‘Let me just breastfeed her first,’ she told Rodd with her eyes closed. ‘Can you take care of dinner tonight?’
‘Course.’
Neddy felt Rodd’s eyes on her, watching his wife with the complete understanding that life was full of pain, and life was full of joy.
‘Stan asked me to tell you to call Viv.’
Neddy shut her eyes tighter. Rocked her daughter with a stronger sense of purpose.
‘Come on, Juni. Let’s go make us some dinner.’
The tiny suck of Willow on her breast drained it all away – the empty fruit bowl, the lingering pain of the migraine, the claustrophobic feeling of the house surrounded by raindrops, and the impending call to Viv – everything but Jean. The tiny suck of Willow on her breast filled her with calm, and she did not need to cry. Jean would die, maybe not tonight, but she would die. She saw it in Rodd’s face. She would die and then she’d be gone. The tiny suck of Willow on her breast was slow and it was practiced and both mother and child were absorbed in the act. Neddy marvelled at the size of Willow and thought, I did that, I’ve grown her, I’m still growing her, and pondered the life-giving production and receiving of milk. Before long, Willow would turn her head from her mother’s breast in search of bread and meat and, like her sister Juniper, apricots from the tree.
Neddy opened the door. Jean had been in a coma for over one hundred and fifty hours. No one knew if she could hear anything so, to be safe, they talked about their fears in hushed tones.
‘She’s not in any pain at least.’ Marion, Jean’s mother-in-law, frowned.
Neddy guessed that Marion, in her late seventies and a recent survivor of cancer, didn’t have it in her to watch her son go through this. No matter how he seemed to hold his pain, it was sure to be severe, and it was probably more than Marion could handle.
‘What can they do for her now?’ Neddy stared, realising that a body is medically just a body, and she wondered if the doctors were considering Jean’s organs.
The sheets on the bed were starched near horizontal over the top of Jean’s sagging form. The whiteness and the fine edges made a person forget that underneath was warm flesh, a body still raging with blood and cells, lungs still taking in and discarding breath, a heart still keeping rhythm to life’s ticking away. Jean was probably going to die, but now she was alive. Neddy couldn’t decide if one was more important than the other, or if they were both equally depressing.
Marion touched Neddy’s arm. ‘Stan’s in the cafeteria now. You just missed Vivian. She took Orion back home.’
‘Viv was here?’ Neddy’s heart jumped, conflicted with feeling guilty for not having called and jealous that Viv had been the one to take care of Orion. ‘How is Orion?’
Marion shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know if he fully understands, but he knows something’s wrong with his mother. I’m going to him soon. Stan’s going to stay here with Jean again. I’m getting too comfortable at the house, though. Don’t like what that means.’
‘He’s lucky to have you.’
‘It’s hard to believe there’s any luck in that little boy’s life right now.’
Neddy thought of Juniper. She and Orion were nearly the same age.
A single light over the stove lit the kitchen in a dull and warm night-time way, the silence a perfect companion to the soft shadows, and in every bedroom people slept. Neddy put her bag on the table and sat down, resting her head in her hands, pulling the hair taut from her scalp, staring at the gnarled but polished wood of the kitchen table that her husband had made for them when they bought the house. Rodd must have cleaned up after dinner, usually not his thing. She looked toward the counter. Wiped down, dishes stacked in the drying rack. How could she ever thank him for this simple chore?
She imagined his long body stretched out to feel the relief of sleep. Maybe she would wake him, touch him under the covers with her own body. Maybe they would make love in the silence of the house now that the rain had stopped. Maybe the rain would start up again and muffle the sounds they might make.
She imagined Juni’s breathing, listened for it. Listened for Willow’s breath in the stillness of the night. She couldn’t hear them, but the thought of their bodies functioning perfectly made up for it.
She was hungry. She wondered if Rodd had left her some dinner, but rather than getting up to look in the fridge, Neddy swivelled her head and searched for the last orange in the fruit bowl. On the shelf, where the sea-green paint was peeling and the ants made straight paths up and across and down again, sat the large wooden bowl, now filled with apricots. Neddy broke down and cried for the simple way they were piled to almost-overflowing. There must have been thirty, maybe forty apricots. She imagined Rodd and Juniper picking them while the rain lessened to a fine mist, the sun setting lazily in the cloudy sky, and she cried for the simple fact that life went on.
She rose and made her way to the fruit bowl. She searched for the perfect apricot. She chose one and twisted it to reveal the stone, which she plucked out before placing the fruit in her mouth. It was summer. It tasted like summer. She chose three more and sat back down, pulling her phone from her bag. She rang Viv. She wanted to tell her about how sad she was that Jean could not wake up. How sad she was that Jean would probably not live to see Orion become a young man. She wanted to ask Viv if she thought Stan would remarry if Jean ended up dying and give Orion a second mum. She wanted to ask Viv if she’d be able to accept another woman in Jean’s house. She wanted to ask her if she ever thought about the applause on the opening night of their Fringe show and share with her that sometimes she was afraid she would never feel that sense of creative accomplishment again. That sometimes she was afraid she would never feel that way about friendship again. She wanted to tell her about how she missed walking Smiley without a pram, about Willow almost crawling, about her anxiety over Juniper growing up too fast, about her love for Rodd and how even during the most mundane evenings her body ached with that love. She wanted to tell Viv that she missed her, that she needed her. She wanted to tell her about the apricots.
This Was Their Family Now
Never, never should a man be so afraid to let go of his wife’s hand that was his that was hers that was his that was hers, afraid to let go because she would let go and it would all be lost: the morning songs, the hair in the dinners, the hair on the pillows, the small gap between her two front teeth and the way she stuck her tongue there when she smiled, each freckle, each foot rub, their past, their dreams and the potential for more more more because that’s what love is, that’s what love is. And before the accident, when Stan’s hand held Jean’s held Stan’s held Jean’s, there’d been a tight presage of love then, and of their son and of the years and of each other and of their love, such an endless love, all within their two hands, but now her hand was limp and he couldn’t let go, her hand now limp inside his, not right, never, never, this saying goodbye, no, one, could, understand, how so unlike Jean it felt, maybe like who she was before she was born, but I knew you then, he cried and he did know her then, a foetus looking up at the stars. It was Jean and it had always been Jean, his hand never fitting a thing until it held hers, and then he understood love, their love, Stan’s and Jean’s, Stan and Jean, and now, and now, don’t let go, he was saying, don’t let go to himself because Jean was letting go. Jean had already let go.
It felt as though it wasn’t his house, or as though he hadn’t been in it for years. It was familiar, eerily familiar – how long had the red teapot been on the stove and when had it ever not been there? His mum had clearly cleaned the house and Stan felt he wanted to live in it just to mess it up so it would remind him more of Jean. There needed to be some dirty dishes, just a few, piled by the sink, and a stack of them in the drying rack, one precariously atop the other, all working together to hold the last one up. Maybe a random bandaid or rubber band on the counter, something that had been there for months, too small for an
yone to bother moving. Toys needed to spot the floors just here and there, just here and there. Had his mum straightened the magnets on the fridge? He wanted to ask Orion if this felt weird, but the boy had just said goodbye to his mum so everything in his little life must have felt weird. Stan bent down and held Orion at arm’s length. ‘What do you want to do, mate?’
‘I want to lay down with you.’
Father and son, holding hands, walked to the door of the son’s room.
‘Your room,’ said the son.
‘OK,’ said the father.
There was too much light pouring through the window of the master bedroom and the bed was tight, having been perfectly made and then untouched. How long had it been since he’d slept in his bed? Almost two weeks, of course. The last time had been with Jean, and after they’d risen and dressed for the day, they made the bed in their own way: the doona rumpled, the sheets showing, his clothes (now washed and folded and put away) hanging over the post at the bottom of the bed. Bed. The word was almost too much to take in. Stan just stared, unaware of how long he’d been staring at the bed and in no way digesting how long would be seen as too long to his little boy.
Orion took off his shoes and crawled in first. Turning to the wall and closing his eyes, ‘Come on, Dad,’ he said.
Stan undressed down to his jocks and crawled in next to Orion. He held the boy, hoped it would warm him up because he was so incredibly cold. He tried to still his own body as he cried, unsure of why he was doing such a thing because he was sure he wanted Orion to know it was OK to cry. But perhaps he didn’t want Orion to follow his lead and cry again because he just wanted the boy to sleep. He stopped himself from crying. He felt cold. So ridiculously cold.
Sleep came heavy and when they woke it was dark outside. Orion was the first to move. He touched his dad’s face and Stan wondered if it was something he’d learned from Jean and would he please hold onto it for the rest of his life?
‘Dad,’ he whispered.
Stan tried to smile.
‘Are you going to hospital?’
‘No, Ry. I’m staying here with you.’ Stan closed his eyes again, just wanting sleep, sleep until the new morning when they would start their new life in their old, clean house, but Orion whispered, ‘Dad’ again, so Stan opened his eyes. ‘I’m hungry.’ And though he’d thought of it so many times in the past two weeks, what it might be like to parent this precious child alone, he now understood. Orion first. He’d always be first.
His mother had said the same to him when they set off from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island, leaving his father to the opal mines up north. He was confused, didn’t understand how life could change so quickly, but his mum tried to reassure him. ‘Don’t worry, bug. We’ll be OK. And with me by your side, you’ll always be first.’
He’d been twelve then and he never saw his dad again. Orion was only five and one day.
Eggs and bacon sounded the easiest but Orion said no, that eggs and bacon should be for breakfast, so Stan then ruled out quick oats too, which also sounded easy.
‘Can we have a barbecue?’
‘It’s too late, mate. It’s dark outside.’
‘Can we have fish fingers?’
Stan opened the freezer and saw a dozen plastic containers he’d never seen before piled neatly, with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on the top. Most of them had names on them: chicken curry, beef stew, pasta sauce, bolognaise, vegetable soup, potato bake. Who had done this for them? Who did he need to thank?
Fish fingers were on the bottom shelf, where the frozen peas and corn were. ‘Got it,’ he said, taking out all three, then winking at Orion who sat swinging his legs, one hand holding up his head and the other scratching at the clean table. Poor lad. His birthday would forever be cast in the shadow of his own mother’s death. Christmas too.
‘Dad?’
‘Yeah, mate.’
‘Are you going to cook for us every night or is Nan going to come over?’
‘I’m going to.’ Stan opened the oven door to make sure it was lit. ‘Blimey,’ he said to the cleanliness.
‘Dad?’
‘What is it, Ry?’
‘Do you miss Mom already?’
And this is the way life would be for them. Everything they’d say to each other, everything they wouldn’t say, would begin with the traces of this question.
‘I do. Very much.’
‘Are you sad she’s gone?’
‘I’m very sad.’
‘Do you think she misses us?’
‘I do think she misses us.’
There was a great sense of weariness not only in Stan’s body, but also settling over the entire kitchen. Digger was still in the bedroom. Stan thought about calling to him to bring a bit of life to the room, but Digger was sad too. When Stan had come home from hospital during Jean’s coma and went into his room to change clothes or get some small thing for Jean, who would never wake to know what it was, Digger would follow and sniff Jean’s side of the bed, his eyes classic puppy-dog-eyes, like the black reverse of two full moons spilling out the night. ‘Digger!’
‘Digger!’ Orion yelled back, sitting up and perking up, and the dog came trotting down the hall, his claws clip, clip, clipping on the hardwood floor. He nudged Orion’s hand, wagging his tail. Orion got down from his seat and onto the floor. He placed his head on top of Digger’s back, smiling into his wealth of fur. ‘Good dog, Digger.’ And this was it. This was their family now.
There was so much to do, so many photos to look through, music to choose, the eulogy, the phone calls, and tomorrow the choosing of the urn, discussions of proceedings, timing, cost, but tonight Stan just wanted to sleep. He deserved it too. If ever there was a time for sleep, it was when you could not be with your lover while you were awake.
They’d only been up long enough to have dinner, Stan leaving the dishes for tomorrow when the world would not stop for them. Let them pile. A rinse was good enough. Jean would’ve done the same. Jean would approve.
Though he desperately wanted to crawl back into bed and cry and cry and cry and cry, Stan didn’t want to leave Orion alone, or maybe he didn’t want to be left alone. He couldn’t decide which it was when he tried to analyse this need for Orion, but either way it came down to the question, ‘Do you want to sleep with me tonight?’ Orion reached his arms up to his dad and Stan understood that this is what it meant to want something so badly there weren’t any words, so he picked up his son and carried him to his own bedroom, feeling the warmth of the boy’s head resting on his neck and resting his own head on the boy’s, knowing that this, now, was his place of love. No longer Jean’s hand.
It hurt again. Would walking into their room ever not hurt? Would they eventually have to move? And was he going to have to get rid of her things? Her jewellery on the dresser, her books on the bedside table? If he got rid of her clothes, what would he put in the empty closet? What would he put in the drawers that held her knickers and bras and socks? What would he do with those things?
He set his son gently down on Jean’s side of the bed. ‘Do you want me to read to you?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Which book?’
‘You Are My I Love You’.
‘I like that book.’
‘That was Mom’s favourite book.’
It was. That and so many others. But it was that book she sometimes quoted when she played with Orion – ‘I am your quiet place; you are my wild’ – like when he squirmed and giggled while she tried to dry him off after a bath. Stan wondered if every book he read to his son from this day forth would hold for him a memory of Jean. Would it do the same for Orion?
Stan walked back to Orion’s room and found the book among all the others he’d never really realised were there. Had she read all these books to him? Stan had always read to his son, but not as much as Jean. He realis
ed he would now be reading all of these books to him, over and over.
Back on the bed, Orion was wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling. ‘Dad?’
‘Yeah, mate.’
‘I like your room better.’
‘You do?’ Stan got down to his jocks again, freezing in the summer night, glad Orion had picked a short book because he was tired, had never been so tired in his life, and even though he was especially tired, still he wondered if he’d be able to fall asleep, and did he even want to fall asleep? He wanted to think of Jean and think of Jean and he wanted to cry and cry and cry and cry, but now there was Orion. Just him and Orion and their dog Digger at the side of the bed that used to be Jean’s, so he’d force sleep to come, tomorrow being a new day, a huge day, a hard day, a sad day, the first day of their new life. ‘But your room’s got all the toys. And you’ve got those cool racing stripes going round it.’
‘I like my room in the day …’ he drew the last word out like it explained so much, ‘… but I like yours at night,’ and the emphasis on ‘yours’ explained even more.
‘You think you want to sleep with me for a few nights, then?’
‘Yeah. Maybe four nights.’
‘OK. You can sleep with me for four nights.’
They fell asleep with the bedside table light on, Stan only waking up at two in the morning to turn it off. And when he woke to the confusion of a light being on and the confusion of not being in a chair at the hospital beside his wife and the confusion of her being dead, of it all being real, and the familiar but foreign bedroom of his and Jean’s and now only his, he also woke to the sound of Digger’s deep sigh, for Digger had woken and shifted too, and he woke to the soft, pale eyelids of his sleeping son, and he saw the boy for what he was – so very, very small, so fragile, so tiny, so needing of Stan – and he cried and he cried and he cried and he cried. And then he couldn’t sleep. And then he slept.
Jean Harley Was Here Page 7
