How to Be Second Best

by Jessica Dettmann

  What am I even doing here? Sure, he’s my kids’ dad, but really, I should be with them, not here, making his wife feel awkward and causing confusion among the staff.

  ‘Helen,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m still here. I should head off. Troy’s mum and dad will be here soon, won’t they? You guys won’t want me hanging around like a bad smell.’

  Helen pauses. ‘You can stay. If you want, I mean. God, I spend my life wishing you weren’t around so much.’ She gives a bitter laugh. ‘How ironic, that now I’d quite like your company. Troy’s mum’s had a panic attack and her doctor has given her something to make her sleep, so they’re not coming down any time soon. And I don’t really know who else to ask. It’s not the normal way to spend a Saturday afternoon, is it, hanging out waiting to see if your husband is going to live.’ Her voice cracks.

  ‘He’s going to live, Helen,’ I tell her in my surest voice — the one I bring out to reassure my children that the miniature plastic squirrel they can’t locate is definitely not lost forever.

  ‘What if he doesn’t? What am I going to do without him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  We sit in silence for a while longer, and just as I’m about to suggest I go find us some coffee — or green tea for Helen — the door opens.

  The woman who enters gives us one of those closed-mouth smiles that tells you absolutely nothing. I’m sure it’s the look she gives before she delivers all news to families. It could be the smile she does before bringing in her eyebrows like a sad-face clown and telling Helen she’s a widow. It could be the smile she gives before she tries to sound modest about unblocking a man’s heart and giving him back his life. I just have to wait and see, and the seconds are endless.

  ‘Hi,’ she says. ‘Who’s Helen?’

  Helen puts up her hand, like she’s in class.

  ‘Helen, I’m Dr Zerafa. I’m a consultant cardiologist. I’ve been treating your husband this afternoon.’

  ‘Hi,’ Helen whispers.

  ‘As you probably know, Troy has had what’s called an acute myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack. We have gone in and cleared the blockage that caused it, which was in the main artery that supplies the right side of his heart.’

  ‘Gone in?’ says Helen. ‘Like, you cut open his chest?’ She’s very pale.

  ‘No,’ says Dr Zerafa, ‘we were able to avoid that. We did what’s called angioplasty, which is where we go in through the groin and send a catheter up the artery. Then we used a balloon to widen the artery near the blockage, and once we removed the clot that was stopping the blood from getting through, we put in a stent to keep the blood vessel open.’

  ‘So he’s all right?’ I say. ‘He’s going to be all right?’

  ‘Look, the procedure went well, and we’re hopeful that he’ll make a good recovery, but I understand from the paramedics there was some delay in getting a normal heart rhythm. What that means is that there’s a possibility his brain wasn’t getting oxygen for longer than we’d like. So until he wakes up, we won’t really be able to judge what effect that might have had.’

  ‘He might have brain damage?’ Helen says.

  ‘We’re going to keep him cool and sedated overnight in intensive care, and then tomorrow we’ll start weaning him off the sedative and see how he goes.’

  ‘Can I see him?’ Helen asks.

  ‘Just give them about fifteen minutes to settle him in the ICU, and then you’re fine to go up. Do you have any children, Helen?’

  ‘One. I have one. But he has three. I don’t want them to see him yet though. Is that all right? Is that the right thing to do? Or should they see him? They’re little.’

  ‘I’d probably hold off on bringing them in for now. The plan is to keep him very quiet. Let’s see how he is tomorrow.’

  ‘All right. Thank you.’

  ‘No worries,’ says the doctor. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Just head up to level seven in a bit, and ask the nurse on the desk which bed he’s in. I’ll see him again in the morning, unless there are any problems. Oh, and I understand Troy’s been under the care of Dr Lee recently, so although I’ll be his consultant while he’s here, once he’s out, Dr Lee will be the one to follow up with.’

  ‘What?’ says Helen. ‘Sorry, who is Dr Lee?’

  ‘His cardiologist,’ says Dr Zerafa. ‘The specialist he’s been seeing for his cardiac issues.’

  With that she gives us another all-purpose smile, this time with a distinct ‘chin-up’ hint to it, and leaves.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ says Helen, who looks miserable. ‘Is he all right? What cardiac issues? Why would he have brain damage? They got his heart started again so quickly, those ambulance guys, didn’t they?’ She leans her forearms on her thighs and hangs her head forward.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It was a few minutes after he collapsed. Maybe five? I’m not sure. And I don’t know how long his heart wasn’t going for. But that might have been long enough for the lack of oxygen to be a problem. There’s nothing we can do, Helen. We’ll wait until we see him. And then wait until they wake him up tomorrow.’

  Helen looks up. Her face is wet with tears. ‘Emma, I can’t lose him.’

  ‘You won’t,’ I say, although of course I know nothing of the sort. I have no idea how this is going to turn out.

  * * *

  At ten o’clock that night Helen’s parents arrive from Brisbane. I’ve never met them before. They seem very nice, worried about Troy, and Helen, and the kids, and even me.

  I’m not sure why, but I thought they’d hate me. I assumed they’d have heard from Helen what an interfering cow I’ve been since she and Troy got together. But while Helen brings her mum up to speed on Troy’s situation, her dad, John, offers to walk me down to the lobby and put me in a cab home.

  We stand awkwardly in the dark corridor, waiting for the lift.

  ‘It’s terrible that it takes something like this for us to meet,’ he says. ‘Helen’s told us a lot about you, and of course we’ve met your charming children, several times. It’s a funny family set-up you have, but I think you all make it work just marvellously.’

  ‘Helen must not have updated you recently,’ I tell him. ‘Things have gone a bit awry.’

  He chuckles. ‘Yes, she did say. And honestly, I thought to myself, good for Emma. It’s about time she stopped letting Helen and Troy take advantage of her.’

  The lift arrives and we get in. I press G.

  John waits for the doors to close, and then continues musing. ‘Of course I don’t know the whole situation, only what I hear from Hels, but it did seem to me that you’ve been really terrifically helpful to her for quite a long time, for not much reward. She must be some sort of saint, this Emma, I’ve thought at times. I mean, what’s in it for her? What’s she hoping to get out of this?’

  It strikes me as a slightly odd, the way he talks about Emma, like she’s a third person and not actually me, the person who is standing beside him right now in the lift. It also strikes me that this Emma person sounds like she needs her head read.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says, turning to me. ‘You’ve been very good to Helen and Lola, so thank you. I hope Helen wasn’t too rude. Sometimes she can be blunt when she’s cross.’

  ‘I think we’ve sorted things out now. And what matters at the moment is Troy.’

  ‘Yes indeed. Quite right,’ says John. ‘We must hope for a full and speedy recovery. For all his faults, a lot of people need Troy to stick around.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  When the taxi drops me off outside my house, it feels like I’ve come back to someone else’s life.

  I sort of remember this feeling from my travelling days in my twenties, the way everything that once was so familiar can feel foreign when you’ve been away from it for a while. It used to take a few months of backpacking, or at least a few weeks overseas for this to kick in. Not five nights. But then I suppose I’m out of practice at being anywhere but
here. Five nights away from my life now might as well have been a gap year.

  Inside, the house feels cold and empty. When there are no kids in a house that usually has kids, it feels like the life has been sucked out of it. I drop my bags in the hall and wander through to the living room. It’s very tidy. It wasn’t like this when I left on Monday. It was still in a severe state of post-camping. Dad must have sorted things out.

  It’s late. I should eat something. I think the last time I ate was on the plane this morning. But all I want to do is lie down.

  I make a cup of tea, and while the kettle comes to a boil I stand in front of the open fridge, willing something to leap into my mouth. Eventually I eat a couple of string cheese sticks and a Sao biscuit, and take my tea into the living room.

  A week ago I was drunk in a tent, fighting with a bush rat. A week? That cannot be right. It feels like a year ago. Even seeing Adam today at the Fun Run feels like it happened in the distant past.

  I don’t even recognise my life any more. My life is repetitive. Predictable. Boring. For years, all I’ve done is the shopping, cook the meals, work, play with the kids, take Lola where I’m told. I’m not even exaggerating. That’s all I do.

  But this new life? This life is full of emotional upheaval. Drama. Unpredictability. Excitement. Between what’s happened with Helen, Adam, Ilse, Wanda, Carmen, Philip, and now Troy, I can’t see a time when it will be normal again.

  It’s like life was ‘Hey Jude’ — pleasant, monotonous to the point of being only just bearable — and now it’s ‘Live and Let Die’, which feels like nineteen different songs squashed up against each other as if they’re on a train at peak hour. It’s thrilling and confusing and exhausting, with too many instruments and tempos and people playing trills on a piccolo when you least expect it.

  I miss my kids so much. Lying on the sofa, all I want is for them to run in and hurl their warm heaviness onto me, giggling, ‘Mummy, I’m a human blanket!’ It’s all I can do not to drive straight to Dad’s and climb into bed with them.

  And I miss Philip. That doesn’t make any sense. I barely know him. But I really wish he were here with me.

  The front gate screeches and my heart leaps. For a moment I’m sure it’s Philip. By the time I’ve processed the unlikeliness of that, I know who is at the door, because as always, Laura doesn’t bother waiting before she lets herself in.

  ‘Are you awake?’ she calls.

  ‘In here,’ I say.

  She sits down beside me and hugs me tightly. She doesn’t say anything. That’s not like her.

  Finally she pulls away and looks at me. ‘You all right, you big idiot?’

  ‘No,’ I tell her, and burst into tears.

  ‘Of course you’re not all right. What a fucker of a thing to happen. Poor old awful, stupid Troy. Poor Helen.’

  ‘I know. How can he be in intensive care? I just can’t get my head around it. He can’t die. My kids can’t grow up without a father. That’s not the deal.

  ‘And it’s not just Troy, Laura, it’s everything. I can’t get my head around anything. My life is a disaster. Adam’s wife, she was at the Fun Run, and the way she looked at me, I think she knows I slept with him and I can’t show my face at school ever again, I don’t think. I’ll have to sell the house and move to the other side of the city, and it will be exactly the same, except the kids won’t all be called Olivia and Isabella, they’ll be, like, Arlo and Enid and Esme, and I’ll be really far from you and from Dad.

  ‘Plus I think I’ve ruined my career. I went a bit weird and tried to tell Wanda how to write her book and I totally overstepped. She’s going to complain to Carmen, the publisher, and that will be it — no more work from them.’

  ‘Would that be such a bad thing?’ asks Laura. ‘You’re a bit over editing, as a job, aren’t you, really?’

  ‘No. Well, maybe a bit, yes. But what else am I going to do? That’s all I’ve ever done. I have no other skills, and now Troy’s going to leave me a single mother — like properly properly single. A widow. No, an ex-widow. There isn’t even a name for what I’ll be.’

  ‘Yes, by all means let’s focus on that,’ says Laura. ‘On what the correct term would be if something happens that probably isn’t going to. Anyway, bullshit, you do so have other skills, loads of them. We just need to find you something to channel those skills into. You’re very skilled at telling people how to live their lives — that’s a useful one. Also thinking you know best, again that’s highly sought after in many industries.’

  ‘Everything I know, I learned from you,’ I tell her.

  ‘Really though,’ Laura says, ‘I think you need a job where you aren’t supposed to be invisible. I think you’ve done enough invisible work.’

  ‘We shouldn’t be talking about my career now. What kind of monster does that when her kids’ father is lying in intensive care? He might be dead now. I might get a call any second.’

  ‘He won’t die,’ Laura says confidently. ‘You won’t get rid of him that easily. Troy will live a long and annoying life. People like him always do. You have many years ahead of you to discover more and more annoying things about him, that will make you thank your lucky stars Helen came along when she did.’

  I laugh so hard I snort.

  ‘Oh, and by the way,’ adds Laura. ‘Who the fuck is this Philip guy everyone’s suddenly obsessed with? The one who brought the kids over to Dad’s place? Dad’s very taken with him. Apparently he stayed and they hung out all afternoon.’

  That doesn’t surprise me.

  ‘That’s the other thing that’s messy,’ I explain to Laura. ‘I just got to know Philip this week, up at Wanda’s. He’s . . .’ How can I explain Philip? ‘He’s kind and handsome but he’s much older than me and he doesn’t even live in Australia — and I really think I might like him. And he seems to like me. But he has no idea the chaos he’d be letting himself in for.’

  In an entirely unprecedented move, Laura doesn’t raise an eyebrow or tease me. She fixes me with a stare. ‘Does he have a family? Where does he live?’

  ‘No,’ I tell her. ‘He’s from England, but he lives and travels all over the place for his job. He’s been married, but no kids. He didn’t get to say goodbye to me before he left Wanda’s place and he happened to be in Sydney, so he popped by to say he liked meeting me, and I think he asked me out. I mean, I’d mentioned how I had to get back on Saturday for the Fun Run, and he must have remembered that and realised he could find me there. Is that really weird? Creepy? It’s a bit stalkery, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ says Laura. ‘It’s slightly odd, but it’s thoughtful.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s even anything, Laura, so don’t go getting all excited.’

  ‘Who’s getting excited? I’m just pleased you have a friend who showed up out of the blue and helped you when something terrible happened.’

  ‘I like that too. That was unexpected. But I liked it a lot.’

  ‘Look, Emma, I know you better than anyone. And you’re right, going out with you would be no squirrel’s picnic. You’re all over the bloody place at the moment. But you’re wonderful — there’s nobody better, really — and if this Philip guy can see that, through all the ridiculous behaviour you’ve been exhibiting lately, then he sounds like someone worth keeping around.’

  Laura ends up sleeping over. She climbs in beside me in my bed, and it feels like we are little again. We did this after Mum died, and again after Troy left me. After I turn the light off, she reaches for my hand in the darkness and holds it until I fall asleep.

  * * *

  When I wake the next morning, it’s seven-thirty and Laura’s sprawled beside me, mouth open, snoring lightly. Two of her sons do rowing and the other is a competitive swimmer, so between their transport requirements and the needs of Bledisloe the World’s Worst Dog, Laura gets to sleep past five o’clock about one day a year.

  I hear the quiet opening of a car door outside, followed by an equally
hushed thunk as it closes.

  ‘Mum!’ yells a voice. ‘Can you bring out my goggles?’

  ‘Georgina!’ comes Julia’s voice in a furious whisper. ‘The whole street does not need to be woken up because you cannot be bothered to go inside and get your own goggles. For goodness sake.’

  I smile and stretch, and then suddenly yesterday comes back to me in a rush. Troy. Intensive care. Fuck.

  I grab my phone. There’s nothing from Helen. Just a message from Dad telling me to call when I’m ready for him to come round with the kids. I’m dying to see them, but I have to find out what’s happening at the hospital first.

  Slipping down the hall to the kitchen, so as not to wake Laura, I call Helen.

  ‘Emma,’ she says, picking up on the first ring. ‘Everything’s the same.’

  I breathe out. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Shall I come up?’

  ‘Do you mind? I think it would be good. The consultant has been and she says they’ll try bringing him out of sedation in another hour. I’ve sent my parents home.’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ I tell her. ‘Can I bring anything for you?’

  ‘No, I’m okay. Dad brought up clothes and a toothbrush last night. I’ll see you when you get here.’

  On my way to the hospital in a cab, I call my dad.

  ‘Em, love!’ he says. ‘I have someone here who needs to talk to you.’

  I hear a scuffling sound as he hands over the phone, then a small voice says, ‘Mumma?’

  ‘Hey, my Frey-Frey,’ I say. ‘It’s so nice to talk to you. I’ve missed you so much.’

  ‘Mumma, what scared Daddy?’

  ‘What do you mean, sweetie? Daddy isn’t scared. Didn’t Grandad explain? Daddy’s heart was a bit sick and it made him faint, and now he’s in the hospital while they give him some medicine.’

  ‘But he had a heart attack so what scared him?’

  The penny drops. Whenever we play hide and seek, if I pretend I can’t find Freya for long enough, eventually she leaps out and tries to scare me. And now that I think about it, when she does, I often say, ‘Oh! You gave me a heart attack.’