He blinks away the memory. “I mean, seriously, what sort of woman, what sort of human . . . ?”
Laurel shakes her head, widening her eyes in faux wonder. “That’s horrible,” she says, “that really is.”
Floyd sighs. “Poor sick woman,” he says. “Poor, poor individual.”
“Sounds like the only good thing she ever did was to give birth to Poppy.”
He glances at her and then down at his lap. His eyes are dark and haunted. “Yes,” he says. “I suppose it was.”
52
I kept you very sweet in those days after our big contretemps. I made all the right noises about Poppy coming to live with you, pretended I was “giving it some thought,” said that I could “see the advantages.” But all the while I was painstakingly planning our escape.
It was your turn to have her overnight and I’d packed all our bags ready for our journey to Dublin, filled the car with petrol so we wouldn’t have to stop. My mother was expecting us on the 9 a.m. ferry the following day. I thought I was so clever, I really did.
But I’d underestimated you. You’d worked out what was going on. Poppy wasn’t there when I came for her that evening. You’d taken her to stay at someone’s house. You were ready for me.
“Come in,” you said, “please. We need to talk.”
Were there ever four more terrifying words in the English language?
You sat me down in the kitchen. I sat in the same chair I’d used that perfect day when I first brought Poppy to meet you. I remembered how your kitchen had swallowed me up like a womb then. But that afternoon, your kitchen broke my heart. I knew what you were going to say. I knew it.
“I’ve been thinking,” you said, “about Poppy. About arrangements. Going forward. And it can’t go on like this. And to be horribly, horribly frank with you, Noelle, I fear for her, living with you. I think . . .”
Here it came. Here it came.
“I think you’re toxic.”
Toxic.
Dear Jesus.
“And this is about much more than home-schooling, Noelle. This is about everything. Did you know that Poppy hates you? She’s told me that. Not just once. Not just when she’s cross with you. But often. She’s scared of you. She doesn’t . . .” You looked up at me, eyes full of cool guilt. “She doesn’t like the way you smell. She’s said that to me. And that . . . that’s not normal, Noelle. A child should not be able to differentiate between their own smell and the smell of their mother at this stage. That, to me, suggests a terrible, fundamental disconnect between you both; it suggests a failure to bond. And I’ve been talking to a social worker about what my options are and she said that I should take Poppy out of the picture for now, just while we thrash this out, so she’s gone to stay with a friend. Just for a few days . . .”
“Friend?” I said cynically. “What friend? You don’t have any friends.”
“It doesn’t matter what friend. But we really need to reach an agreement on this, civilly, before Poppy comes home. So I’m asking you, Noelle, as Poppy’s mother, could you . . .”
You struggled for the words here, I recall.
“Could you let her go? Please? You could still see her. Of course you could. But it would have to be under supervision. It would have to be here. And it would have to fit in with Poppy’s education.”
I struggled for words then, too. It wasn’t so much what you were saying—though that was bad enough—as the tone in which you were saying it. There was no oh, I’m terribly sorry, Noelle, but I’ve passed your child onto strangers and now I want you to fuck off away from us. There was no sense in the tone of your voice that what you were saying was anything other than entirely reasonable.
Finally I said, “No. No, Floyd. I won’t allow it. I want my child back. And I want her back right now. You have no right. No right whatsoever. She’s my child and—”
You put your hand up then. You said, “Yes. I know that. But, Noelle, you have to accept the fact that you’re not strong enough to be a parent. The way you’re raising her, the junk food and the TV on all day and the lack of physical affection. Not to mention leaving her alone in the house, Noelle. It’s verging on