Heart of the Cross

by Emily Madden

  She ran her hand over the smooth paper, fingering the sealed backing.

  ‘Why now?’ Maggie asked. ‘I mean, you’ve been seeing my mother behind my back for what, five years?’

  ‘It’s simple. First, she didn’t want to add to your stress when Brianna was a baby, then when you started uni, she didn’t want to cloud that either.’

  A thought crossed Maggie’s mind. ‘When I said I wanted to go to uni and you encouraged me …’

  Mike shot her an empathetic look. ‘That had nothing to do with Rosie. I could see that you needed to do it—for you.’

  She considered his answer, then said, ‘Before I open this, I need to ask … does Rosie know everything?’

  Maggie wasn’t sure just how much Mike had disclosed. He took a few moments before answering and looked Maggie straight in the eyes so there was no doubt about his honesty.

  ‘No. She doesn’t know everything.’

  * * *

  The August winds were always brutal, but for some reason, they seemed worse this year. Maggie pulled her coat tight around her as she hurried into Prince of Wales Hospital for the first day of her internship. After doing an all-nighter, she finally had turned in her last assignment, barely making it in time to drop it into Sydney University before rushing to Randwick. At least it hadn’t rained. Thick rain clouds had blanketed the sky and threatened a deluge. Rain always had reminded her of the day they had buried Sharon. It was hard to believe that it had been five years.

  So much had changed in that time. She had become a mother and was on her way to becoming a doctor. Maggie had moved on with her life, she had lived, and there were times when her guilt was overwhelming. Sharon should be alive today. Maybe if she hadn’t walked away from her that night, maybe if she had told Bobby that instead of dinner, they go to the party at the flat so she could keep an eye on Sharon … She should’ve been taking better care of her, but instead she had been so blindly in love with Bobby.

  So many should-haves, ifs and maybes. Mike was forever telling her that she needed to forgive herself, that there was nothing she could’ve done to help Sharon. The drug problem amongst the girls was not only at The Vinyl Room, but literally every strip club, bar and brothel in and around the Cross.

  ‘Do we have a Maggie Hart here?’

  The sound of her name pulled Maggie out of her thoughts.

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’ She lifted her hand as an older woman with silver-blue hair considered her with a searing gaze. It was clear she was less than impressed.

  ‘I’ve called your name three times now.’ She snapped her clipboard with savage force. ‘You’re starting in emergency. Next time, don’t let it get past once.’

  At the end of her first day, Maggie was sure that Mrs Forster, the hospital’s administrative manager, had assigned her to the emergency department as punishment. It was utter chaos—there was no other word to describe it. She had lost count of the amount of broken bones that had come through, but the case that hit her hardest was the young girl who was wheeled in as a suspected drug overdose. The instant Maggie saw her, her heart stopped. The girl was a dead ringer for Sharon.

  ‘Do we know what she’s taken?’ one of the emergency doctors bellowed. Doctors and nurses clamoured around the unconscious girl, checking her vitals—airways, breathing and circulation and cardiac monitoring.

  ‘Heroin, apparently,’ one of the nurses answered moments before the girl jerked violently and started to seize.

  ‘She’s coding!’ a nurse yelled, rapidly starting CPR.

  The doctor ordered intubation and then the administration of naloxone, a drug commonly used to reverse the effect of respiratory opioid compromise.

  Maggie wasn’t sure how much time had passed—there was so much noise and commotion and all the while she wondered: is this what happened to Sharon?

  She followed the team as they wheeled the girl into a room. She was stable but still critical. After that, Maggie was pulled into assisting with the removal of a marble from a five-year-old’s nose, then helping an eighty-year-old who had fallen off a ladder and broken his hip, but once her shift finished, she headed back to see how the girl was doing.

  ‘It’s still touch and go,’ the duty nurse informed her. ‘We see a lot of these; you’ll need to get used to it.’

  Maggie couldn’t foresee that happening. ‘My best friend died of a drug overdose five years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. It’s all too common these days.’ She said it as if it was completely acceptable and it annoyed Maggie.

  ‘She shouldn’t have died.’ She felt her throat thicken.

  ‘No, none of them should. But the reality is some do. Now go home and get some rest. You’re going to need it when night shifts kick in.’

  The nurse, Karen, was right. Night shift was a totally different beast. She had been sleep-deprived when Brianna was a baby, but it didn’t compare to this.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ one of the registrars, Jeremy, said as they were entering the lift at the end of a rather long night shift. He pressed the button for level three, where his girlfriend, Sandra, who was a resident in obstetrics, also would be winding up for the night.

  ‘Really? When?’ Maggie asked eagerly, hoping he would say that it would be only a matter of weeks, but her hope faded quickly at the sight of Jeremy stifling a yawn.

  ‘Or so I’m told.’ He gave her a sheepish smile as the elevator stopped. ‘See you tomorrow, Maggie.’

  The doors started to shut and Maggie briefly closed her eyes. With any luck, Brianna would be sleeping still when she got home, allowing her at least an hour before she needed to get her ready for preschool. Thinking of her daughter made her think of her mother’s letter.

  Mike had been right—Rosie’s letter explained a lot. If it hadn’t been written in Rosie’s handwriting, she probably would’ve questioned it coming from her. It seemed for the first time ever, her mother was willing to talk to her—not at her.

  It was strange, and somehow bittersweet, that through a single letter, she knew more about Rosie and perhaps understood her more than ever before. That wasn’t to say she didn’t have questions. Maggie had plenty of them and she still wasn’t sure what the future held for them, but she had agreed to meet with her later in the morning, and she had to admit, she would be lying if she said she wasn’t just a little bit nervous about it all. But first she needed sleep. Even the very thought had her eyelids closing.

  The sound of the doors jarring jolted her eyes open and stopped her heart. A man rushed in and the doors whooshed closed, trapping them.

  ‘Bobby,’ she breathed his name in a half-whisper, half-curse.

  ‘Maggie.’ He looked as shocked as she felt. ‘What … do you work here?’ he asked, eyeing the uniform.

  Maggie pulled at her skivvy. Suddenly the air thinned. ‘Yes,’ she finally managed. ‘I’m a medical student intern.’

  ‘You’re a doctor?’ he asked, wide-eyed, and Maggie wasn’t sure if it was in awe or disbelief. ‘Good for you.’

  Five years may have passed, but he still had the ability to make a mess of her equilibrium. ‘Oh, fuck you, Bobby, don’t patronise me.’

  She snapped her gaze forward. She didn’t want to look at him. Most of all, she didn’t want to look into his eyes.

  ‘Maggie, I swear, I’m being genuine. I’m really happy for you.’

  Realising they weren’t moving, she stabbed violently at the button for the ground floor.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Maggie asked, willing this elevator ride to end.

  Bobby awkwardly cleared his throat. ‘Lynne, my, ah, wife, had our first baby. I’m a dad.’

  The air totally evaporated, suffocating her. She gripped the railing as a wave of nausea rolled through her. In her mind, she had played out how she would behave if she ever saw Bobby again. There were a few different scenarios, none of which involved her and Bobby meeting in a hospital elevator with him telling her he’d just become a dad.

&nb
sp; ‘Congratulations,’ she spat as the doors opened, allowing much-needed oxygen to fill her lungs.

  She rushed out, straight through the hospital entrance and out into the still-inky night.

  ‘Maggie, wait!’ she heard Bobby call, but she didn’t yield. She kept going down past the ambulance driveway and onto the street.

  ‘Maggie!’ He caught up with her and grabbed her arm.

  She was forced to turn and look at his blue eyes, the same blue eyes that Brianna had. A frosty gush of wind blasted her tear-streaked cheeks. There was a flash of something, something she couldn’t quite decipher—pain, regret, or maybe it was just pity.

  They stood there on the footpath as dawn’s first light warmed the cool, dark earth, two former lovers, one harbouring a secret, the other weighed by regret.

  ‘What is it, Bobby?’ Maggie broke the silence.

  ‘I … I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Maggie bit out through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t need your apology.’ She pulled away, not strong enough to be hurt once again.

  ‘I love you, Maggie!’ Bobby bellowed, grinding her to a halt. Maggie turned to face him, stunned at what she was hearing. He took a step towards her, but she held her hand up, wordlessly telling him to stay put.

  ‘You’re the love of my life, Maggie.’

  Maggie let out an acerbic laugh. ‘Now you tell me this? When your wife has just given birth to your child?’

  But Bobby wasn’t deterred. ‘I knew the night I met you at Kardomah, then again when I saw you at The Vinyl Room. I knew the night you knocked on my door and I knew five minutes ago when I walked into that elevator.’

  Maggie felt her heart clench. There was a time when Bobby’s love was all she’d wanted. But so much had happened and neither one of them was who they’d been five years ago.

  ‘Maggie?’ Bobby asked nervously when she remained silent. ‘Say something.’

  She knew there was only one thing left to say.

  ‘It’s too late.’

  And with that, she turned away, her vision blurred by tears as she bolted across the street, and so consumed with her grief that she didn’t see, nor did she hear the truck coming. Not until the very last second, and even then she didn’t have a chance to think, because all there was left had faded to black.

  Thirty-four

  Rosie

  September 1991

  It wasn’t much, but it was after all these years more than something. Mike had called her late the night before to let her know that Maggie had read the letter and had agreed to meet. After years of keeping an eye on her daughter and granddaughter from afar, Rosie was about to be reunited with them.

  The letter she’d written Maggie contained secrets that she should’ve told her daughter many years ago. She told her about Tom, Jimmy and, of course, all about her father, Jack. But there was more. So much more, and she was so eager to meet Brianna and talk to Maggie and tell her in person.

  It was arranged that after Maggie finished work, she would make her way to Rosie’s and then Mike would bring Brianna.

  Rosie was a bundle of nerves, barely sleeping the night before. She had, in anticipation for the meeting, brought home an assortment of cakes from Albi & Ruby’s—the new café she’d opened in Rose Bay. She had a habit of naming her cafés after people who had helped her along the way, even if they were no longer in her life.

  As she filled the coffee pot she wondered how the Di Norros were. She knew they had moved to Haberfield and opened another café. Perhaps it was time that she reconnected with them. She also wondered where Floss was. They’d lost touch after Rosie had moved away. At first Mary would call, but then the calls became few and far between, until one day there were no calls at all.

  The shrill of the phone snapped her out of the past.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Rosie, it’s Mike.’

  There was something in his tone that sparked alarm. ‘Mike? What’s wrong? Did Maggie change her mind?’

  There was a pregnant pause before Mike swore softly, emotion clogging his voice. ‘Rosie, I’m so sorry …’

  And the words he uttered next turned her blood to ice.

  * * *

  They say the greatest pain is losing a child. But Rosie Hart knew this not to be entirely true. She had buried one child and now she was about to bury another.

  First Jimmy, and now Maggie.

  Jimmy …

  Thinking of him all these years later, it made her heart ache. It was because of Jimmy that she had been so careful with Maggie. It was a vow she’d made when Maggie was first placed in her arms.

  But from the very beginning, it was clear that Maggie was nothing like her brother. Where Jimmy had been quiet, Maggie was loud. Rosie had been relatively young when she’d had her first child, and yes, she’d had her mother, but Jimmy was an easy baby. Maggie, on the other hand, was not. Rosie swore her wails were twice the decibel levels of other newborns. And she never slept. Never.

  Colic, her doctor had declared, then promptly written out a prescription and sent her off. The medication transformed Maggie from an unsettled child to a sleeping angel. The first night that her daughter slept through, Rosie was in such disbelief and so used to not sleeping that she watched her sleep, half expecting that she would wake at any second. But Maggie slept through that night, then every other night.

  It was a miracle, and at times, when Maggie was sleeping soundly, it was as if Jimmy was sent back to her, but as soon as Maggie would open her eyes, all resemblance would fade away.

  Maggie wasn’t Jimmy, and as she grew her daughter would prove time and time again that she was nothing like her brother.

  When Maggie was five, Rosie was called into the office of the infant department’s headmistress. Mrs Caldwell was a short and stout older woman who wore her hair in a tightly wound bun. She also had been Jimmy’s kindergarten teacher some years before, and even then her method of dress and hairstyle had been the same.

  ‘Maggie is a wilful child, nothing at all like what her brother was.’

  Rosie immediately despised Mrs Caldwell’s comparison. When she had been Jimmy’s teacher, she had thought of her as a firm but fair woman. Rosie was beginning to rethink her assessment.

  ‘She is certainly spirited.’

  Mrs Caldwell arched a brow in reply. ‘Perhaps that spirit would be better suited not punching other children. I can’t ever recall Jimmy hurting a fly, let alone socking another pupil.’

  There it was again—the comparison to Jimmy.

  That night, as she placed Maggie to sleep in what used to be Jimmy’s bed, she made a decision. She needed to get out of Kings Cross. As long as she stayed where she was, they would be reminded constantly of Jimmy and Jack. Maggie’s emerald-green eyes were enough of a perpetual reminder. She hated that every time she looked at her daughter, a stab would pierce her heart.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Mary asked when Rosie revealed her plans. They were sitting in the very same booth that Jack had placed her in all those years ago when she hurt her ankle.

  Rosie and Mary had both come a long way since those early days and she couldn’t help but think just how proud Dulcie would’ve been of the businesswoman Mary had become. She had given up the management of Rosie’s House to Mary and watched it continue to flourish. She would miss her, and Floss, too. She hadn’t told Floss yet, and she was expecting Floss would try to talk her out of it, but she knew what needed to be done.

  Rosie wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and looked around the diner. Jack’s diner that was now hers, and one day it would be Maggie’s.

  One day, Maggie would be old enough to realise the link between her name and the diner. Since starting school, she was beginning to ask questions about her father. Up till now, Rosie was easily able to deflect questions about Jack. When the time was right, when she was strong enough, she would tell Maggie about him, and Jimmy, too, but not just yet.

  And now it was too late to tell Maggie all a
bout Jack and Jimmy.

  On the first day of spring, she walked into St Patrick’s holding the hand of a little girl, her granddaughter, whom she had met two days before. Brianna was all that she had left.

  When the phone call came from Mike, telling her Maggie had died, she thought it was a joke.

  ‘You’re her next of kin. They need you to come identify her body.’

  When she arrived at the hospital, she was not only greeted by a distraught-looking Mike, but a little girl with golden hair like her mother and eyes that were as blue as the sky on a cloudless day.

  ‘This is Brianna,’ Mike said. ‘She’s Maggie’s daughter.’

  Rosie stared, speechless, at the little girl who seemed oblivious to the grief and pain around her.

  ‘Brianna, this is your grandma, say hi.’

  ‘Hello!’ Brianna waved. ‘You have curly hair like me.’ Her smile brought warmth to Rosie’s heart. Could it be possible that in pain there was hope?

  ‘Hello, Brianna, how old are you?’

  Brianna slowly counted four fingers and held them up proudly.

  ‘Wow, you’re a big girl. What’s that you have there?’ Rosie pointed to a toy camera she had slung around her neck. ‘Do you like taking photos?’

  Brianna shyly nodded.

  ‘Brianna is a budding photographer, aren’t you?’

  ‘Aha. Can I go and take photos while we wait for Mummy, Ike?’

  Rosie looked at Mike in surprise.

  ‘I haven’t told her,’ he whispered when Brianna was safely out of earshot.

  It had occurred to her that Brianna didn’t know, but that wasn’t what puzzled Rosie. ‘She called you Ike.’

  ‘Yeah, when she was little, she couldn’t say Mike, and although now she can, she still calls me Ike.’

  ‘Mike, are you Brianna’s father?’

  Rosie had never thought to clarify Brianna’s paternity, because when Mike told Rosie about Maggie’s pregnancy and that they were living together, she automatically had assumed that Mike was Brianna’s father. He spoke of his love for Maggie and Brianna so freely, but now, as her gaze flickered from him to the little girl and back again, she wasn’t so sure.