The Do-Gooder

by Jessie L. Star

  "Sounds fun," I muttered sarcastically, but I squeezed Merry's hand back and her wide, dimpled grin was the last thing I saw before I drifted back off to sleep.

  * * *

  When I reawakened, the big wall clock told me another couple of hours had passed, and Mum was back by my bedside. She looked grey and haggard, her dark brown bob frazzled, and the writhing in stomach started up again as I was forcibly reminded of three years ago when she'd looked like this every hour of every day. I hated that I'd put that mask of fatigue back on her and forced her back to this hospital, the place where most of her worst nightmares had come true.

  Realising that I was awake, she forced a quick smile to her lips that was so reminiscent of her 'stoic cancer mum' face that I had to quickly reach for the sick bowl. Her hands rushed to steady the container beneath me and, when I'd finished heaving up the meagre contents of my stomach, she took it away to empty and wash with the practiced ease of one who had done it many times before. This just made me feel worse and so, by the time she returned from the poky en-suite, I was sitting up and doing my best to look as healthy as possible.

  "I'm feeling a lot better now," I said quickly as she returned the bowl to the side-table. "You should go home and rest."

  Unfortunately, it wasn't only the 'sick child' routine Mum'd gone through before, she was also pretty well acquainted with the 'sick child pretending not to be sick' routine, something she reminded me of with a sharply knowing look.

  "Yes, because if memory serves, I find that I sleep best when I have a child in hospital," she said with a sardonic smile. "Shove over." She gave my legs a little nudge and then sat down on the edge of the mattress, looking down at me in exasperation. "Honestly, what am I going to do with you?"

  Thoroughly rumbled, I grimaced, but couldn't offer her any solution. She clicked her tongue, smoothing back some of my newly rejuvenated hair tenderly, and I found myself submitting to the maternal tending. What was the alternative? Pushing her away and making her feel worse? Besides, I would've been lying if I said it didn't feel kind of good.

  The touching mother/daughter moment wasn't fated to last, however, as just a few minutes later she murmured, "I talked to your father."

  "What?" I jerked back so quickly from her that the IV line snagged against the port in my arm. I ignored the painful tug, too busy staring at her in astonishment.

  She clearly chose to pretend she hadn't heard me, however, as she continued calmly, "He's moving some things around and will be back soon to see how you're doing."

  "Why?" I choked out incredulously and she pursed her lips.

  "What do you mean, why?" She asked with a hint of impatience. "Because he's your dad and he loves you."

  If my eyes hadn't felt so sticky and sore I would've rolled them. It was Donny's memorial all over again. Why couldn't she just let go of the idea of her ex-husband being part of the family?

  "Come on, Mum," I said with some impatience of my own. "Dad and I got us all kicked out of that particular fantasy a long time ago."

  I expected her to protest again, but she seemed to take my comment on board, a strange expression creasing her familiar features, before she said, "You're so like him, you know."

  Everything in me went cold as I unwillingly played back the words I'd thrown at Fletch the night before: 'the girl who grew up to be just like her daddy'. One thing to believe it myself, quite another to have my mum confirm it from her perspective.

  "Ouch," I muttered and she sighed heavily; the long-suffering sigh known so well by daughters the world over.

  "Believe it or not, I didn't mean that as an insult, sweetheart," she said. "There're a lot of good traits you share with your dad. You have his confidence and tenacity for one thing; you got your guts from him. It's just..." she gazed at me with the sort of x-ray look that I seemed to have been on the receiving end of a lot recently, "...you also got his tendency to lash out when you feel insecure."

  I seemed to remember Fletch saying almost exactly the same thing to me all those weeks ago with Aidan, the poser surfer boy, and the memory roused me enough that I started to argue, "I don't-"

  Mum only had to raise her eyebrows slightly for me to realise I was pretty much just proving her, and Fletch's, point and I subsided.

  "So is that what happened last night?" She continued after a small pause. "Did you lash out at Fletcher?"

  From feeling ice-cold a moment ago, I suddenly flamed red hot. How did she know…?

  "Why?" My voice was still painfully raspy, but it didn't disguise the embarrassing eagerness in my tone as I added, "Did you see Fletch? Did he say something?"

  Oh God, I'd never done the whole 'did he say something about me?' thing even in high school, and it was inescapably galling to find myself doing it now, but that didn't stop me waiting desperately for my mum's answer.

  "Nothing that made a great deal of sense," was her reply, and it was accompanied by an excruciatingly significant look. "He made a lot of apologies; he seemed to think the pair of us would hold it against him that he called an ambulance for you. Can't imagine where he got that idea from." Her gaze sharpened and I looked quickly away from her consternation.

  "But then," she continued, "when the nurses had you all hooked up and sorted out and I asked if he was going to come in to see you, he just said 'better not' and I haven't seen him since."

  Better not. I knew exactly why he'd said them, but those two words still twisted into me like a pointed little corkscrew. Why had I said all that stuff about Fletch's life being easy when I'd known it wasn't? Why had I pushed and pushed and pushed him? Why couldn't I have just kept my mouth shut for once?

  "Well," I coughed weakly and then finished, equally feebly, "he's probably got things to do."

  "Maybe," Mum said, in a way that made it clear she wasn't even close to agreeing with me. "Then again..." she trailed off and then a smile suddenly spread across her face and she asked "Did you know that Donny and I used to bet on how many times Fletch would walk past your door before he'd go in to see your brother?"

  I physically started at this abrupt topic shift, staring at her in disbelief.

  "The record was seven," she said decidedly. "Seven times he went up to your room and back down the corridor and then straight up again. And then you were there making up all these excuses to come out of your room so you could accidentally bump into him. There'd be a specific pen in the kitchen you needed, or you'd suddenly get particularly thirsty and come out for multiple glasses of water." Mum's grin widened as I blanched at how obvious I'd been.

  "It was hysterically funny, sweetheart," she continued, "genuinely good entertainment. I thought at the time it was just a teenage crush, but I can't see that the two of you have ever stopped trying to get the other's attention. I guess that's why the way he ran off last night seems more than a little odd to me."

  And all this time I thought I'd been keeping Mum well and truly out of the whole thing…

  Seeing that a response was expected from me, and also not seeing any way that I could get out of it without being put in the firing line of yet another of my mother's gimlet-eyed looks, I shifted up a little straighter.

  "Fletch and I've been sort of..." I made a vague sort of gesture, obviously unwilling to clarify the sex buddies arrangement Fletch and I had to my mum. Unfortunately, the next part of the story was no easier to explain and all I could do was mumble, "And then he called me out on some things yesterday and I..."

  "Lashed out," Mum finished for me. "I thought it'd be something like that. Oh, sweetheart," she added, reaching out to pat my hand, "there's no need to look quite so tragic about it. He came back to make sure you were alright, didn't he? And people say all sorts of things they don't mean in the heat of the moment. I'm sure you two can make up for whatever was said."

  My constant headache thumped a little harder in disagreement. "Fletch came back because he's that kind of person," I croaked. "And people say what they really mean in the heat of the moment, you know that." />
  I regretted saying those last three words as soon as they were out of my mouth, but Mum didn't seem to grasp the significance of them as she just looked a little taken aback and repeated, "I know that?"

  "Yes," I said carefully, "like when you called me after Donny died and said-" I stopped as I saw her eyebrows rise a little in surprise, and then finished, a bit defensively, "well, you know what you said."

  Mum stared back at me for a moment, the last of her smile fading away, and then said quietly, "To be honest, Lara, I don't remember much from that night. You'll have to remind me."

  It felt like a set-up, but I found myself quoting her message, word for word, anyway. It only took a few seconds to relay back to her, but in that short period, all the blood seemed to drain out of her, already wan, face.

  Once I'd finished, she said hollowly, "I don't remember… how do you remember that?"

  I squirmed slightly, already knowing that my response wouldn't be popular, but forced myself to admit, "I saved the message. I...I listen to it sometimes."

  Her lips at first parted in a silent exclamation, but then pinched tightly together so that her top and bottom lip became one flat line.

  "Mum?" I prompted as several seconds passed and she remained silent in a way that somehow seemed very loud indeed.

  "That's incredibly unfair, Lara," she said eventually. "To take a moment like that and hold it against me? It's unkind."

  Wait, what?

  "No, Mum, that's not…!" It was my turn to make a grab for her hand. "I don't...I hold it against me." I gagged slightly as a cough tried once more to seize me by the throat, but I had a point to make and I forced it back. "You asked me not to go out that night because you knew Donny was... and I snuck out anyway because I wanted to see Fletch and I wanted to escape and I left you there by yourself."

  My body was trying to make me cry again. I resisted, shaking with the effort of it, and felt the subsequent lump that built up tear at my healing lungs. It hurt. Not in some metaphorical, ambiguous way, but in a real way that felt like someone was slamming a sledgehammer into my ribs.

  "And he died," I choked out, "he died and you didn't have me there and Donny didn't have Fletch and it's all my fault."

  The dam I'd built up inside me to replace the one Fletch'd destroyed the day before was shoddy, not built to withstand this kind of soul-wrenching crap, and so it cracked. Sobs raged through the fissures and I had a blinding moment, a second of heart-thumping, teeth-clenching clarity, when I realised it was actually easier to cry than to not. Easier to relent than to continually, exhaustingly wrestle with a stupid losing battle where the only enemy I seemed to be facing was, essentially, myself.

  "OK, sweetheart, calm down. Calm down, now." Mum made a grab for me, pressing me to her so my cheek settled against the hollow of her throat. She rocked me back and forth as I whimpered through the sting of it all, shushing me and wiping my cheeks.

  "I don't know what I can do, what any of us can do, to make you move past this," she murmured when my misery had subsided to a low hum. "No-one, not me or your dad, or Fletcher, blames you for that night. I wish you could accept that for yourself. Everyone makes mistakes, Lord knows I still have days where I think I'm at fault for everything that happened; for Donny dying and your dad leaving and you becoming this shell of a person." I went to pull back and protest, but her arms tightened, holding me in place against her. "And the truth is that there were times when I should have done better, by you especially, but I can only apologise and try to make it up now."

  "That's what I'm trying to-" I started to object.

  "No, you're punishing yourself and that's not the same thing," she interrupted me firmly. "You have to let it go, Lara. By all means aim to be a good person, but don't set yourself an impossible standard and, for God's sake, give your own health and wellbeing a moment's thought before you reach this stage in future."

  It was what Merry had said, it was what Fletch had said, and now Mum was saying it too. It made me droop against the warm familiarity of her, suddenly so tired I could barely open my mouth, let alone marshal any of my thoughts together to understand the tickling feeling of revelation I was experiencing.

  "Try and get some rest," Mum said softly after a while, gently disentangling herself from me and guiding me back down to the pillows. "I'm going to try and find your doctor to see about when you can be discharged."

  I felt wrung out in all ways it was possible to feel wrung out, and I desperately wanted to do as she said, but old habits die hard and, almost as if reaching for a safety blanket, I found myself asking, "Where's Big Blue?"

  "I don't know, sweetheart," she replied, glancing round. "Your bag's here, but there's no folder. Is there something in it you need? I can go and hunt it out for you, if you like."

  It took no more than a split second of thought before I shook my head. It was the weekend so Saskia wouldn't be expecting me and I could text Merry to take care of the rest of my deeds like she had last time...if she hadn't already.

  "No," I said, closing my eyes as Mum leant down to tuck the blanket in more tightly around me, "there's nothing in it I need."

  ---------

  He was wet and cold, his saturated wetsuit heavy around his hips, but Fletch made no move to turn the key in the ignition. What was the point? There was nowhere he wanted to go.

  He'd slept in his car the night before, snatching at a few hours of unconsciousness, but waking with the sun. He'd not paid much attention to where he'd driven after finding out that Lara was going to be OK, but as the first pink rays of the sun had tinted the ocean undulating before him, it'd become clear. He was at Shelbys Beach, in the car park where Lara had taken such exception to his jacket and where they'd…

  He'd not let himself follow that line of thought any further, instead he'd grabbed for his surfboard, clutching it as if he was already in the water and at risk of drowning.

  As he'd pointed out to Lara all those weeks before, the rips were bad this time of year; the currents conspiring and clashing in a way that suggested Mother Nature was just daring some dickhead to try it on with her. That morning he was that dickhead. The wind cut at the exposed skin of his hands and face, trying to tug the board from his grasp as he'd made his way down to the water, and he'd relished in the battle.

  It took all his skill, all his concentration and adrenaline, to manage the unpredictable crests, the waves that came from nowhere and the icy pull of the depths that sucked at him in each swell's demise, but it was just what he needed. It felt so good to be numb, in fact, that he stayed out too long and only hauled himself back to shore when a moment of exhausted indecision meant that he was dragged sideways and smacked his ankle hard against a rock hidden beneath the foam. He'd forced himself to the surface then and up onto the sand, limping, his lips too frozen even to form a curse to lessen the pain.

  And so he was back at the car, dripping a combination of sea water and blood into the foot-well and wondering what he was supposed to do next. He'd proven that he couldn't exhaust himself out of the memories of being in this very spot with Lara on his lap. There was no forgetting the soft material of her dress clutched in his fists, of her moving surely against him and kissing him like she would never get tired of it, like it was all she wanted to do for the rest of her life…

  He jerked his head aside, as if he could literally shake the memories out, and his gaze fell on a corner of plastic peeking out from underneath the passenger seat. Big Blue. He'd felt it slide from the bag as he'd awkwardly grabbed it at the hospital, but he'd been in too much of a rush at the time to care. At least that's what he told himself. Honestly, he was fairly sure some latent part of him had thought that the last thing Lara needed as she lay in a hospital bed was that bloody folder, despite what she might've thought.

  Well, that was just great. So he'd succeeded in banishing thoughts of their hot and heavy season in his car, but now all he could think of was the way she'd looked at him as she'd said 'they're the only things that make
me feel any good'. But, come on, how could that be right? He'd seen her smile; properly, honestly smile when Big Blue was nowhere near her. He'd seen her laugh and heard her moan and felt with every part of him that she'd had a good time when she hadn't been justifying herself every second. He didn't believe that he could've been so wrong on that, not knowing her like he did.

  He'd made a grab for the folder before he'd even realised what he was doing, pulling his rival up to rest against the steering wheel where it sat, looking as reproachful as an inanimate bit of plastic and paper could.

  In a time when everything and anything that was even vaguely private or important was kept secure by a password, it felt strange to be able to just open this folder where Lara kept her most important thoughts. Because he knew that's what it was; despite being a catalogue of deeds Lara was doing for other people, it was still like reading her diary. He was able to squash his squeamishness about this without too much hassle, however. He was past the point of being precious about Lara and her baggage, way past.

  So he started to read; glancing first over the calendar at the start and noting all the appointments she had booked in for at least a month in advance. How she had time for her own uni work on top of it all, he didn't know. He supposed she at least saved time by not allotting any space to care for herself. He realised he sounded bitter and then acknowledged that he didn't care. He was bitter.

  He finished looking over the calendar pretty quickly, sprinkled as it was with incomprehensible, to him anyway, initials and shorthand notes, and then flicked to the later pages.

  Here was where the real meat lay. Each page appeared to be for each deed with the person's name at the top and then a quick outline of what they'd requested. Under this were Lara's notes, written in the crisp print that he recognised as hers, as easily as he recognised his own. Her handwriting was one of the many things about her, like her smell and the way she looked just before she was about to lie, that he seemed to always have known.