Mrs. Oliver's Children - July 12, 2011

This past summer, Mrs. Oliver earned herself quite the reputation on St. Claire street. It may be an impolite topic to gossip about, but the neighbouring housewives often bring up Mrs. Oliver’s unfortunate demise in their everyday, secretive conversations. As a cautionary tale, mostly. Of what can go wrong if you let it.

    “I heard she stopped seeing her therapist.”

    “That’s what happens when you go off the meds.”

    The woman was always mostly normal. Sure, she was maybe more artistic than some of the stay-at-home moms in the neighbourhood and she rarely set up play dates with the other children of St. Claire street. But Mrs. Oliver was always at the birthday parties and backyard barbeques- faking, but nonetheless participating in suburbia. The other women often got the feeling that Mrs. Oliver didn’t like them. She sometimes had this look on her face when one was talking about the debatable legal status of their housekeeper or of their husband’s new business investments. This look seemed to say,
 
    I am so much better than you…

    Not that any of that matters now. The women of St. Claire street are quite confident that they in fact are much better wives and mothers than her. Hell, anyone would be compared to poor Mrs. Oliver. Mrs. Oliver, who claimed that her children were monsters, that they were not hers even though by all means they were the same children she’d given birth to. Mrs. Oliver, who tried to drown those children in the backyard swimming pool. Now, most of these women imagine Mrs. Oliver at the mental health facility just outside of town, sitting in a padded room, locked up in a straight jacket, hair dishevelled and eyes red, wide, and vacant. This is where she ought to be…the mad woman tried to kill her own children.

    “Those poor babies. They’ll be emotionally scarred for the rest of their lives.”

    “They haven’t been playing with any of their school friends, either.”

    Mrs. Oliver is sitting in the mental health facility just outside of town, although not in a straight jacket and not completely catatonic as most people expect she would be. Her hair is as dark and neat as ever and her eyes are calm. She is quite comfortable in her guarded room where she awaits the trial. And she is quiet, she’s always been very quiet. She doesn’t yell obscenities at the nurses like the other ticking patients in the ward. She accepts the little tablets they give to her in a Dixie cup.

    Mrs. Oliver misses her husband, who visits her from time to time. She likes when he comes to her, however his eyes are permanently glossy. She’s noticed that he looks at her like she’s dying- like she should be lying in a hospital bed, connected to tubes and machines.  He looks at her as though he wants to pull the plug.

    Mrs. Oliver is convicted on two counts of attempted murder. She pleads insanity, and after several evaluations from several tweed-jacketed men, she is sent to a more secure psychiatric facility for the criminally insane.

    At night, she tucks herself into a ball, listening to the inane whisperings of her roommate who killed her college proffessor because the Lord told her to. Then, she places her hands over her stomach and grieves for her children. The children who are dead, but also alive.

    And if only Mrs. Oliver knew what was to come, she would be even more confident that her real children are dead. If only she knew that in a few months time, cases like hers will become common. That the DA will be scratching their heads at the amount of women admitted to secure psychiatric facilities in such a short time. That the women of St. Claire street will find themselves sympathizing with poor Mrs. Oliver. The women that will look at their own children and cry because they are not their children anymore. The women that will find themselves stirring bottles of opium into the children’s apple sauce. If only Mrs. Oliver knew what was to come…then maybe she could warn them.

    This is the puzzle that no one will be able to solve. And as women around the world begin to deny their children, it will surely become the end. And Mrs. Oliver’s children will watch it unfold with smiles on their faces.
 

-Korntee Tilson