Brumby's Run

by Jennifer Scoullar

  ‘When someone has CML, the bone marrow produces too many white blood cells. They interfere with normal blood production and cause anaemia, bleeding and bruising, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Can’t you do something for her?’ asked Sam. She wanted to say Charlie instead of her, but she couldn’t find the courage. To say her was horrible. She was ashamed to refer to her sister like that.

  ‘Your sister is in what we call the accelerated phase of the illness. She’s had the standard treatments, but nothing has worked. It’s unfortunate she wasn’t diagnosed earlier, but her family live in quite a remote regional area. Her symptoms weren’t recognised until they became debilitating, and by then the disease was advanced.’

  ‘Is she going to die?’ asked Sam. Her phone rang suddenly. Faith’s number. Sam turned the phone off mid-ring.

  ‘We’re a long way from that point,’ said Professor Sung. ‘But I’ll explain a little more after you’ve seen your sister.’ He stood and Sam did likewise, following him back to the lounge room. Mary was clutching her arms nervously, pacing back and forth.

  ‘I’m going to duck out for a cigarette,’ she said.

  Sam was aghast. ‘Aren’t you coming too?’

  Mary shook her head. ‘Charlie might want to see you by herself, just to start with. I’ll be back in jiffy.’ Before Sam could protest, she hurried off to the lift.

  ‘I’m afraid Mary can barely last twenty minutes between smokes,’ said Professor Sung. ‘The stress of Charlie’s illness doesn’t help.’ Sam didn’t know anybody who smoked cigarettes. Such a stupid thing to do. She felt a sudden burst of anger. It was inconceivable that she was related to that woman. Maybe they had it all wrong. Maybe she shouldn’t even be here.

  As they walked down the corridor, Professor Sung asked a lot of questions about Sam’s health. ‘Your sister’s ANC count is very low, so it’s important that you don’t have a cold, or anything like that. She’s highly vulnerable to infection right now.’ Sam nodded, wondering what he was talking about.

  ‘ANC count?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolute neutrophil count,’ he said. ‘An estimate of a person’s infection-fighting white blood cells.’ They walked into a ward and stopped at the nurse’s station. A middle-aged woman looked up from her notes and did a double-take. She looked from Sam’s face to the doctor’s, and back to Sam.

  ‘Oh my Lord,’ she said. ‘Charlie’s sister.’

  ‘Do I look like her, then?’ asked Sam, excitement mounting in her chest.

  ‘That you do, dear. That you do. I’m Colleen.’

  ‘This is Samantha,’ said Professor Sung. ‘Could you fix her up with a mask and gown, please?’ Colleen took Sam’s temperature and asked her to wash her hands. After she’d finished, Sam donned a disposable gown, popped on a mask, and followed the professor into a nearby hospital room.

  There was a window, a steel hospital bed, and a figure on the bed. That must be her sister … that must be Charlie. No matter what happened next, her sister would never be just she or her again. Sam held her breath as she approached, barely daring to believe she was in the same room as her sister. Tubes sprang from Charlie’s chest and left arm, attached to a dangerous-looking silver machine. It loomed beside the bed, like a dalek out of Doctor Who. Charlie’s eyes were closed and she was motionless.

  ‘What does that machine do?’ asked Sam. She didn’t know why she was whispering.

  ‘That’s a leukapheresis machine, filtering out abnormal white blood cells.’ The doctor observed her concerned expression. ‘It’s quite painless.’

  A soft-toy frog sat on Charlie’s bedside table. It was emerald green – or Kermit green. There were more frogs on the windowsill, some in ziplock plastic bags. Ceramic frogs, plush frogs, wooden frogs. Sam dared to focus on the figure in the bed. Charlie wore faded Chinese pyjamas and a scarlet headscarf. A beautiful scarf, vibrant and out of place in the functional sterility of the hospital room. Charlie’s eyes opened suddenly and she reached for a remote control, turning off the tiny television mounted on a swinging arm above the bed.

  Sam got her first good look at her sister. Why did Colleen say that they looked alike? There wasn’t much of a similarity, was there? Maybe Sam couldn’t see past Charlie’s gaunt eyes and sunken cheeks. Maybe she just didn’t want to. It was frightening to imagine herself looking that sick. Then Charlie smiled and the resemblance was plain.

  ‘Take off your mask,’ said Charlie. ‘Just for a minute, so I can see you.’ Sam looked at Professor Sung, who nodded. Sam slipped the mask off. ‘You’re Samantha,’ said Charlie. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and started to sit up.

  ‘Whoa there,’ said Professor Sung. ‘Not so fast.’

  Sam hurried over and instinctively reached for her sister’s back. It was strange being so close to Charlie – like looking into a magic mirror in which your reflection had a mind of its own.

  ‘This is the coolest thing,’ said Charlie. She was frail, but her voice sounded strong. ‘I’ve been dying to meet you all my life.’

  ‘You knew about me?’

  Charlie nodded. ‘I’ve been wanting to find you for years, but Mum said that wasn’t right. She said that it was your decision to make.’

  Sam smiled bitterly. Her decision. Except that Sam had never even heard of Charlie. At least Mary had had the decency to be honest with her daughter. Her mother had taken it upon herself to erase Sam’s entire history. She was sure that it was only Charlie’s illness that had made Faith relent. Otherwise she may have never learned the truth. ‘My mother didn’t tell me about you. I didn’t even know I was adopted. If I’d known …’ There was no way to finish the sentence. This was all too new, too much.

  ‘That sucks. We could have had so much fun tricking people. Nobody would have been able to tell us apart,’ said Charlie. Sam was unconvinced and it must have showed. ‘I haven’t always looked this ill,’ Charlie said indignantly. She took a photo out of her bedside drawer and handed it to Sam. Sam shook her head in disbelief. It was a photo of herself, dressed in jeans and a checked shirt. She was riding a horse she didn’t recognise, a compact bay with a baldy face. The most amazing thing of all was what she was doing. She was chasing a cow.

  ‘That can’t be me,’ said Sam, confused. ‘I’ve never even seen that horse, or those clothes … or that cow.’

  Charlie laughed, a healthy belly laugh that suited her wide smile but not her skinny frame. ‘You’re right, it’s not you. It’s me last year, before I got sick.’ She pulled a few more photos from the drawer – school ones, childhood ones, more on horseback. Sam stared in disbelief at the images. ‘We look the same; exactly the same.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Professor Sung. ‘You may not have immediately recognised the resemblance, partly because Charlie is so unwell, but partly because it is sometimes difficult for us to see ourselves as others see us. But trust me, the likeness is striking … and I hope it can be more than that. I hope it can be lifesaving.’ He took Sam’s hand in his. ‘Charlie’s very best hope of a complete cure is to receive a syngenetic stem-cell transplant. That’s a transplant from an identical twin. Very few people have such an option.’ He patted her hand gently.

  Sam slowly took in his words and their significance. She turned back to her sister and saw Charlie’s brown eyes, so much like her own, so full of hope.

  ‘Perhaps we could talk a little more outside?’ said Professor Sung.

  She couldn’t leave yet! She’d just got there and had so many questions, so much she wanted to ask Charlie. But Professor Sung was insistent. ‘You two can catch up again later’ – and with that he whisked her out the door.

  Samantha sat next to Mary in a small room off the ward. Professor Sung sat opposite. ‘Would you like me to explain things, Mary?’

  ‘Would you?’ said Mary. ‘I don’t have the words.’

  Professor Sung gave her a brief smile and led Sam to another room. ‘As I said, Samantha, Charlie’s best hope of recovery is a stem
-cell transplant from a close relative. We’ve already tested your mother. Not a good match, I’m afraid.’

  For a moment, Sam thought he meant Faith, and wondered why she would have consented to such a thing. Faith wasn’t renowned for her charitable nature. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, could you stop calling Mary Kelly my mother? It’s disconcerting. My mother is Faith Carmichael.’

  Professor Sung held up his right hand, like he was going to swear on the Bible. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And if Mary isn’t a match, what about me? I could be one, couldn’t I?’

  Professor Sung gave her a pleased smile. ‘You could be, Samantha. You could be a very good match indeed. Would you be willing to undergo some medical checks?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ said Sam. She wasn’t about to forgo her lost sister just when she’d found her. ‘Ready when you are.’

  ‘Terrific,’ said the doctor, smiling. They went back to the original waiting room. ‘Mary, Samantha wants to be tissue typed as a match for Charlie.’

  Mary put a hand over her mouth. Her eyes grew large, creasing her forehead like corrugated cardboard. ‘You’re an angel.’ She moved to embrace her. Sam moved back and dodged the woman’s outstretched arms.

  ‘I may not be suitable,’ said Sam.

  ‘We’re about to find that out,’ said the doctor.

  Sam spent the rest of the afternoon undergoing a battery of tests. She replayed the scene in Charlie’s hospital room over and over again. She hadn’t even said hello, or goodbye. She hadn’t asked Charlie how she was. She hadn’t hugged her or said what a miracle it was to meet her. She’d made a complete hash of it. The desire to see her sister again grew hot and insistent. When the final test was complete, Sam hurried back to the oncology ward, terrified that Charlie might die before she could talk to her properly. Colleen way-laid her with a gown and mask before she rushed into the room.

  Charlie was sitting up, and the dalek was gone. She wore a different headscarf – emerald green this time. It perfectly matched her stuffed-toy frog. ‘Hello, Charlie,’ said Sam. She walked over to the bed and pulled up a chair. It was good to see her sister alone, and without the tubes tying her to the silver machine. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Not too bad,’ said Charlie, with that sunny smile again. How could she look so happy? ‘I’m freezing and there’s an awful tingling feeling in my mouth, but it’s not too bad. How are you, Samantha?’ It was an oddly formal question.

  ‘People call me Sam.’

  ‘Right. Sam. How does it feel, to know you’ve got a sister?’ Charlie looked suddenly unsure. ‘Are you okay with that?’

  What a question. ‘I’m thrilled,’ said Sam. ‘I always wanted a sister.’ Charlie’s expression remained unchanged. ‘I’m not just saying that. I wanted one so much. It was like … like I should have had a sister.’ Yes, that’s how it was. Faith had said how lucky Sam was that she didn’t have to share anything, when all she really wanted to do was to share something. And she’d never really talked to Dad about it. How could she? Even before he moved to Dubai for his diplomatic posting, he was never home, and when he was, he was busy. So her desire for a sister had become a private wish, unexpressed though fervent, something to dream about.

  ‘We always thought you knew,’ said Charlie. ‘That was the deal when the Carmichaels took you. Mum said they were supposed to tell you.’ Charlie swallowed hard and looked lost. ‘They were supposed to tell you about us.’

  Up until then, it hadn’t occurred to Sam that her father was also complicit in the deception. Everybody she was supposed to trust had betrayed her.

  ‘Well, they didn’t.’ Sam looked away, trying not to cry. ‘Can you tell me about your life?’ she said, to change the subject. ‘If you feel up to it?’

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question.’

  ‘I asked first,’ said Sam. ‘Who’s the horse in the photo, for starters?’

  ‘That’s Tambo,’ said Charlie. ‘I broke him in myself, when they ran in the brumbies. He’s one of the best campdraft horses in the district.’

  ‘He’s a brumby?’ Sam looked at the photo again. ‘He’s beautiful.’

  ‘There are lots of beautiful brumbies,’ said Charlie. ‘People don’t realise how good they are.’

  ‘I’ve got a horse too,’ said Sam. ‘Pharaoh. A five-year-old Warm-blood gelding. We do dressage.’

  ‘Dressage?’ said Charlie. ‘Now that really is some fancy riding. People say twins have a connection. Maybe with us it’s horses.’

  Maybe. It was unlikely, though, that horses had played as central a role in Charlie’s life – or in anybody else’s life, for that matter – as they had in hers. Horses had rescued her from a lonely childhood, a smothering mother, an absent father; they had been her sanctuary and her ticket to freedom. Anything worth knowing, she’d learned from the back of a horse.

  Colleen came into the room. ‘Time for your shower, Charlie,’ she said. ‘And it’s time for you to go, Samantha. I expect we’ll see you tomorrow then?’

  Tomorrow? Sam nodded. Tomorrow and every day after that. Nothing mattered more than Charlie. Charlie reached for her hand and squeezed it. ‘Will you really come tomorrow?’ she asked.

  Sam leaned down and kissed her sister’s drawn cheek. ‘Just try to stop me.’ It was a wrench to leave the room. Sam hurried to the lift, faint with emotion. Mary was a little way down the corridor, waving madly. Sam didn’t acknowledge her. Instead she slipped down the stairs, taking them two steps at a time, before escaping from the hospital into the rain-drenched afternoon.

  Chapter Three

  How to make her mother understand? ‘Even if I’m a perfect match,’ said Sam, ‘and even if Charlie recovers quickly, she’s still going to be in hospital for weeks, maybe months. I can’t go anywhere for a while.’ Didn’t Faith realise how important it was for Sam to spend time with Charlie?

  ‘But I’ve already bought the tickets,’ said Faith, ‘and arranged the itinerary. Dad’s going to meet us there.’ Sam shook her head. ‘But you love France, and your grandmother is expecting you.’ She gave Sam a particularly intense look. ‘She’s eighty this year … it may be the last time.’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ said Sam. ‘Mamie will outlive us all. You know I love France, and of course I’d love to see Dad too – but I can’t go now.’

  ‘You’re punishing me for protecting you,’ said Faith. Sam struggled against a rising tide of resentment. ‘I had your best interests at heart, darling.’

  ‘Maybe you thought you were protecting me, but you weren’t. You were lying to me, that’s all. You and Dad.’ Sam had spoken to her father on the phone earlier in the evening. What she’d hoped for was a proper apology, and some attempt to explain why he’d made a lie of her life. What she got instead was a flat denial of her right even to know. She’d have preferred excuses. It would have been easier if it didn’t get out, he’d said, as if that was that. And this whole debacle proves my point. Easier for who? This is about me, not you, Dad, she’d tried to say. If he’d had his way, she’d probably still be in the dark, dying sister or not. She had to give Faith some credit. At least she’d found courage enough to do the right thing in the end.

  ‘I knew this would happen,’ said Faith. ‘I knew I’d lose you some day.’

  ‘You’re not losing me, Mum. I love you, and I’m your daughter, no matter what. I just can’t go to Europe right now, that’s all. There’s nothing to stop you from going.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ said Faith in an injured voice. ‘Don’t you go falling for this Mary woman. Remember I’m the one who’s loved you all these years.’ There was an undercurrent of real anxiety in her voice.

  Sam blinked back the start of tears. ‘I won’t fall for Mary. I don’t know if I even like her. But I have to be around to help Charlie recover – and I want to get to know her. It’s about time, don’t you think?’

  Faith eyed Sam suspiciously. It had been an emotional morning for them both. Sam had demanded answers
, and for once she’d had Faith well and truly on the back foot. Endometriosis, her mother had said. Nobody could imagine how she’d suffered. And a diagnosis of premature ovarian failure at thirty-two. ‘You were the answer to all my prayers, Samantha. Daddy’s too.’ She poured herself a glass of shiraz, and wrinkled up her face, like the wine wasn’t good enough, but then nothing was ever good enough for Faith. ‘I loved you from the very first moment,’ Faith said simply. ‘I had no idea, actually, that I could love somebody like that.’ She took a sip. ‘And now you stab me in the heart.’

  Sam sighed, frustration and sadness clouding her mind. It was too much to expect, apparently, for her parents to see that this wasn’t about them. ‘Mum, you know that’s not fair. I’m going to bed,’ said Sam, ‘and I’m going to the hospital first thing in the morning. And I’m not going to France.’ She tried to make it to the stairs before her mother could play the victim again.

  ‘Fine,’ called Faith, raising her voice and following Sam from the room. ‘Do as you please.’

  Chapter Four

  They were a match. Genetically identical. Sam sat quite still as Professor Sung told her the marvellous news.

  He handed her an information leaflet. ‘HLA stands for human leukocyte antigen,’ he said. ‘It’s a marker the immune system uses to recognise which cells belong to your body, and which ones don’t. A good HLA match between donor and recipient is vital to the success of a stem-cell transplant.’ Sam waited expectantly, encouraged by the broad smile spreading across his face. ‘A transplant between identical twins, such as you and Charlie, guarantees complete HLA compatibility.’

  Sam was hesitant. ‘So this means?’

  ‘There’s an excellent chance of a complete cure. Really excellent.’

  ‘Does Charlie know?’

  ‘I told Charlie and Mary this morning.’ The mere mention of Charlie’s name provoked in Sam an unsettling craving. The pull of her sister was strong, and Sam rose to leave. He gestured for her to sit back down. ‘I want to be sure you understand the process. For the next few days, starting from today, you’ll receive injections to stimulate stem-cell production; to encourage their movement from your bone marrow out into your bloodstream. Meanwhile Charlie will receive high doses of chemotherapy to destroy her diseased cells and make way for your new ones. If all goes well, we’ll harvest your stem cells one day next week in the morning, and transfer them to Charlie that same afternoon. Do you have any questions?’