The Ties That Bind

by Lexi Landsman

  He had no idea that, in a week, a bed in a hospital room would be his second home for the next month or so. Ward 14 would be a name he would never forget – the section of the hospital where kids were treated for blood disorders and cancer.

  Courtney insisted that they delay telling Matthew about his diagnosis until a few days before his admission to hospital. She reasoned that there was no rush in delivering the awful news – what good would it do him to know about his illness before it was necessary? She wanted Matthew to enjoy one more week as a carefree child before his world came crashing down. David wasn’t the lying type. He preferred to call things as they were – black or white, with no shades between – but Courtney saw things like a colour chart. And with her fragile state of mind David decided not to argue even though, if it were just up to him, he would have told Matthew sooner to give the boy time to mentally prepare for what lay ahead.

  ‘Dad, I’m bored,’ Matthew said. ‘Let’s go outside and kick the ball. When do you think the scout will call? And will he call you or Coach Flanagen?’

  ‘You know, buddy, I’ve actually hurt my knee, so I’d rather not play,’ David lied. ‘But I’d love to try out that video game you got.’

  ‘But you hate video games.’

  ‘Have I said that? I meant old video games, the ones from my day.’

  ‘And why can’t I go to school?’

  ‘Because after the hip procedure and your big game, your mom and I think you should rest a bit.’

  Courtney was a mess and David couldn’t face her because he should have seen the warning signs. If he had been home more – if he hadn’t spent his days at work, his Saturdays at golf, his evenings at the university – he would have noticed the changes in his son. But then, David reasoned, what good would it have done? A diagnosis is still a diagnosis no matter how long you have to prepare yourself for the blow. He’d taken the week off work and found a sub to cover his university lectures. He hadn’t yet mustered the courage to tell his friends. His parents, who had recently retired, were flying in from New York and had offered to stay indefinitely.

  David had always had a good relationship with his parents but they did tend to be overbearing, albeit in a well-meaning way. It was the reason he’d moved out of home at eighteen and chosen to study in a different state. They hadn’t been happy about it, of course, and to this day they unloaded guilt trips whenever they were in town, especially when it came to Matthew. If you hadn’t settled in Miami, we wouldn’t have missed Matthew’s first soccer game. If we didn’t have to get on a flight to see you, your father would have taught Matthew to ride his bike. When are you coming to visit? All I have to show my friends are photos. Photos! Do you know what that’s like? You only live a flight away; can’t you fly over more often to see your ma and pa? Matthew was their only grandson, their pride and joy. The news was shattering. His mother barely spoke when David told them. He heard her release a deep, guttural cry before she passed the phone to David’s dad.

  Yet David was relieved they were coming. There had only been a few times in his life he really needed them. And now, he felt like a child and a father all at once.

  Matthew made a loud, deliberate sigh.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ David said, taking his cue.

  ‘I’ve forgotten the homework Miss Jeanie told us to do.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ David said, preparing for yet another lie.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  That you have cancer. ‘Miss Jeanie called to say you can have an extension because you are,’ he paused, correcting himself, ‘because you’ve been sick. You can ask Dean to bring it home for you.’

  Matthew crinkled his forehead. ‘I never thought I’d want to do homework, but it was a cool assignment and I’m bored. We’re learning about the universe and making models of some planets.’ His face lit up. ‘You should see the ones I’ve already made. I want to do the whole solar system and then set it up on the ceiling of my room when it’s finished.’

  ‘Well, that’s great, because you can do it from home. We can buy you all the things you need and Mom and I can help,’ David said, his voice a little too artificially sprightly.

  ‘You’re acting strange.’ Matthew was suddenly looking at David curiously.

  And there, David felt it. The agony of being caught in a lie.

  David exhaled with relief when Matthew’s attention turned to a Simpsons episode on TV that he wanted to record. ‘And, Dad,’ he said, taking the remote, ‘I’m not going to be home for much longer, so what’s the point in doing my assignment at home? I want to do it at school with everyone else.’

  How could David tell his son that he probably wouldn’t see the inside of that classroom for months and that by the time he did go back, the assignment would be done and dusted? How would he ever find the words to tell his son that he was in for unimaginable pain over the next six weeks? Ignorance is bliss, David thought silently to himself as a way to ease his conscience. Maybe Courtney hadn’t been so wrong about not telling him. Wasn’t it better that Matthew was oblivious to the hell he was about to endure?

  David would do anything for his son. He would sacrifice his own life if it meant he could save Matthew’s. Except, unless he was a donor match, there was nothing he could do but wait. And that realisation hurt like hell.

  A knock at the door startled Courtney.

  ‘Courtney,’ her father said when she opened the door. ‘I didn’t think you’d be home, so I was just going to let myself in and drop this food off.’ He was standing in the doorway, his hands full of grocery bags.

  ‘Dad, you really didn’t have to go to the trouble of getting all this,’ Courtney said, feeling weepy from his kindness. Anything these past few days would set off her emotions.

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s just a bit of food. I know you probably haven’t been eating properly lately. It’s the least I could do.’

  He walked inside and put the bags on the kitchen bench. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll unpack. You relax,’ he said, putting the items in the fridge and cupboard. She didn’t have the energy to protest. As she watched him do his best to take care of her she couldn’t help but reflect on how grateful she was to have had two loving parents. She thought about her mother, Emma; what advice would she have given Courtney now? It made her heart ache. She had always been fiercely attached to her mother, and she yearned to have both her parents here now. They had always made her feel safe, as if nothing could touch her.

  ‘Let me make you a sandwich. I bought sourdough and shaved turkey.’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ Courtney said, even though her stomach did have a gnawing feeling, but she knew the sensation of emptiness was not hunger.

  ‘Come on, Courtney. David says you’ve barely eaten since …’ He paused, leaving his sentence hanging in the air.

  She shrugged and stared at the painting she had taken from her parents’ house after Emma died. It was a landscape of Australia – a country her father had backpacked around in his twenties. It was a beautiful artwork in oils of a river running through two purple-hued mountains, with three eucalyptus trees in the foreground. She had always admired the way the artist captured the light falling on the water.

  Her father followed her gaze to the painting. ‘You put the painting up.’

  ‘Yes, finally. It’s taken me long enough. It’s been sitting in the garage for ages. I asked David to nail a hole in the wall there months ago but you know how he can be with this handyman stuff. He can perform microscopically accurate laser surgery on the eye, but he can’t seem to hammer a nail into the wall. I should have just asked you to do it.’

  She saw her father now look at the painting longingly before busying himself boiling the kettle and preparing the coffee distiller. ‘I’ll make you coffee, then. And a sandwich. And if you don’t eat it, I’ll just leave it in the fridge for later.’

  Courtney smiled. ‘Thanks, Dad. I should eat something, you’re right.’

  He took a newspaper out of one
of the shopping bags and handed it to her. ‘Page twenty-three. I’m assuming you haven’t been reading the paper.’

  Courtney took it from him and read the headline aloud. ‘The Artist of All Seasons.’ It was a review in the Arts section by Miami’s foremost art critic, Malcolm Banyard. She rushed over his words, her heart racing. Phrases jumped out at her: The year’s greatest discovery. An artist that will leave an impression on your mind. A master of many forms. A striking beauty. An impressive curatorial feat for Courtney Hamilton.

  ‘You should be proud,’ her father said, beaming. ‘And it’s not the only review I’ve seen. It’s in almost every paper.’

  Courtney smiled for the first time in days. ‘I haven’t been answering any calls. I assumed the gallery had been calling to fire me for disappearing during the opening of the exhibition and for taking leave now, at such a crucial time.’ She put the paper down, her smile fading. ‘I feel guilty for being happy that it went so well. Everything else seems insignificant now. My career feels like it has come to a full stop.’

  ‘Think of it as an ellipsis. It’s a pause. Everything will go back to normal eventually,’ Frank said reassuringly. ‘You should call the gallery, sweetheart. You should tell them what’s going on.’

  ‘I just don’t have the strength. I don’t want sympathy. And the more people who know, the more chance there is that someone might accidentally say something to Matthew.’

  Her father raised his eyebrows. ‘You haven’t told him yet?’ Courtney shook her head. ‘I can’t. I haven’t even absorbed it myself. And I’d rather wait to tell him so he can at least be a normal child for a few more days. I just wish we knew now if there were any stem-cell matches on the donor registry or within the family so I could assure him straightaway that he was going to be okay.’

  There was a long silence. Her father looked out the window, his grey eyes reflecting the colour of the shifting clouds. ‘And if no one’s a match?’

  ‘Then I’ll search the world over till we find one.’

  Frank spoke in a soft voice. ‘Is it possible that I could be a match?’

  His question was innocent. They both knew that not being biologically related would make it highly improbable. But they had never talked about genetics; they had never needed to. And now, his love for her as an adopted child could only go so far.

  ‘It’s possible,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘But it’s as likely as finding,’ she paused, ‘an unrelated donor.’

  There was no other way to put it and the truth was like vinegar to an open wound.

  ‘I’d still like to get tested,’ he insisted, clearly struggling to keep his emotions in check. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled gently.

  He made her a sandwich, cutting cucumber and a tomato and placing them neatly over the bread. He poured them both coffee and they sat across from each other as she ate silently. Her father got up and opened all the blinds and windows as if he were trying to release their trepidation from the room. He came and sat back down, steeling himself to say something.

  ‘I know this is impossibly hard for you, but I think you need to tell Matthew the truth sooner rather than later.’

  ‘No,’ Courtney said. ‘It won’t do him any good.’

  ‘You can’t keep it from him for much longer,’ her father argued. ‘You just can’t spring it on him. He needs to know what’s going on.’

  ‘He’s just a boy. He wouldn’t understand.’

  Her father put his hand on her back. ‘Kids are smart. He’ll figure out something is going on. It’s not healthy to lie.’

  ‘I’d rather lie than face him with the truth.’

  She looked around their living area and out the glass doors to the garden. Her gaze stopped at the palm tree and she was overcome with images of Matthew playing there: his sun-kissed hair flopping over his forehead as he fixed his bike, climbing the steps to his tree house barefoot, his mischievous grin when he brandished worms to frighten her. He had been the image of health. How had things changed so suddenly?

  Her father started to tidy the kitchen while she stayed at the table staring at a vase of pink peonies, trying to keep her tears at bay. Her father had always been a generous man, always giving, but articulating his emotions was always a battle for him.

  ‘How am I supposed to tell him, Dad?’ she said in a whisper, her voice full of defeat.

  ‘It’s not easy being a parent. Sometimes we don’t have all the answers. But we do the best we can. You’ll find the words.’

  Her father was looking at her. Just last month, she had waited while he went in to see Doctor Collins about his latest brain scans. Then it had been Courtney acting as the parent, the one showing concern. And here they were now, the roles returned to their natural order again.

  A parent should never have to watch their child suffer. Frank felt physical pain in his chest every time he saw his daughter’s anguished face. Each time, it reminded him what his grandson would have to endure. It was unfathomable to think such a young boy could be struck by such a heartless disease. He wished more than anything that he could take his place.

  He wanted to protect Courtney. To wrap her up in his arms like he had when she was a child and tell her everything was going to be okay. When she’d fallen off her bike, he’d put a bandaid on her scratched arm and then helped her get back on it. When she hadn’t made the school netball team, he had taken her to the local court to practise shooting into the goal ring until she was good enough to make it the following year. When she wasn’t invited to a friend’s slumber party, he set up a tent in the backyard and they had their own party replete with melted marshmallows and a midnight feast. But now as he watched Courtney staring forlornly out the window, he could do nothing. He couldn’t even promise her that it would all be okay in the end.

  He gazed at the painting Courtney had finally put up on the wall and thought of her mother as he looked at the rolling hillside emerging in the background, painted in soft purple and green hues. He could still imagine the texture of his hand against the skin of the white bark of the trees around the riverbed.

  The painting triggered a memory. It came out as a whole instead of the fragments he was used to. He let his mind draw back.

  It was their fourth date. She was wearing her favourite colourful silk scarf and she ran it through her fingers as if it were water.

  ‘I just love it here,’ she had confided after they pulled up in his beat-up car near the riverbed. ‘Don’t you find it breathtaking? It’s so calm and peaceful, so reflective.’

  They settled on a towel to picnic under the gum trees. Frank passed her the fish and chips they had bought on the way. ‘It is beautiful,’ Frank said as he took a bite of a chip. ‘It makes me realise how far I am from Miami, from the hustle and bustle. The fast pace of the city.’

  ‘It’s a different way of life out here. I sometimes think about what my life would be like if …’ She paused mid-sentence, as if she had thought aloud and regretted it.

  ‘If what?’ Frank asked and then finished the sentence for her. ‘If you lived somewhere else?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I meant,’ she replied quickly.

  For a moment, Frank had thought he might get a rare glimpse into what she was thinking. In all the time he had spent with her since they met at the vineyard, he still found her impossibly hard to read. She would always redirect the conversation if it came to more than scratching the surface of her life.

  ‘Let’s go back to the vineyard and get a bottle of wine,’ she said as she dipped a chip into the lemon-and-butter sauce.

  ‘The cellar door will be closed,’ Frank said, confused.

  ‘I know that. That’s why we’ll break in and take one.’

  ‘Steal one?’ he asked, incredulous.

  ‘It’s not stealing. It’s taking what’s ours,’ she laughed. ‘We’ve worked hard to make those bottles. We practically own them.’

  When they got there, the vineyard was
empty. It was close to 10 pm and all the workers had long gone. The owner’s cottage was five hundred metres from the vineyard and they could see the lights were out inside.

  Although Frank’s instincts told him it was a stupid idea to break into the barn for a bottle of wine, he was so enamoured by her she could have asked anything of him and he would have blindly followed. ‘What do we do if we get caught?’ Frank asked, hoping he wouldn’t suddenly find himself without room and board.

  ‘We say we left something in the barn,’ she said. ‘I’ll flash them a winning smile and no one will be the wiser.’

  They climbed over the fence into the vineyards. She threw off her shoes and ran down one of the rows as spray from the sprinklers rained down. He ran after her, but every time he neared she would duck into a neighbouring row and disappear again. ‘We’ll get caught,’ he called out in a hushed tone, feeling his heart race as he turned every corner only to hear the sound of her feet tapping lightly.

  She said nothing, so he kept searching for her through the rows of green vines and plump purple grapes. He almost screamed when she came up behind him and startled him, catching his mouth in her hands. ‘Shh,’ she whispered. ‘You’re the only one who’ll get us caught.’

  He gently took her hands from his mouth and then swivelled to face her. Without thinking, he leaned forward and kissed her. He held the dip of her lower back as they kissed until she suddenly pulled away sharply, leaving him with the harsh sting of rejection. She looked up at him as if she wanted to say something, to explain, but then she leaned forward and kissed him back. Whatever it was she wanted to say, he was glad she seemed to have thought better of it. She tasted like the red grapes around them, sweet and tantalising.