This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  I’m under eighteen. I’m not supposed to go in there, but now that they have twenty more machines they’ve expanded the saloon bar and added another entrance. The last time Nance asked me to find Dec he was there all right, but I lied and said I couldn’t find him. The time before that went badly—I got him home, but the fighting went on past midnight and Nance had to sleep in our room until Dec sobered up.

  But this is an emergency.

  I go outside and come back in through the new entrance. Bad move: the gaming-room manager is standing just inside, leaning on a machine.

  Eilish has been working here for about a year. She has a thing for Dec—he says she’s always hanging around when he’s on the machines, making eyes at him. Dec calls her Champ because she reserves his favourite machine. I call her Eyelashes for obvious reasons. Sometimes she sends Dec a text if someone else looks like they’re playing his machine too hard, or she switches it off and fakes maintenance if she has a hunch it might pay out. Dec says The Jewel of Arabia owes him a fucking fortune and Eilish has dibs on fifteen per cent if he ever hits the jackpot.

  Eilish has her back to me. From behind, she looks a bit like Nance.

  I slide past the ATM so I can see The Jewel: it’s reserved and the stool is on its front legs, leaning against the machine. The jackpot is over fourteen thousand.

  My phone jangles in my pocket.

  It’s a text from Nance. Have you found him?

  Not yet.

  ‘You can’t be in here.’

  Up close, Eyelashes is much older than Nance, but there’s still a resemblance.

  ‘I’m looking for Dec. Have you seen him?’

  ‘You’re his little brother, right?’ She smiles.

  I’m confused. ‘He’s not my brother. He’s my dad.’

  Now she seems confused.

  ‘The baby’s sick. We need to take him to the hospital.’

  Her expression changes. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Dec is your dad?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She digs her nails into my shoulder and steers me towards the door. ‘You can’t be in here,’ she says again. ‘I could lose my job.’

  ‘But was he here today? I need to find him.’

  ‘He was here, but clearly he isn’t now.’

  She seems angry about something. A bit green in the cheeks. After she shoves me through the automatic doors she strides back to The Jewel. I follow her, watching as she tips the stool onto four legs and stabs the Reserved button with her finger.

  ‘How much earlier?’ I say. ‘Like, hours or minutes?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Please.’

  She plants one hand on her hip and spins around to face

  me. ‘About an hour, I guess. What’s wrong with the baby?’

  ‘We don’t know yet.’ I turn to leave. ‘Thanks.’

  I can feel her staring after me as I wave my hands to open the doors. I suppose she’s surprised that I’m Dec’s son, not his brother—that lie could easily knock ten years off his age—but I’m not surprised at all. It’s not the first time he’s said that.

  Nance’s second text comes through just as I’m entering the front bar at the Rowley Park Tavern. I ignore it. Dec’s here—I’ve spotted him through the window—and there’s no point replying until I know whether he’ll come or he won’t.

  He’s leaning on the bar, watching a horse race on the big screen with the form guide spread in front of him. He slaps a ten-dollar note down. The guy behind the bar pulls a fresh pint and slides it across.

  I take a step closer. ‘Otis is sick.’

  I want to say I want you to come home or you need to come home but it’s always better to let him make up his own mind. I add a few degrees to help him decide.

  ‘His temp’s over forty. Nance is freaking out.’

  The bar guy reaches for the glass and says, ‘If you have to go I’ll tip it, mate. No charge.’

  Dec’s hand shoots out. He grabs the pint. His eyes slide to me and I can tell he’s pretty far gone. He must have lost big today.

  He taps the form guide. ‘Pick a nag in the next one, Nate. Change my luck.’

  ‘But O’s really sick.’

  ‘O’s always sick.’

  The bar guy pulls his arm back. He’s no match for Dec, and he knows it. All the rules about having the right to refuse service don’t mean jack unless you’re tough enough to enforce them, and Dec knows it too.

  ‘Race Nineteen,’ he says, and taps the paper again. ‘Anything but the roughie.’

  ‘What’s the roughie?’

  ‘Long odds.’ He points to the screen. ‘Win big. Lose big. The last roll of the dice. Nobody bets on the roughie unless they’re playing get-out stakes.’

  I check my phone. I’ve been gone nearly half an hour. If I beg and he refuses, I am less and he is more. ‘If I pick one will you come?’ It’s a fair trade.

  He hands me a twenty and swallows half his beer. ‘He’ll be right.’

  Who’ll be right?

  ‘Capernicus Rex,’ I say.

  Dec shakes his head. ‘Gelding. Got no knackers.’

  ‘Mystique.’

  ‘Filly. Too green. Likes the wet.’

  In desperation, I pick the horse with the dumbest name. ‘Boogie.’

  Dec places the bet. He hands over the twenty like it’s nothing. Doesn’t matter how hammered he is, he always knows how much money is in his pocket or hidden around the flat. He tests me. He tests my honesty, my loyalty, my bravery, my commitment, my toughness, and he’s always waiting to catch me out, for me to let him down.

  ‘How long until the race?’

  He doesn’t answer. He’s leaning on the bar with his head on his arms, eyes half-closed.

  The bar guy pours a schooner of Coke and puts it in front of me. ‘Freebie.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  So now me and bar guy are watching the screen as the race starts. Dec’s snoozing. The caller says Boogie is fractious in the gate and I don’t know what that means but it doesn’t sound good. The gates fly open. Mystique gets a clean start. Boogie misses the jump.

  ‘He’s missed it,’ the bar guy says, but quietly.

  ‘We could cancel the bet.’

  ‘You can’t. It’s too late.’

  I scull the Coke. Boogie is still about fifteen metres behind the second-last horse and the jockey is swinging the crop in ever-faster circles, but there’s no closing that gap. Mystique wins and the horse with no knackers comes third. The caller says Boogie is knocked up.

  The bar guy says, ‘Sorry, mate.’

  I can tell by his slow breathing: Dec has passed out. His wallet is still on the bar next to him. I pick it up and check the note section: it’s empty. I reach out to touch Dec’s shoulder, but bar guy is watching me with a look in his eyes that matches the feeling in my stomach. He shakes his head.

  A piece of me agrees with Dec—Otis gets sick all the time and Nance has a tendency to overreact. Another piece is so epically tired of everything, and I’d probably feel better if I walked out and kept walking in the opposite direction until the hard part was over. Still another piece—and it’s a tiny one—wonders what would happen if I toughened up and poked the sleeping bear. But if I wake Dec and try to drag him home it will end badly for everyone, including the bar guy, who I want to punch right now because he’s the adult and the law has his back—he can refuse service and kick Dec out, or call the police if he needs to.

  But maybe we’re not so different. He’s just scared, like me.

  Bar guy opens his wallet and takes out a twenty-dollar note. He winks at me and slides it under Dec’s empty pint glass.

  ‘When he wakes up I’ll tell him he broke even.’

  He waits for me to thank him.

  When I get back to the flat, Jake has left the hose running outside. I turn it off.

  He’s sitting on the floor in the kitchen, covered in mud, eating a biscuit. The water’s running i
n the bathroom, too. Someone is crying, but I don’t want to go in there in case I embarrass Nance if she hasn’t got any clothes on.

  ‘O’s sick,’ Jake says, spitting crumbs.

  ‘Yeah. I know, mate. Is he having a bath?’

  ‘O won’t wake up. Can I go outside?’

  My skin prickles. It’s Nance crying, not Otis.

  I’ve got the same feeling I had after Mim was attacked and the day I met Mum in the cafe—as if something irreversible is happening and life will never be the same. If I open that door, everything changes.

  So I hold off for as long as I can.

  I pour Jake a drink and hand it to him. More water. Thousands of litres, pouring down the drain and the gutters, wasted. The next bill will finish us. Worry, worry, worry.

  I sit next to Jake on the floor. I hang on to normal.

  It takes no more than a few minutes, but it feels like a lifetime—I realise I always think everything is about to change and I’m always wrong. It doesn’t. It goes back. Stuff happens and things goes back to the way they were. Somehow that’s worse.

  ‘Go outside,’ I tell Jake. ‘Play with the hose.’

  I wait until he’s gone and knock on the bathroom door. My heart is in my throat. There’s no answer, so I hit it with the palm of my hand. ‘Nance?’

  ‘Dec!’

  ‘It’s me. It’s Nate.’

  The door’s unlocked. I open it.

  Nance is standing under the shower, fully clothed, O draped over her shoulder. His face is bright red and he looks stiff, like he’s frozen solid. His mouth and lips are blue.

  Nance’s teeth are chattering. ‘He was too hot. I had to cool him down.’

  I step forward and put my hand under the water. Freezing. I try to take O from her but she tightens her grip.

  ‘Nance.’ I tug her arm. ‘He’s not hot anymore.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Nance. Let me take him. You need to call an ambulance now.’ My voice is steady, but I’m terrified. I’m terrified she’ll hand his tiny, slippery body to me and I won’t know what to do next.

  ‘Did you find Dec?’

  ‘Dec isn’t coming,’ I say.

  ‘He’ll come.’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘He’ll come.’

  ‘Nance, let go.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  We’re at the Women’s and Children’s. I don’t know why people say they hate hospitals—what’s to hate about state of the art machines and beeps that tell you your brother is alive and being cared for by no-bullshit people who know what to do? Do this, do that. Keep calm. Make rational decisions. Cool hands on his forehead, steady fingers on his wrist. Cleverness. Kindness. A nurse bought Jake hot chocolate from the machine down the hall.

  Jake has curled up with a board book on a giant cushion on the floor.

  Otis is sleeping. How he can do that with bright lights overhead and tubes up his nose, I don’t know. His oxygen levels are pretty much back to normal but the doctor said his body is tired. He had a febrile convulsion, which is a kind of seizure. They’re fairly common and usually harmless, except Nance cooled him too rapidly—the seizure intensified and lasted longer than it should have.

  I’m thinking about the emergency operator’s voice on the phone. She told me to check that Otis was breathing. He was. She told me to dry him gently and keep him warm, which sounded all wrong but it was the right thing to do. She said I was doing a great job and that O would be fine and he is. I wish I knew her name.

  I’m picturing the paramedics in their green suits and boots, the way they gave all their attention to O, paid none to the smell of the flat and the mess on the floor or the stain on the ceiling.

  I fucking love these people.

  My body feels light. The worry has left. I wonder if Nance feels the same way, but she just looks stunned. Like me, she keeps thanking everyone who comes in the room, as if she doesn’t know any other words.

  A nurse checks O again.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say when she leaves.

  I could stay here forever, eating food from a vending machine and watching the minute hand on the clock ticking around and not caring about what comes next.

  Nance starts talking, slow and slurring, like she’s in a dream state. ‘The doctors are going to refer O to a specialist. They said they might be able to help him with his growth and motor skills.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘It’ll be expensive.’

  ‘Nothing good is free.’

  ‘Free,’ she repeats, like a robot. ‘You told me about something you read once. Do you remember? They took two kids—one was brought up in a loving home, and the other one wasn’t—and they measured the growth of their brains over a couple of years. The one who didn’t grow up feeling loved, his brain was almost third smaller than the other kid’s.’

  I remember. It wasn’t that the boy with the smaller brain was stupid, though. He was smart, but there were all these rooms in his mind that were locked to him. Like, he could only travel one way along a dark corridor, because he was following a pattern of restricted behaviour. He hadn’t been shown that those doors were meant to open.

  It bothers me that Nance is bringing up some dumb article I talked about ages ago, and now she’s trying to make it about our family. You can make just about any theory fit if you’re that desperate for answers.

  I offer to get her a coffee but she doesn’t answer.

  ‘I should have done more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ How could Nance have done more? ‘You have to stop worrying. There’s nothing you could have done to change what happened to O.’

  ‘What if O is less because I loved him less. I don’t mean now—I mean when he was born. He needed me too much. And then he stopped needing me and I loved him more, but what if it was too late?’

  She means Dec—Dec loves O less—but she won’t say it aloud.

  I repeat what the doctors said when O was born. ‘Nobody is to blame.’

  But I can’t help thinking of all the times we say Jake took a piece of Otis. It’s family folklore by now. How has that affected Jake? And I worry it could be true—if the world thinks you are less, and treats you like you’re less, it’s a tiny brain and locked doors for you regardless of what you could have been. Potential is nothing without options.

  Fuck potential. I’ll settle for not being afraid anymore.

  —

  Dec and Nance are fighting again. I don’t mean they’re yelling—it’s more of a low buzz, like the sound powerlines make when there’s a storm coming. I’ve tried to fall asleep, but it’s impossible.

  Jake is crashed out on the bottom bunk, nestled around an empty space because Otis isn’t there. When I came to bed, Nance had a bag ready by the door. It was a small bag, so I assumed she was going back to the hospital, but then Dec came home and the fight started.

  Nance is pleading now, and her voice is getting louder.

  I press my ear to the wall. Maybe tonight Nance will win.

  She’s saying Dec needs to stay home, stop gambling, drink less, get rid of the plants, give me back my bedroom, be around for the kids, get a real job, treat her with respect, be more, more, more.

  It’s too much.

  Dec punches the wall separating our bedroom from the lounge; pieces of paint flake from the ceiling and land on my face. The deadbolts on the front door slide back. By the sound of it, he’s going out again.

  Nance sticks to the rules and locks the door. Chick-chick. Quiet. A low thunk as she throws herself into the couch and curls up in a ball, sobbing as quietly as she can so she doesn’t wake us.

  I don’t need to see what’s happening to know what’s happening. It’s all in the playbook.

  I was supposed to be grateful that Dec stayed when Mum left. Dec never goes far and he always comes back. But the fact that he leaves us every day is somehow worse.

  I pick up my notebook. It’s all there—how things co
uld be.

  Man up. Man the fuck up.

  Dream—Goal—Plan—Action—Reality.

  Before school, I go to administration. Just walking up the ramp and pushing through the doors turns on all my defence mechanisms and makes my guts queasy. I can’t recall a single positive experience I’ve had in this building. Like so many instinctive responses, it’s hardwired, but I’m trying to be optimistic.

  Mrs Gough takes her time looking up. Maybe her experiences haven’t been so great either.

  ‘Nate? What can I do for you?’

  I realise every time I’ve been here, it was to ask for something. I hand her the envelope.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s nothing. I wondered if you could pass it on to everyone who helped pay that school account. You know, for the stationery.’

  She shakes the envelope. ‘There’s money in here?’

  ‘Not much. Just enough to cover the notebooks you gave me a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Do you need more?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Can I open it?’ She’s already sliding her fingernail underneath the opening.

  ‘Later, okay?’ I blush.

  It’s a cheap, ugly thankyou card. It’s embarrassing, really. It’s not enough.

  ‘Oh.’ She seems to be having trouble catching her breath. She presses her palm to her chest.

  ‘I just wanted to say thank you. Could you pass it on?’

  ‘I will,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And could you give this one to Miss DeVries?’ I try to hand her the second envelope but she ignores it.

  ‘She’s still here. I’ll check.’ She heads down the hall, clearing her throat a number of times along the way. ‘She says come on in.’

  ‘Look, could you just give this to—’

  ‘Gratitude is best delivered in person, Nate,’ she says, smiling.

  ‘Oh, it’s not—’ I sigh. ‘Okay.’

  When I enter, Miss DeVries is eating a tub of salad.

  ‘Please excuse me.’ She holds her hand over her mouth until she’s finished chewing. ‘Take a seat. Any news about Connor?’

  I sit. ‘I think he’ll come back.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. Soon. When he’s ready.’

  ‘Well.’ She snaps a lid on the tub. ‘I only hope that’s not too late.’