The Ties That Bind

by Lexi Landsman

  David could feel blood pulsing in his temples. He stared at the piece of paper that had triggered their first big argument in years. Slowly, the shock of his wife’s discovery began to sink in. She was born in another country, to people she had never known. It made him feel suddenly, unwillingly, estranged from her. She had a history he never knew existed. What would she have been like if she’d grown up in Australia? He imagined her hair would have lightened from the sun to strawberry blonde, her cheeks would be brushed with freckles, her legs would be tanned and strong from her time outdoors. Would they ever have met?

  He couldn’t even begin to fathom how Courtney was feeling. What would it be like to suddenly find out, at the age of thirty-six, that you could have been someone else entirely?

  36

  LIFE is defined by the choices we make. Courtney knew that all too well as she faced her own impossible decision: to stay by her son’s hospital bedside and wait indefinitely for a donor match, or to leave him and go in search of her estranged family.

  She used the term ‘family’ loosely. She didn’t know if she would find her mother or father. She didn’t even know if they were alive or in contact with each other thirty-six years after they had made their choice to let her go. Now that she had her own child, she couldn’t understand what circumstances would ever warrant giving up a baby, when she would do anything to keep hers.

  She had a niggling pain in the centre of her chest from her argument with David. She hadn’t expected him to react the way he did. She had presumed he wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea, but she thought he would at least understand why she had to go. Even after he apologised and did his best to change her mind, she couldn’t be swayed. She had to find them. She would give herself one week, which in the scheme of things was a small sacrifice.

  So, the choice was made. She would leave her son in order to find her birth parents. But Matthew wouldn’t understand. He didn’t know that the treatment alone was unlikely to cure him or that his best chance of survival came in the form of a stem-cell transplant. He would know only that his mother had left him when he was sick. That in the long nights when he vomited into a bucket, she wasn’t there to rub his back, pat his head with a damp cloth and whisper over and over again that everything would be okay.

  She had to somehow break the news to her son that she was leaving him without revealing the real reason. Courtney hadn’t slept since she’d booked her flight to Melbourne, departing in two days. David slept in the guest bedroom that night. She had thought of waking him but she knew it was his disapproval of her decision that drove him there. So, she spent the night tossing and turning in their king-size bed, realising how large it was for a single person.

  David’s attitude would be mirrored by his parents, and even by her father. David viewed her search across the globe to find her family as a futile waste of time. He argued that not only was there no guarantee she would find her family, given she had just one piece of paper to go off, but that even if she did, the chance of them being a match was incredibly slim. She knew he was right but something in her gut was pushing her forward. She simply couldn’t sit around waiting. She had to actively do something to save her son.

  She had been sitting with Matthew in the playroom as he worked on a papier-mâché planet. He was determined to keep up with his class and finish his mini-galaxy, which was due at the end of term. He had a look of intensity on his face, his eyebrows arched upwards – a vertical frown, David called it. It had been a while since he’d had the strength to do anything that involved getting out of bed, so Courtney saw it as a good sign.

  His hair had become thin, with bald patches all over. Matthew didn’t look up but he must have sensed her watching him. ‘Did you know there are a hundred billion galaxies in the universe?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Courtney replied, pleased that his new interest in astronomy was providing a distraction from thinking about soccer.

  ‘And that at the core of our galaxy – the Milky Way – there’s a black hole,’ Matthew said. ‘A black hole. Pretty neat, huh?’

  Courtney kissed his forehead. He mistook her action for fear. ‘But don’t worry, Mom, it’s like 250 million million million million million kilometres away.’

  ‘Well, that is far away.’ She smiled as he continued to press the paper to the circular dome.

  ‘Your new addition is coming along well, Matty.’

  Midway through cutting newspaper strips, he paused and looked at her. ‘You never call me Matty. That’s what Dad says.’

  Courtney shook her head playfully. ‘You’re right, what was I thinking?’

  ‘You’re acting strange,’ he said, catching her off guard again.

  ‘Well, I’m just tired after all the stuff I had to do for the exhibition,’ she answered quickly.

  ‘But you haven’t been to the gallery in ages.’

  ‘I’ve been giving Amy the chance to take more of a leadership role by making some of the decisions herself.’

  And there she was again; another lie. The truth was she hadn’t been back to work since Matthew was diagnosed, and though they were sympathetic, the gallery couldn’t run with an absent curator. She didn’t want to disappoint or to have the pressure of other people depending on her to return to work so she’d chosen to resign, even though they had offered to find a temporary replacement.

  ‘Mom, I feel so much better today. Do you think they’ll let me go home now?’

  ‘Well, if your neutrophil level stays the way it is and you keep improving, then they said you could go home. So, just keep being the strong boy that you are.’

  They were still waiting for the results of his bone-marrow aspiration that would show if the chemotherapy had sent his body into remission. If it had, his blood platelet count would return to normal and the percentage of blast cells would be less than five. It would also mean that he had a better outlook and was less likely to relapse. Then he could move onto the consolidation phase of treatment. If it didn’t, he would have to go through another round of induction chemotherapy.

  Courtney planned to be gone for only ten days including travel time, so if the results showed he wasn’t in remission, she could be back just after his first few days on chemotherapy. If, however, he was in remission, the consolidation phase of therapy was the best time for the stem-cell transplant, so she hoped desperately that they would find a donor in time.

  ‘But, Mom, it’s been ages,’ he said. ‘I’m missing out on everything.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart. But you’ve been so brave and patient. And you have to stay here so you can get better.’ She brushed the hair on the back of his neck with her fingertips. As she did, a clump of hair came free from his scalp and fell into the palm of her hand. She hid it quickly so Matthew wouldn’t see and did her best to fight the chalk in her throat. If only she could wait for a better time to tell him, but she didn’t have more time. She had to do it now.

  ‘Matthew, sweetie, I have to go away next week because there’s a special medicine you can’t get here in Miami, so I’m going to go to Australia to see if they have it.’

  She was eye level with him and braced herself for his reaction.

  He looked alarmed. ‘But, Mom, Dean’s granny lives in Australia, and he says it’s thousands of miles away.’

  ‘It’s not close, but I’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘Is it my fault you have to go?’

  ‘No, sweetheart, nothing’s your fault. This is just something I have to do because we don’t want to just wait to see if anyone in America has it. I’d rather search for it myself.’

  ‘They should have the medicine here,’ he said, returning his attention to the papier-mâché. ‘That’s so unfair.’

  It is unfair, she thought. Why did she have to make this choice to stay or go? Both answers meant she lost.

  ‘What planet is that?’ she asked as Matthew started to add black paint to the orb.

  ‘It’s not a planet,’ he said as if it was obvious.
‘It’s a black hole.’

  David pecked Courtney on the cheek in the hospital corridor. He was doing his best to mask his disappointment and carry on as normal as they swapped hospital shifts, but he found himself avoiding eye contact. He knew the anger would pass and that he would come to understand her decision, but right now, it still gnawed at him.

  He sat on the fold-out chair in Matthew’s room while his son slept. David felt like he now lived at the hospital, sharing shifts with his wife and parents. He only went home to shower, eat and sleep. The hospital had become a microcosm of Miami, with its own calendar, seasons and events. These were the daily routines he was now so familiar with: the early-morning nurse changeover when the lights came on and the hospital was still quiet with whispers, then the tea run when the nurses sometimes gathered behind the counter to share chocolate and candy, laughing and catching up on last night’s television, then there was the lunchtime rush when visitors arrived and the corridors were lively and loud. In the afternoon performers came to entertain the kids. Then, finally came the evening lull, as most parents left for the night. David knew when specialists were doing their rounds and when a new patient arrived and an existing one got to leave. But there was one thing he just could not get accustomed to: the constant waiting. He still tapped his foot anxiously, he still flicked through the newspaper without absorbing a thing he’d read, he still opened his book and stared at the same page, he still checked his emails every few minutes. But waiting was now a part of his daily life. They were always waiting for something. Waiting for Matthew to have a bone-marrow aspiration, waiting for the results of a biopsy, waiting for his neutrophil count to go back up, waiting for a lumbar puncture, waiting for the nausea to pass, waiting for him to go into remission. Waiting for a donor to be found. Waiting for a cure.

  A young, friendly nurse called Lucy walked past and smiled at David, who was slumped in the chair, deep in thought. ‘You’ve got a delightful son,’ she said, catching him gazing at Matthew. ‘You’re wonderful parents, you know. You’re coping really well with everything.’

  ‘Thanks.’ David forced a smile, wishing that doing his best was enough. But it wasn’t. No matter how much they did, they couldn’t make their son better.

  ‘Hopefully, you won’t have to wait much longer for the biopsy results,’ she said, and then walked over to another patient whose drip needed to be replaced.

  Waiting again, David thought. For most of his life, waiting had always been about something to look forward to: a weekend, a holiday, a big event. Waiting wasn’t supposed to feel like balancing on a tightrope between life and death.

  37

  IT WASN’T long before the framework of Jade’s house began to take shape. The brick walls had risen from the ground. Soon the builders would be able to pour the first-floor slab and build the brick staircase to the second level. Then they would do the internal room divisions.

  Jade’s days were spent moving back and forth between her house and the pub. Now that two months had passed since the fires, there was less and less she needed to do at the relief centre.

  As she was sanding the legs of a wooden bench she gazed up at the structure of her house, trying to picture what their property would look like when the construction was finished.

  She imagined the wooden gate leading to the gravel path. She could picture the rows of potatoes growing deep into the earth, succulent baby tomatoes hugging the soil. Pecan, pistachio and almond trees would grow behind the dam, and avenues of lemon and orange trees would line the path with fallen fruits drizzling in fermenting sap. White and scarlet rose bushes would decorate the ground beneath the sundial and eventually climb up the metal arbours. The olive groves would bear fruit again.

  She could see it all – just as it was and as it would be.

  Jade made her way over to the olive groves, where her father and grandmother were cutting down the burned branches to a metre in height, so that they could regrow.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Jade asked when she reached them. The melted poly pipe of the irrigation system had been pulled out and replaced. Her dad was cutting down the trunks of destroyed trees at the ground and burning what was left of their bases.

  ‘Olive trees want to be bushes,’ Helena said. ‘You have to be stern with them. A bit of tough love goes a long way.’ Helena was pruning the suckers off the surviving trees to produce one trunk, giving them the best chance of bearing fruit again.

  ‘You see, my girl, you must cut away the growths from the base of the tree. They rob the canopy of nutrients and water. All the dead branches must go too. The centre of the trees need more light, more air so they can grow and produce fruit. Tomorrow we will put down manure and mineral-based fertiliser.’

  Jade was used to Helena’s frequent lessons on olive growing that harked back to her childhood in Greece. Even though Jade knew most of her teachings already, she listened respectfully, pretending to be discovering the information for the first time. ‘Have you counted how many trees were lost?’ Jade asked.

  ‘Not as many died as we had first thought,’ Helena said, stepping down from a ladder. ‘I think we lost about six hundred, and then a few hundred more were burned but seem salvageable.’

  ‘That leaves around three thousand.’ Jade smiled in surprise. ‘We could bear fruit next year.’

  Helena shook her head. ‘The shock to the trees will keep them from bearing fruit,’ she said solemnly. ‘We are not the only ones to live in the shadow of the fires. They will bear fruit when they are ready. We must be patient.’

  Jade looked at the time. There was a psychologist coming to Somerset to talk about emotional recovery. Jade had been reluctant to go along but she wanted her father and grandmother there, and if she didn’t go, they wouldn’t either.

  ‘We should get going to the talk in the school hall,’ Jade said, reminding them.

  On the way, Helena tried to cover up for Paul’s brooding silence. Since Jade had snapped at her father, they had avoided each other.

  When they arrived at the hall, the talk had already started, so they crept in quietly and sat in the back row. The room was full, almost every chair occupied. It was unnerving seeing the people of her town all squashed into one room. The space felt claustrophobic with the heaviness of their combined grief.

  ‘You see, we all have a fight-or-flight response,’ the psychologist was saying, her voice soft and delicate. ‘It is a product of our evolution from ancient times when we needed to survive against threats like the sabre-toothed tiger. Your fight-or-flight response was activated the night of the fires, and it caused your adrenaline to surge. It’s a physiological reaction that occurs in your body when you perceive a harmful event – in your case, the fires.’

  The room seemed fragile as the survivors held each other’s hands or rested their heads weakly onto one another. ‘All these changes in your sympathetic nervous system increased your physical strength and endurance. It also meant that you could overcome the normal fatigue your body would have succumbed to by giving you a boost of energy and oxygen to your blood. The problem with having an extended adrenaline surge is that your body does one of two things: the adrenaline can stop suddenly and can leave you depressed, or it fails to switch off, causing post-traumatic stress disorder.’

  Jade was struck again by the trauma of that night, when she had lain waiting for the fires to engulf her.

  ‘I’ve stopped sleeping,’ a woman a few rows in front of her said.

  ‘It’s very common after the trauma to struggle to sleep,’ replied the psychologist, ‘and to replay that night over and over again.’

  There were people who had lost their homes, their shops, their cattle, their pets, even loved ones. How could they quantify that kind of the grief? A few people shifted in their seats, unsettled. ‘You’ve just got to understand that overcoming the trauma and the grief isn’t a linear process. It’s like a yo-yo – it will take you down, rise back up, and down again. But eventually, it will become easier and easier t
o grasp. The key is to focus on the things that make your life meaningful. Your family, your health, your friendships, your community.’

  Jade began to feel hot and flushed. She stood up as quietly as she could, relieved they had sat in the back row. Jade ignored her grandmother’s concerned eyes following her out of the room. As she exited the hall doors, she felt relief wash over her. She took in the fresh air outside and ran across to the tennis courts, stopping out of sight of the hall to catch her breath. She lay on her back and closed her eyes, concentrating on the texture of the grass on her skin, the way the breeze fell across her, the buzz of the flies overhead.

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialled Adam. She needed something else to focus on. ‘The framework for the house is up,’ she said, when he answered.

  ‘That’s great,’ he said, and just hearing his voice made her relax. ‘I can’t wait to see it.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you come visit, then?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘I’m really flat out here at the moment,’ he replied. Jade immediately prepared herself for the blow – he would break things off, end it. That was why he hadn’t visited in the six weeks since he’d left. ‘But later this month, I’ll definitely make a plan to come.’

  Jade relaxed again. She wished her mother hadn’t taught her to be so distrustful of people, to only expect that they would fail her. Love is a weed, her mother once told her. It will stick to the walls of your life, infest you. Always break free of it. She pushed Asha’s voice away and did the one thing her mother never would: she wore her heart on her sleeve.

  ‘I miss you,’ Jade admitted, her voice soft.

  ‘Me too.’

  Jade smiled. She sat up as she saw people begin to file out of the hall. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘My grandmother and father are waiting for me. I guess I’ll see you when I see you,’ she added playfully.