Heart - 24. Edith - You Lose

Edith Belmont-Lovett

Brain scans prove that there is a physical difference in a healthy brain and a sick brain.

Any organ in the body can malfunction in some way, and the brain is no different.

The word "mental" brings unkind stigma to people whose brains become unwell for one reason or another.

So maybe the pills are making a difference.

Hearing her husband descending the staircase to the ground floor, Edith quickly locked her phone and slipped it into her pocket. Kelly noticed this, shooting her mother a quizzical look, but a quick glare silenced her. She was a good girl, Kelly. She was obedient, knowledgeable and took terrific care of herself. She was beautiful. She would make a man very happy one day. A daughter anyone could be proud of. And she knew Chase was proud of her. Even if he struggled to show it.

"Good morning," Edith stood to greet Chase, who barely looked in their direction as he walked through to the kitchen.

"I need you today," Chase pointed to Kelly, pausing by the doorway. "After school. Make sure you look presentable. I'll cancel your tutors."

"Yes, daddy," Kelly replied immediately.

She looked pleased for the privilege of being a consistent part of Chase's campaign. People loved a man who raised such a fine daughter, especially one with such inherent disadvantages. It was a pity Tyson was so lost. He had terrific potential too, but he chose to squander it with mediocrity and his obsession with attention. With Chase gone and the door closed behind him, Kelly's face fell, which Edith noticed. What nerve. She should be proud.

"What's the matter? Aren't you pleased that your father needs your help today?" She accused her, sipping from her glass of purified water.

"Of course I am. I just have a headache," Kelly smiled like the dutiful daughter she was, but Edith wasn't satisfied.

"Kelly, today is not about you. If you're not happy, then you need to get happy. Fast."

When her daughter hesitated to reply, Edith knew for sure she was conflicted. That was bad. There was no room for error now that Chase's victory was so close. Otherwise, he would come down on all of them.

"Have you given Tyson his breakfast yet?" Kelly asked her quietly, and Edith looked sharply at her.

"I'm not his maid! I'm not taking his breakfast all the way upstairs! If he wants to eat, he can come down here and eat with us or he can go to school hungry!" She snapped.

"School? Tyson? Wait, I'm lost. Why would you let Tyson go to school today?" Kelly asked her, apparently finding her words absurd.

"I wouldn't! He's staying in his room until Wednesday," Edith looked at Kelly as though she were stupid, and the girl had the nerve to look at her as though she were out of her mind.

Chase returned to the dining hall with a mug of coffee in hand, and both Edith and Kelly reflexively smiled once more. It did nothing to ease the thick tension that polluted the air around them.

"You," Chase pointed at Edith this time, and she stood from her seat again. "If the press calls, let them know that the rat's doing well in his new hole. Make sure they all know he's gone."

"Consider it done. But," she hated using that word with him. He didn't like it, and his frown reflected his indignance. "What if that Hodges woman tells someone that he's still in the country? What if that Ellicott woman or someone from the asylum mention--"

"They won't," Chase snapped at her. "Not if they know what's good for them. The law keeps them quiet. Doctor-patient confidentiality or something. And if those other nuts say anything, so what? They're mental. Nobody will listen to them."

Edith gave a short nod, but that wasn't enough for her husband, who came closer and towered above her, a mean glint in his magnified hazel eyes. He gripped her by the arm, and she forced herself not to grimace. It hurt.

"Do you have a problem with that? Hmm? Anything you need to add? Any opinions you'd like to share?"

"No. Of course not," she replied meekly, fighting the urge to cry out as he tightened his grip even further.

"Good. I've had enough of you fucking everything up. You had one job, and that was to make these kids behave. You couldn't even do that. If I'd known my wife wouldn't be able to do her job, I would have picked one with bigger tits."

With aggression, he shoved her backwards, almost sending her toppling over the chair. She caught herself, but only barely, trembling as she swallowed in her throat.

"Take a change of clothes to school, Kelly. Don't bother coming home. Just get changed before you drive on down to the Fenton Street Hall. Wear something sensible, will you? You're the only one in this place with half a brain."

"Sure," Kelly hastily abandoned her half-eaten cereal and got to her feet. "A dress? Or a skirt and a blazer?"

"You look better in a blazer. And wear your hair out."

Kelly, her head bowed, walked with poise and grace through the double doors towards the stairway, just like Edith taught her. After all, Chase liked it when girls were meek, obedient and classy. The young, blonde women he sometimes pawed at during his discreet evenings were much of the same. With his daughter out of the room, Chase shot Edith a menacing look.

"Feed the rat. Force it down his throat if you have to."

"I want to let him out."

"What?" He snorted at her, screwing up his face. "I know where he gets his stupid ideas from, at least. He's exactly like you, Ede. Explains a lot about why he's gone loopy."

"No, Chase, what you're doing is stupid!" She asserted, her body trembling. "The psych woman will know that he's not taking his pills. If Tyson gives her any indication at all of what you're doing--"

"Oh, quit your whining, will you! All you ever had to do was to raise two good kids. Good thing Kelly is halfway decent - that's the main reason why I haven't decided to shove you in that jet with the other one!" She felt tiny. Powerless. Useless. Chase gripped her cheeks with his hand. "We're so close now, Ede. Once we get that nuisance out of the way and slam dunk the vote this Friday, I'll be the state premier. Don't worry, I won't forget how hard you and Kelly worked. She'll get married to a suitable partner and have his children, and I'll even fast-track her in the career she chooses - within reason. But if you let Tyson step out of line again... I'm gonna hurt him. Badly. And you as well."

Edith was still feeling waves of nausea after her husband departed. They were nearly debilitating. The energy in the house had turned overwhelmingly negative since Tyson's first attempt at killing himself. It had become ugly and fearful. Chase was angrier than she had ever seen. When he was around, her chest tightened and her pulse quickened. Kelly was always quiet, terrified of upsetting her father in some way. She and Edith barely talked anymore. And every time Tyson acted out, Chase came down harder on her for her failure. Why couldn't that little shit just behave himself? Why did he have to be so defiant? So wicked? So immune to discipline? Why couldn't he just understand that the more he rocked the boat, the more his father would punish them both?

The hideous memory of her bedroom door creaking open in the middle of the night played through her head, and dread filled her. Her skin quivered and went cold, and she felt dirty. With her hands shaking, she prepared breakfast for her delinquent son. He wasn't always a bad boy, she remembered. Before he became a recalcitrant, foul-mouthed thug, she and Chase both believed he had a bright future ahead of him. Intelligent, resourceful and determined to succeed in everything he did. Where it went wrong, she didn't know, but it was such a shame. He had everything. He could have done great things. But despite her best efforts, he was now determined to screw his life up.

She unlocked the bedroom door, and the look of pure insolence on that child's face boiled her blood. He was in his queen bed, sheets pulled up to his chest and a novel in his hands. Every time she came in check on him, he seemed to be nose deep in another text. A fast reader, she remembered. He loved reading. He started when he was so young. Better with words and sentences than all the other brats in that specialist preschool. All he wanted for his fourth birthday were more books. He'd been so happy when he unwrapped them. Now, look at him. Sneering. Arrogant. Reckless.

"What are you so happy about?" She couldn't help but ask, annoyed by how well he seemed to be taking his punishment.

"It's Monday!"

Tyson stretched, and she was taken aback by how much he'd grown since she remembered him. He was a late bloomer, but he was beginning to look less like the little boy that loved her and more like the young man who despised her. He had hints of a moustache forming on his upper lip, his face had grown more masculine, and he had hair growing under his arms. It didn't happen during his stay in the nuthouse, of course. She was hardly stupid enough to think that. But she didn't notice him growing up. She was too busy trying to make sure his father was proud of him.

"It's the same as every other day for you. Eat your breakfast," she snapped at him, eager to crush his enthusiasm. Chase would only see it as an insult.

"Did you just mix in some factory glue with milk? Because that's not fit for a dog. Even if me being a dog is the point you're trying to make," he turned up his nose at the cereal on the tray. "Did you bring--"

"They're under the bowl. Take them and shut up," she glowered as she shut the door behind her, just in case "And don't you dare tell your father."

"Yeah. No shit."

Tyson took the valium and antidepressant that Edith had been smuggling to him under his bowls and plates from the day he arrived home, and he downed them both with a glass of water. She was no fool. She would not deny that there was a marked difference in the son she left behind in that hospital and the same boy in front of her now. He was still a shit. But the pills those quacks had him on were good for something, it seemed. Tyson two months ago would have reacted to the situation very differently, but he seemed happy about things. Maybe this move to Colombo with Dayani and his daughter was a good idea in the end.

"Mum?" Tyson's voice broke through her daze.

"What?" She snapped at him. Had he been saying something?

"You're really spacey lately."

"You can't fucking help yourself, can you? You always have to be an ungrateful little shit! Why?" She was shouting, her fists clenched.

"What the fuck? That! That's my whole point! You hate me enough to literally deport me and lock me in my room like fucking Cinderella!"

"I give up! I give up!"

She stormed her way out and slammed the door behind her, grabbing a handful of her hair and tugging on it in frustration. Of all the impertinent children, why did she have to have that one? The only child in the world who could have been foolish and reckless enough to openly reject Chase Lovett! The little idiot. Why did he have to make everything so hard for her? And for himself?

"Kelly, what the hell is taking you so long?"

She marched down to her daughter's room and threw the door open. In many ways, it was similar to Tyson's. She didn't need her mother's wrath to encourage her to keep everything neat, tidy and ordered like a proper, privileged person should.

"Why are you crying?" Edith asked when she saw her half-dressed girl quickly wiping her face and fixing her school tie in the mirror.

"I'm sorry. I won't let Dad see me," the young girl quickly promised, and she began to slip on her blazer. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't. I didn't mean to."

"Get yourself together," Edith warned her, standing behind her in the mirror. "Don't upset him."

Kelly, to her credit, tried to calm herself the way she had been taught. She straightened her face, combed her hair with her fingers and took several deep breaths, but her jaw continued to quiver.

"I can't. I don't want him to go."

"You have no say in this."

"I know, but it's really fucked up, Mum. Please don't let Dad do it to him. He's changed. I know he has."

"Kelly, it's done. I won't hear another word about it!" She began to straighten a few stray curls from the back of her daughter's head, but Kelly, to Edith's surprise, threw her hand away. "Young lady, I--"

"If anything happens to him, I will never forgive you!" Kelly hissed, emotions firing through her and making her completely irrational! "I can't believe you'd treat your own kid like this. What if that were me? You have to do something, Mum!"

"What do you want me to do?" Edith heard herself whispering through a thick, strained voice, barely loud enough for her daughter to hear. "Grow up. Snap out of it. Nobody likes an emotional woman. Be rational and be sensible. If you toe the line, Kelly, you will be okay."

Kelly peered at her through the tall, ornate mirror on the wardrobe and shook her head. The nerve of her!

"No, I won't," the young woman sighed out loud before she picked up the handle of the luggage rack she used for her school books and began to wheel it out.

Edith didn't have any plans that day. She was to stay at home and make sure nothing happened to Tyson, who needed to present as mentally healthy enough to remain outside of protective hospitalisation. Chase was going too far in her opinion, trying to lock Tyson in his room and starve him of his medication as a form of punishment. It was ludicrous! She didn't care how good Chase and his team of lawyers were. This was ridiculous. But he would not hear her opinions. She didn't like to disobey her husband. Her skin already squirmed with the memory of his touch, and she felt sick.

"What's the time?" Tyson shouted at her through his door when he presumably heard her shoes clicking on the landing tiles outside.

"A bit past eleven. Why?" She approached and put her ear closer to the wood. "Do you need some more pills?"

When there was no reply, she rolled her eyes. She eyed the key stuck in the door, and she felt ill about what she was doing. But it was for everyone's benefit if he stayed in there! And his! He was safe in there. He couldn't hurt himself. And if she let him out and he did something awful, like throw himself down the stairs or cut himself again, she might even go to jail! Chase would... she didn't want to think about it. All the horrible things that could happen wouldn't if he stayed safe in his room. She wished Chase didn't break the boy's flute, at least. It kept him docile to a point.

It was in the afternoon while she was reading the Shawshank Redemption when her phone rang. Seeing Lisa Johnson's ID, she frowned. Lisa was the wife of another conservative politician in a nearby electorate. She sometimes came over for dinner with her husband, Matthew, and brought their horrid little son Damian, a boy who was obscenely fat for a belligerent monster who refused to eat anything on his plate. What could that woman possibly want? She clicked to receive.

"Good day, Mrs Johnson."

"Hi, Edith, um, are you catching the news?" Lisa didn't sound excited, so it couldn't have been good news.

"What's happening?" Edith frowned, immediately getting to her feet and advancing towards the living room.

"It's Tyson! Do you want to explain to me what's going on?"

Edith didn't like her tone one bit, but Tyson's name made her heart race! How could he be on the news? He was still locked in his room! She flicked on the television, and her jaw dropped. It was Tyson, alright! Speaking to a camera phone, it looked like! And behind him was the hospital!

"... wear a [bleep]ing long-sleeve shirt every time I go out so nobody sees these scars. See them?"

Tyson panned the camera over the ugly purple marks on his left wrist.

"But since his career is more important than me, Chase took me home as soon as they were done stitching me up. My mum slapped me for embarrassing her, and Chase punched me a few times in the guts. But nobody believes this [bleep] because they only see how hard I work in school and how well I play the flute. So, yeah, I just hid my giant [bleep] scars and got lectures about attention-seeking and [bleep]t. Then since life got so much worse, I drank liquid nicotine. I woke up in the hospital again and stayed there for a while in intensive care because it [bleep]ed with my heart. Then they just let me go home. Hah. Load of [bleeeeeeeeeep]. That's Chase's world, you know? Suicidal people not getting the help they need, even when they beg for it. No, he takes them home and backhands them in the [bleep]ing face."

Edith's world came crashing down around her. She dropped the phone, stunned, and it hit the carpet underneath with a soft thud. She watched, jaw open as her son aired more and more of their dirty laundry. Edith's throat contracted, and she began to have trouble breathing.

I let this happen. This is my fault.

"When my psychiatrist told Edith that I was too acutely suicidal to be discharged into her care, she cracked the [bleep] and threatened to force me out with lawyers. Literally! Because I wasn't ready to go home! When she couldn't, she abandoned me! Completely! For three weeks, I didn't hear anything from anyone! The only updates I got were from the TV, and that wasn't a lot! Because we're not supposed to see Chase Lovett on TV! He talks non-stop sh[bleep] about how we're totally f[bleep]g useless and a waste of money. Like we're not people. Same way he talks about women and people of colour and gays and lesbians and don't even get him started on transgender people. You know when he was younger, he bashed a gay dude called... Ira Goldstein? I'm pretty sure. Google it if you don't believe me. He beat up that guy so badly he was pi[bleep]ing blood for a while. He brags about it a lot, but for some [bleep]g reason, nobody talks about it now!"

She left the television running as she back out of the room. Oh no. Oh shit. Oh fuck. Chase is going to kill me for this! Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh no. Scared, quivering, terrified, she charged up the stairway and saw the key still in Tyson's bedroom door. That kid had done it for both of them now. Signed a death warrant for both of them! She wouldn't be surprised if Tyson went permanently missing for this, courtesy of her terrible husband. She quickly unlocked the door and shoved it open. Tyson was sleeping.

"Tyson! Get up!" She shouted at him, shaking in fear and panic. "Tyson! Tyson!! Listen to me!"

Her son, however, remained motionless. Confused, she approached and put a hand over her mouth and cried out in horror. Was he dead? There was a handkerchief nearby on his satin sheets, and quite a few pills spread out on the fabric. Pills that looked like the ones he was regularly taking now. The valium.

"Tyson, you didn't do this. No. No, you didn't this! You did not do this to me!"

She grabbed his arm. It was the same shade of dark brown as hers in spite of his white father. She tugged on it, and she shook him. He refused to wake. He wasn't dead, she realised. He was breathing. As she fretted about what she was going to do, she spotted something in his hand. He was holding a screwed up piece of paper. Confused, scared, she pulled it from his fingers and flattened it out to read the seven letters scrawled into the page torn from one of his novels.

YOU LOSE

She let go and grabbed fistfuls of her hair, tugging on it with all her strength. The pain didn't make Tyson any more alert, though, nor did it stop Chase Lovett's touch from violating her. He was all over her. Oppressive. Terrifying. Relentless.

Panicking, she fled. She ran into her bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her. She threw open her drawer and tossed everything out until she found her passport, and then she grabbed her purse from her bedside table. Heart thumping in her chest, she thundered down the corridor and down the stairs, and when she threw the door open, she almost ran into the police officers that had scaled the porch stairs. They began to speak, but she did not hear them. She was focused on leaving the country as quickly as she could! When she tried to slip past them, the biggest male officer promptly grabbed her by the arm and stopped her.

"I'd like you to just stay put for now, Mrs Belmont-Lovett. We got a call from an anonymous party - they're pretty concerned about Tyson's welfare, so we'd like to check it out, okay?"

Edith didn't hear much beyond that. Most of their words seemed to dissolve in the air and scatter like ashes in the wind before they made their way to her ears. She did hear a few things, but they didn't make a lot of sense.

"...Upstairs in his bed..."

"...Is unconscious but stable..."

"...Ambulance on his way to Emergency..."

"...If she knows the whereabouts of Chase Lovett..."

"...Have to take her in..."

"...Is unresponsive..."

"...Needs a psych assessment..."