And all the things I didn’t do.

This is part four of the Louisa series, find all parts here.

I had not one, but two dreams about Louisa last night. I think our souls are trying to work this mess out in our sleep. An intervention perhaps. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but they were unsuccessful.

One of the dreams took us back to a childhood haunt, and I thought it particularly poignant. As if it was an intentional message that involved subconsciously shaking us both violently by the shoulders. ‘Do you remember when things used to be good?’ it whispered. ‘It was here’. But also, at the same time, ‘This is where it all went wrong’.

From the age of approximately zero, we were shipped off to our grandparents’ house in the countryside on school holidays. And when I say countryside, I mean, you-couldn’t-find-it-even-if-you-had-a-map kind of middle of nowhere.

There was no boundary line where house meets road, or road meets village. It was just green on green on green. It was easy to escape the wrath of my grandmother, who’d chase us out of the house with a wooden spoon in hand if someone had spoken in slightly too loud a tone, or been fussing with their hair for too long. You’d slink out quietly if neighbours or friends came round, for fear of a slapped face later at saying something out of turn. She was a terrifying woman, forever scorned by her husband’s multitude of affairs. They were still together, hiding away from prying eyes in the thick country gorse, but you rarely saw him outside of his office, tapping away in silence after a lifetime of beatings and vilification. He barely spoke a word.

There’d be days we’d walk miles through tall corn stalks to hidden pebbled coves, occupied by several cats and a ragged fishing boat. We’d collect various creatures and trinkets and keep them in boxes to observe. Snails, egg shells, a dead mouse, two goats. We’d sneak away with a dusty first edition Jane Austen, found tucked in the eaves of the barn, and spend hours under the summer sun leafing through pages from a different story, a different life.

It was easy to run away from abuse there. By that age, we’d become so hypervigilant to people’s moods that we could tell by their body odour whether it was going to be a good day or not. The countryside granted us that blanket of safety. Somewhere to run. It wouldn’t tell on us. We could hide in the long grass for as long as we wanted (as long as we were home for dinner, or else that was a different kind of wrath).

We didn’t know then how bad things actually were back in our real life. How wrong things were. We just existed in it. When you’re a child, you accept the version of life that you are presented with, without questioning if it is healthy, moral, legal. There were so many facilitators in our story that even as an adult it probably would’ve been hard to tell.

But my goodness, do I want to go back and hug those girls. Do I want to pull them away from it all and show them what real, healthy love means. What family really means. Louisa too.

I don’t remember the last Summer before she got sick. But I remember the Summer she did. Our countryside adventures became solo missions as she lay in her bed and picked at the cobb walls for hours until gaping holes appeared. She hardly touched her food, and the raspberries and sweet peas in the garden were left unpicked, as I began to drown trying to rescue her.

By the following Summer, she’d been indefinitely sectioned, 2-inch thick self-harm scars covering her arms and face. And I’d saved her life more times than I could count. She doesn’t remember any of it.

I wish I could’ve taken us back to the Summer before she got sectioned, and frozen time. Perhaps there was something I could’ve done, something I should’ve noticed. Some way, somehow, I could’ve made a difference. So that we weren’t sitting here all these years later, hating each other over a storyline neither of us caused.

Maybe one day she’ll remember us, before. And maybe one day she’ll realise that the only person who truly knows her

is sat here…

…waiting for her call.

(My friends, this feels like progress.)