by Tess Woods
But she could hardly blame her mum. It wasn’t hard to see why she was upset. Spending all day, every day at Sunrise Glades with an unresponsive partner was no way for anyone to live. The only way Jamie was able to convince Jess to take a break from the soul-draining atmosphere of the nursing home was to go there herself to look after her dad.
She massaged the back of his wrinkled hand in circles with the pad of her thumb, going gently over the bumps of his knobbly blue veins. Then she turned his hand over and massaged the palm.
Jess used to read palms for fun. She’d read Jamie’s often, always putting a positive spin on things. ‘Ah, look at that, your life line is long and thick. So you see? This heartbreak isn’t going to kill you, after all.’ She’d given Jamie a reassuring smile after her break-up with Scott all those years ago.
Had her mum predicted this when she’d read her own husband’s palm? Had she predicted him rotting away in a nursing home surrounded by strangers who had lost the use of their bodies or minds? Trapped in the same four walls with a window looking out at the same patch of grass forever? Had she seen that and kept it to herself? Or was she every bit as shocked as Jamie at the devastating turn his life had taken?
‘That feel nice, Dad?’ She stroked his stiff fingers one at a time.
A soft groan escaped from him and he half opened his eyes.
‘That’s good. Let’s do the other hand and then I’ll rub your feet.’ She reached up to his forehead and massaged his frown lines.
‘Th-thank you,’ he croaked.
‘There’s nothing to thank me for. I like spending time with you.’ She smiled at him. ‘And you know what, this is probably more relaxing for me than it is for you. It gets me away from Scott at least, which is the only thing keeping that man alive at the moment.’
Her dad snorted and coughed a hacking cough, but that had definitely been a laugh. He was still in there somewhere!
‘Do you know what drives me the craziest?’ she continued. ‘CJ’s completely delighted by him. She doesn’t get that it’s easy to be the fun parent when you’ve never had to do any actual parenting. Of course he can swan in and suddenly be her best friend. Has he ever had to pick up the pieces when she was little and kids were mean to her? Has he prepared meals for her for the last seventeen years? Helped with homework? Looked after her when she was sick? Cleaned up her vomit? Comforted her after immunisations? Pulled her into line when she misbehaved? Taken her to a million netball games and stood in the freezing rain at the crack of dawn on Saturdays? Has he had to drive her to concerts and rehearsals and birthday parties? Of course not! He just gets to be the cool guy who plays guitar with her, and now gets to waltz her off to Nashville where he’ll dazzle her with the lure of superstardom and she’ll never want to come home. She’s only seventeen. She’s so impressionable. What if she mixes with the wrong crowd? What if she becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol? And you know the worst bit?’ Jamie didn’t wait for his response. ‘He has no idea what makes her tick. How’s he going to know if she’s struggling?’
Her father winced.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean to press that hard. Are you okay?’
He gave her a slight nod.
‘I’m not making it a very relaxing massage, am I?’ She let go of his hand and stood up. ‘You don’t need to listen to my crap today when you’re feeling so stiff and sore. Sorry, I’ll stop ranting at you now . . . Here, let’s get this sock off and I’ll do your foot.’
She squeezed out more of the wildly expensive lavender-infused massage cream that her mum had bought from some organic-healing place. Jess insisted she use only that particular cream, so Jamie was happy to oblige, even if she did need to use three times the amount as regular Sorbolene that only cost five dollars from the supermarket.
She stood at the end of her dad’s bed, rubbing his swollen blue foot, and thought more about Scott and CJ. She had wanted to throw her weight around, to insist that of course there was no way CJ would be allowed to jet off to Nashville without her, especially in her fragile condition. CJ was still under eighteen, and the bottom line was that she couldn’t legally leave the country without Jamie’s permission.
But what would be the point of stopping her? CJ had her heart set on it and she’d be eighteen soon enough anyway and then she could do whatever she liked. There was nothing Jamie could say that would make a shred of difference. All it would achieve would be to push CJ further away from her, and Jamie had only just started to feel as though she had her back again. So she kept the smile plastered on her face and pretended that it wasn’t killing her when CJ bounced around cheerfully preparing for the trip. The two things she did insist on were that CJ keep seeing a psychiatrist in Nashville, and that she call Jamie any time she needed her, day or night.
Scott had done precisely what Jamie had always feared he’d do if she let him near CJ. How dare he swoop in like that and take away her child? Where was his concern for what was best for CJ? Surely when somebody had attempted suicide, the best thing for them wasn’t to uproot their lives?
But Jamie knew that she had no leg to stand on, because what everything came back to was that she was the one who had denied Scott his daughter and CJ her father. Of course they wanted to be together, it was only natural. If she’d been honest from the start, this would never have happened. And she would have been honest if she hadn’t been so worried about CJ. She went around in circles from guilt to anxiety to rage, driving herself mad.
Her mind wandered back to the night Scott had shown up and she felt drenched in humiliation all over again. She wished with all her might she could take it all back, to have him walk in again and simply introduce him to Andrew and show him to his room.
She put her dad’s bed sock back on his foot, and tucked his leg under the blanket.
Her parents had never included her when they’d attended her dad’s medical appointments. But Jamie had done her own research. She’d learned enough about Parkinson’s disease to know that it wouldn’t kill him. He could keep deteriorating like this for another ten or more years, barely able to move or communicate, but with his organs doing just enough to keep him alive, trapped in the body that had failed him.
‘Dad?’ she whispered. ‘You deserve better than this,’ she said with a lump in her throat. ‘You’re the best man in the world. This disease, everything about it, is so unfair. You deserve more.’
He began to cry.
23 APRIL 2018 — 10 AM
CJ gripped the black pen. The ‘what if’s raced through her head.
What if they hate me in Nashville?
What if they think I have no talent?
What if Dad gets sick of me living in his house?
She sketched the wing of a butterfly on her forearm.
What if I can’t find a new therapist I like there?
What if Mum isn’t okay without me?
She pressed down hard as she drew the antennae. Enough to make herself wince.
What if something happens to Pop or Nan or Mum when I’m so far away?
What if Mia finds a new best friend?
What if this whole thing is a huge mistake?
A spot of blood appeared on her skin, the size of a pinprick, where she’d gone over and over the same dot on the antenna.
She froze, holding her breath as the spot became a little bigger and the blood formed a bubble.
God, how she’d missed this feeling. The urge to cut was overpowering.
Her mind flashed with alternatives — speak to someone, log on to the chat group, quickly find something else to do.
None of it registered. She had to cut. She had to. It was too much to see the blood and then to just stop. Not when she was this anxious about everything.
But her mum had hidden anything sharp in the house — scissors, knives, even safety pins were all locked in a drawer and her mum and nan had the only keys. Whenever she had gone to the shops she’d been chaperoned so she hadn’t even been able to buy something us
eful there.
What else? What else could she use? The sharp tip of the pen wasn’t sharp enough for a decent cut.
She twirled her hair around her finger and the back of her hand brushed against the studded point of her earring.
Yes! Of course!
With twitching fingers she jerked the earring out. The backing flew across the room and disappeared. How had she not thought of this before? It was the perfect instrument. A gorgeous sparkly weapon.
She shakily lifted her dress up to expose her thigh — the adrenaline coursed through her.
‘CJ?’ Scott’s voice echoed. ‘You in there?’
Shit!
Without knocking he opened her door.
She closed her fist around the earring.
He stood and examined her in silence for a long second. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Yeah, yeah! Definitely! All good!’ she said a little too brightly.
‘Why was your door closed? You know your mum’s rules.’
‘Sorry.’ She looked down at her hands.
‘You drawing another butterfly?’ His eyes rested on the fresh drawing on her arm.
‘Um, yeah.’
He nodded. ‘This is going to sound like a dumb question, but if you were just drawing, why’s the pen all the way over there where you can’t reach it?’
She could have lied. She could have said she got a fright when he called her name (which was true) and that she flicked the pen away when she jumped.
Or she could have said that she’d stopped drawing the butterfly because she felt better.
But she didn’t lie. She looked him in the eyes. ‘I was about to cut.’
He looked like the wind had been knocked out of him. ‘I thought you were cured.’
‘It’s an addiction, Dad, there is no cure.’ She shook her head. ‘You should know that.’
‘Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.’ He stared at her. ‘How were you going to do it? With what?’
She sighed and opened up her fist to show him the earring.
He shook his head. ‘Hand me that, please. And get your jewellery box for me too.’
She did as she was told.
‘Come here,’ he said.
She laid her head against his chest and he hugged her tight.
***
An hour later she found herself sitting in Megan’s office.
‘It’s not the end of the world to have a stumble,’ Megan assured her in her always calm tone as CJ sat opposite, eyes facing down.
‘I feel like a failure.’
‘CJ, you’ve done so well up until now. And look what you did when your dad questioned you — you were honest, you reached out for help and your dad immediately brought you here to see me. You haven’t failed, it was a bump. And you know what?’ Megan handed her another tissue. ‘The important thing is we now know how vulnerable you still are. You might have been hasty in thinking you’d be safe in Nashville. Perhaps it’s too soon for you to go? We could get you back as an inpatient here for a bit to help you feel stronger again.’
‘No, no. I’ll be good there, I promise. I definitely still want to go.’ Her words fell out. She couldn’t bear Nashville being taken away from her.
‘CJ —’
‘Please, Megan! Nashville is what’s keeping me going.’
‘But you just said it was your anxieties and doubts about Nashville that gave you the urge to cut.’ Megan gave her a steady look.
‘I know I did, but I was being dumb, overthinking things. I promise I won’t cut over there, promise, promise.’
‘Think very carefully about this decision, CJ. I honestly believe it’s too soon for you to be moving.’
***
‘All better?’ Scott asked when she walked out of Megan’s room.
‘All better, thanks.’ CJ gave him her most convincing smile. ‘Please don’t tell Mum about this. She’ll freak out.’
He gave her a wink and a nod.
On the drive home, while Scott hummed along to one of his own songs, CJ chewed over Megan’s words. Was she actually making a mistake leaving home this soon?
He turned up the radio. ‘Hey, it’s my girl, Miley!’ he shouted. ‘Yeaaah, baby! Come on, Squirt, let’s hear you sing it with me.’ He waved an arm in the air while he steered and sang the chorus to ‘Party in the U.S.A.’.
She burst out laughing. How could moving to Nashville with the best dad in the world be a mistake?
23 APRIL 2018 — 11 PM
Jamie sat up in bed reading the Daily Mail round-up on the upcoming royal wedding. She smiled at the photo of the young women in their matching ‘Sparkle like Markle’ T-shirts.
The gentle tap on her door made her jump. ‘Come in,’ she called out.
Scott tentatively stuck his head in. ‘Sorry, I know it’s late. Can I speak to you?’
‘Of course.’ She pulled the sheet up to cover her braless breasts in her pyjama top. ‘Want to sit?’
He sat at the foot of her bed and cleared his throat. ‘I was waiting for Squirt to call it a night so she wouldn’t hear us talking.’
‘She hates that name, you know.’
He looked crestfallen. ‘Did she tell you that?’
‘No, but I see her face when you call her Squirt. She’s a young woman who’s conscious of her height, Scott. It’s not exactly a flattering name, is it?’
‘I suppose.’ He frowned. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about. She tried to self-harm today.’
The lead weight dropped in Jamie’s stomach. ‘What?’
‘Shh, not so loud, Jamie! Listen, she made me promise not to tell you. So you have to pretend you don’t know.’
‘Okay.’ She could barely breathe. ‘What happened?’
‘Apparently she was freaking out about the move to Nashville and whether it was the right choice. She was about to cut her leg with an earring stud when I walked in on her.’
Jamie tried to swallow but couldn’t. She reached for the glass of water on her bedside table. ‘Oh, Scott. Thank God you were here.’
‘I know.’
‘So what happened? Did you see her doing it?’ she asked.
‘No, I walked in on her before she’d started. She confessed straight away. So that’s good, isn’t it?’
She had to agree it was better than CJ lying about it, although ‘good’ seemed too strong a term.
‘So she told me what she was about to do and why and then I rang Megan and drove her there for counselling,’ Scott explained.
Jamie’s eyes grew large. ‘You booked her in for a counselling session, yourself?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised.’ He let out a small laugh. ‘I’m not a total dick, you know.’
She exhaled and her shoulders relaxed a little. ‘And what did Megan say?’
‘Dunno, CJ didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. But she seemed much more together when she came out. And, well, you’ve seen her this arvo, she’s bounced back.’
‘She did seem normal tonight. But it scares me that she can go down so quickly. She was fine before I left for work this morning.’ She chewed on her cheek.
‘Listen, I know what you’re thinking.’ Scott reached forward and took hold of her hand. ‘But I promise you I’ll look after her in Nashville. I’ll be with her all day every day until I feel completely confident that she’ll be okay. Today has scared the shit out of me, so I’ll be extra vigilant. Believe me, I’m just as worried about stuffing up as you’re worried about me stuffing up.’
She squeezed his hand back. ‘I know you’ll do your best by her. You’ve been so good to her this last month. And I know how much she appreciates that you extended your stay to be here for her. But it’s too soon, Scott. It’s too soon for her to leave.’
‘You know what? I agree. But I have to go home in a couple of weeks. I can’t stay any longer. And she’s got her heart set on joining me.’
‘I know,’ Jamie said miserably.
‘You have to trust me.’
&n
bsp; She looked him in the eyes. ‘Can I be very honest?’
He nodded.
‘I’m worried that you’ll fall off the wagon while she’s in your care.’
‘I’ve been clean for three years, Jamie. I swear on my life I’ll stay sober. I love CJ with my whole heart. Trust me.’
She remained silent.
‘Now can I be very honest with you?’ He let go of her hand and rubbed his palms on his jeans. ‘I would never have touched another drug in my life if you’d told me I had a daughter.’
With the wind knocked out of her, Jamie couldn’t answer.
‘Look, I’m not blaming you for my addictions,’ he continued. ‘I know I made those decisions and I own them. But, I can’t help thinking, if only I’d known I was about to become a dad, I would never have let it all get out of control like that.’
Jamie found her voice. ‘But you never wanted children. You said that so many times. You were prepared to break up with me just so that you wouldn’t have to be a father one day.’
He sighed. ‘It’s two entirely different things to say you don’t want hypothetical children and to not want your own child that’s already on the way. Or your own child that’s already been born. I would have faced my responsibilities head on and been the best father I could be.’
‘It’s easy for you to say that now. But how do I know that would have been the case? All I had to go on at the time were your actions back then and there was no way I was prepared to expose my child to that. I’ve told you a million times I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about CJ once you were sober but I’ll never be sorry about my decision to protect her from you when I gave birth to her.’ She gave him a hard stare.
‘You’re right, I’m sorry.’ Scott dropped his head. ‘But what I’m saying is that I never had the chance to prove myself to you or to CJ. So I’m asking you now. Let me look after CJ. Let me be her father.’
There was nothing she could do but say yes.
27 APRIL 2018 — 1 PM
They’d decided together that today would be the day. CJ had gone to visit her pop at Sunrise Glades the previous morning and she’d babbled happily away about her exciting plans. Her flight for Nashville was booked, she was leaving soon. And then Jamie had arrived after dinner. She had a new spring in her step since she’d gone back to work.
