this time was she wasn’t returning to me as a toddler like when she’d disappeared. She was a teenager. I nodded numbly at her and headed to the Milo tin hoping that this illusion would have gone by the time I’d made the Milo. As I turned around with the steaming cup in my hand I felt myself lose my grip and it smashed all over the floor splashing my slacks with chocolate flavoured stains. She was smiling at me, moisturising her hands which looked quite dry.

‘It was a long walk home from school today. Never thought I’d make it.’

Wanda came in from the lounge room and plonked down next to her sister. ‘Hey, you’re home late. You are so lucky you don’t have Ms Larzowski for a teacher. She gave us a whole chapter of trig to do tonight!’

‘You can do it later, Mum said we could join the archery club. First lesson starts this afternoon at Tildesey Park.’

‘Mum you are the best!’ Franny gulped down her Milo and raced to her room to change into shorts and a t-shirt.

‘Wanda?’

‘Yes Mum?’

“Franny took a long time to come home’

‘She does drama club after school you know that.’

The background of my kitchen seemed to swirl into nothing as I repeated the words. ‘A long time. Such a very long time’.