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 door.
You know you want it. You’ve been gagging for it all day.
She whimpered, frantically looking for a place to hide. A place to hide from the-man-with-the-red-shirt who was coming to get her.
The man who they hadn’t seen for well over 35 years, but was ever present in their lives.
Jordan
Jordan found herself curled up in the corner of the bedroom. ‘What the hell?’ she said out loud, as she stretched out the legs which were numb from being in the one position for a long time. She knew this meant one of the traumatised teens or littles had been out, although she couldn’t be sure who.
Things were still in a state of upheaval within, and it left Jordan feeling vulnerable. She was the first line of protection within the Collective, and was the first one to step in when something was seen as unsafe. So having this underlying feeling of vulnerability was something she was struggling with.
Once the pins and needles had subsided in the legs and feet, she attempted to stand and, stretching the back out, she sighed and left the bedroom.
** ** **
It was the next day when she was sitting opposite the doc and she decided she had to try and bring up the subject. She hated that they were relying on an outsider to help them - and a man, no less. But she knew they needed the doc to help them gain some equilibrium again.
“It has left the Collective feeling very vulnerable,” she started to say slowly, trying to sort out the jumble of feelings into something that made sense to an outsider.
“That is understandable,” he said, with empathy. “What specifically bothers you? Not the Collective, but you personally?”
“Well, I guess the realisation that she was able to get that far and we didn’t know. And if we don’t know, how do we protect ourselves from it happening again? I mean, I’m supposed to help protect them, but how can I when we don’t know how she did it?”
“But you did stop it, someone managed to pull Jo back within before she succeeded in harming the body.”
“But it was so close. Too close. Another minute or even less, and she could have taken the pills, and where would that leave us?”
“I do understand how vulnerable this has the Collective feeling, and how close you all feel it was. But it is important to realise that you all still did step in in time.”
Jordan sighed. How could she make him understand how vulnerable
