Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3)

by Ainslie Paton

  “You should sleep more. I’ll be here when you wake. Doc will be here in the morning around ten and Taylor went shopping and stocked the fridge with all your favourites, and I’m prattling because I don’t really know what else to do and I don’t want you to feel shut in.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. This was harder than she’d thought it would be. “We’re going to need a sign you can use to tell me to shut up. Why didn’t we work that out already? Maybe pistol fingers to your head when you’re sick of me rabbitting on.”

  He breathed out hard through his nose and that could mean, well, anything, nothing. He found the band in her hair and pulled it out. He was rough, dragging it, pulling hairs out of her head with it, but she didn’t care. He got a good handful of her curls and wrapped his fingers through it. He took deeper breaths, and some of the strain in his neck and shoulders gave way.

  It was going to be a long two weeks for him.

  They stayed that way until his slack hands, his breathing and heavy stillness told her he was asleep again. She moved his hand from her back and slithered out of his embrace, stiff from the odd side-saddle position she’d been in. Angus was standing just outside the door.

  “How is he?”

  She stepped outside with him. “Rattled. It has to be the scariest thing. It’ll be better when he’s home. He can have music and books while he waits it out.”

  “He won’t be right till he can talk, till he can do his voices again. That’s everything to him.”

  Hearing Angus say that made Georgia tense. She’d told Damon she loved him without his voice, but did she understand what that would mean? Forget his singing, forget his character voices. Would he be the same if he couldn’t express himself off a page? How much a part of anyone is their voice? How much personality is in words said, laughter given, the inarticulate sounds of fear and pain and love? How much a part of Damon’s mastery of his blindness was his ability to call the world to his attention and make it listen?

  She would love his touch, his body, his heart, but to never have his sexy whispers raise goosebumps on her skin, his muttered endearments make her soul hum, his loud declarations and his wit and humour in her life would be a loss that stunned her.

  “Georgia.”

  “Sorry. He’s been so calm about all of this, but before they shot him full of anaesthetic he had a moment…” She shook her head. It was panic but she didn’t want to betray Damon by telling Angus that. She was having that moment now. There was absolutely no risk of Damon losing his voice altogether. “I’ve been thinking about how much a part of anyone their voice is, so for Damon how incredibly frightening this must be.”

  Angus’ eyes were on Damon. “He could give up singing, but if this affects his voices, his career, it’ll kill him.” He looked back to Georgia. “He was never the blind kid. He was always the kid who could imitate any sound, anyone. He learned to live in his voice. It was his superpower, even as his sight failed.” He shook his head, grinning. “He was a dick with it when we were younger. A real show-off. He used to pretend to be Jamie on the phone and send me off on non-existent rescue missions. I fell for that every time. Except the one time it was true, and I left Jamie stranded miles from home with a flat tire, no spare for the ute and an empty asthma puffer. He once imitated the local cop and convinced my dad that me and Jamie had been arrested for snowdropping.” Angus scrubbed at his hair. “Jesus. He has to be better than all right.”

  “He will be.” Taylor grabbed Angus’ arm and dragged him further away from the door. “What’s wrong with you two?” She gave Georgia an exasperated look. “If he can hear you he’ll chuck a mental.”

  Angus shook her off, but he snuck a confirming look at Damon through the doorway. “He can’t hear us.”

  “This is a simple thing and the two of you have gone all death wish, atomic catastrophe, nuclear fallout, zombie nation on it. Don’t be around him if you can’t be sensible.”

  Protest grumbled in Angus’ chest, but Georgia got in first. “She’s right. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be a pest to live with for the next two weeks, but he’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that and I mean it, because if he had eyes that worked he’d see the tragedy written all over your face.”

  Georgia dodged the intensity of Taylor’s glare, unsure how to deal with her vehemence.

  Angus wasn’t. “Ease off, Tay.”

  “What, and let you two feed his doubts? Not in a million. If I have to ride both your arses every minute of the next fortnight I will.”

  “God.” The word exploded out of Angus with a force that made Georgia back up and reach for the handle of the door to Damon’s room. “Who made you his army?”

  She clicked the door closed as Taylor near shouted. “Keep your voice down,” and she’d had enough. There was only so much fix-it inspiration she could bury and she’d buried it to date because these were Damon’s friends first, because he let it go and because it was none of her business and she’d learned that lesson too hard. But things were tense enough and Damon would be extra sensitive to what he was hearing and he wasn’t going to be hearing his best friends bicker when he was in no shape to do anything about it.

  “What is it with you both?”

  She got two sets of eyes switching her way. Taylor’s expression was daggers at dawn, Angus said, “Nothing,” in a way that said cover-up.

  “This thing you do, snapping at each other, is not nothing. And you,” she pointed at Taylor, “talk about me wearing my emotions on my face. What’s with you and Jamie? You growl at Angus and you can barely look at Jamie unless he’s not looking at you and then you look at him like he’s stolen something of yours, and he’s the same with you.”

  Taylor folded her arms, popped her weight on one hip. “None of your fricking business, Georgia.”

  “You just made it my business by arguing outside Damon’s hospital room.” Georgia cut her glance to Angus. “What’s going on?”

  He shook his head, the movement so small, so disdainful when combined with his curled upper lip her surprise bloomed. Angus was protecting Taylor.

  “Taylor?”

  “What part of none of your business don’t you get?” Taylor blew air through her nose like a bull ready to charge.

  Georgia got it. She’d learned to live with it, because it wasn’t her job to fix it. But enough was enough. “What part of this affects Damon and I won’t let that happen don’t you get?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with Damon.”

  “It’s got everything to do with what he made me see. It’s not fair if we hide things from him, don’t show him the truth, right now more than ever. You’re his family. He needs you.”

  “Butt out, Georgia.”

  “She’s right. It’s enough.” Angus managed to sound sharp and weary at the same time. “If you don’t tell Jamie, I will. I’ve kept your secret long enough.”

  “No.” Taylor leaped at Angus, grabbing his arms. He backed up and she went with him until his heels hit the wall.

  “Tell me what?” Jamie stood at the end of the corridor. His expression had the same weariness as Angus’. “Angus, tell me what?”

  “Damon is fine.” Taylor stepped clear of Angus, lifting her hands high.

  “That’s not what you were talking about.” Jamie jerked his head to look at Georgia, checking.

  “He’s fine. He’s sleeping. We’ll know more when his doc comes by in the morning. But this,” Georgia did that thing teachers do, casting her eyes towards Angus, Taylor and Jamie in turn, making it clear she wanted them to behave, “whatever is going on here, it’s time to sort it out.”

  “There’s nothing to sort out.” If Taylor could’ve shot death rays from her eyes she would’ve exploded Georgia into red mist. “It’s an old argument Angus and I have.”

  “The one that kicked in when I was in Singapore that neither of you will tell me about?” said Jamie, voice hard in a way Georgia had never heard from him before
.

  “Nothing happened when you were in Singapore,” said Taylor.

  “Right, nothing?” Jamie pulled his tie undone, yanked it savagely out from around his neck and unbuttoned the top of his shirt. He wrapped his tie around his fist, an ungentle action, a blue silk knuckleduster.

  Angus said, “Taylor.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said, eyes on Jamie, but daring Angus to disagree.

  Jamie took two strides forward until he was looming over Taylor. She tipped her chin up; her defiance was like room freshener, a pervasive smell of chemical flowers. A stillness spell might’ve been dropped over the hospital, over the world. Sound fell away, movement stopped. There was just Jamie and Taylor in a bubble of conflict, watching for each other’s weakness, soaking in each other’s aggression.

  Jamie broke. “Fuck.” He shot a look over Taylor’s head to Angus that might’ve punctured an internal organ, spun about and walked away.

  Angus called after him, but Jamie ignored it and kept walking. Angus didn’t follow. He slouched against the corridor wall and smacked the back of his head on the hard surface, once, twice.

  Taylor came at Georgia so quickly with such fury she flinched, her hands coming up to cover her face, but then she saw Taylor’s expression. Her features were twisted in agony, tears streaming. She was the one eviscerated. Taylor was bleeding out.

  “You don’t know what you’ve done.” She pulled at her hair. “You’ve made this so much worse.”

  No, Taylor was wrong. This wasn’t Jeffrey all over again. This was much simpler; no one was going have their life overturned because Georgia suggested Damon’s friends sort their disputes out. She wasn’t interfering; she wasn’t trying to fix things, she was only doing what people who cared about other people would do, so why was her stomach churning, why was she swallowing panic, why did it feel like she’d made a terrible mistake?

  She looked for Angus. His whole bearing was weary now. He slumped against the wall. “I can’t do this anymore, Taylor. I can’t do this to him.”

  “You can’t tell him. You promised me.”

  “I’m breaking the promise.”

  “What good does it serve? It’ll only hurt him.”

  Angus hung his head. “We’ve been around and around this. He’s already hurt. Don’t you think he should know why?”

  “I…”

  “You love him.” It was so easy to see now. Georgia had thought it was Angus who Taylor loved and since she couldn’t have him, hated on him. “You’re in love with Jamie and he’s in love with you.”

  25: Ripped

  Damon held the pen and pad but he couldn’t make his fingers form letters. There was no combination of strokes and curves that would express what he felt. He didn’t know what he felt, and if doc patted his hand one more time—patronising fucking gesture—he’d find a way to scream without using his throat. She said dysphasic lesions and subglottic extension and they all knew she meant cancer.

  “We’ll need to do a cordectomy and resection the vocal cord,” she said.

  “What does that mean, Doctor?” Mum’s voice was hushed like this was church, not his hospital room, and she was speaking to God.

  “It means we cut the cancer out, Mrs Donovan.”

  “And what happens to Damon’s voice?” said Dad.

  “It’s a risk reward equation. We preserve as much of his voice as possible.”

  Risk—reward, like this was a game show and there might be a better future behind door number three. He was looking at a future where he spent the rest of his life sounding like a saw rasping on hardwood, best case. Worst case he was holding a device to the base of his throat so he could sound like a bad parody of a talking computer circa 1950 or using a voice program on a tablet to talk for him.

  He was utterly fucked.

  “What can we do to help, Doctor?” Mum, trying but not succeeding in keeping the emotion from her voice.

  A hard squeeze across the top of his foot. Dad.

  Doc talked about the appointments that would need to be made. If he didn’t speak up in a second they’d have his future all mapped out for him. He put a hand up to stop them.

  He got two brisk pats on his knee. He got, “Darling, what is it?” and, “Jesus, he can’t tell you, Midge. Write it down, mate.”

  He put the pen on the page and then nothing. He had nothing; brain function shut down, it was too big to think through. He made angry lines on the page, digging the pen in hard so it scored, so it tore. They’d be watching him, thinking he’d have something profound for them, something to make them feel better, or at least show he understood. He didn’t understand. He’d had a routine operation. Polyps were a common, fixable complaint. He was supposed to be fine, not looking at the end of his career.

  “Damon, mate?”

  All he had was harsh lines, emptiness and the screaming he wanted to do, pounding in his head. He needed to move. He needed to get out of bed. He didn’t want them looking at him. He needed to be alone. He ground the pen into the paper, the noise of it ripping like the echo of his whole life coming apart. Then a hand over his and the pen and pad were gone. “It’s going to be okay, mate.”

  Doc’s pat, pat on his knee. “Damon, no use of your vocal cords at all. Not a sound. There are other instructions as we’ve talked about. I’ve written them down for your carers and emailed a copy so your computer can read them to you. We’ll know more in two weeks, and we can talk about the new surgery, but until then I want you calm, quiet and close by.”

  The bed shifted and there were nice to meet you’s and goodbyes. Dad’s heavy tread following doc’s heels into the corridor, wanting a private word, wanting the bottom line. Mum, sitting on the end of the bed, her hand over his shin. So many times they’d been in this place together, bouncing bad news between them; Mum and Dad practical and stoic, trying to manage the disappointment, the damage, trying to replace the dark with new sources of light and seeking, always finding a way to make it okay, accepting that others had done it, that it was never the end of the world.

  But there was no bullshitting this time. His voice was his world and that’d been taken from him, what else was there left to give?

  Mum was talking, he couldn’t take it in. He knew Dad was in the room again. He thumped the bed to get their attention and the pad and pen were slipped onto his lap.

  He wrote. “I’m OK,” because that was his job. His part to play. He was always all right no matter what happened, no matter what he really felt.

  “You’re not, mate. You’re not all right at all. This is a terrible blow.”

  “Dunc, did she do a good job this surgeon, did she make a hash of it?” Mum’s anxiety whirred in her like a noisy ceiling fan. There was the clack as she clutched at a necklace, they’d be her good pearls, like rosary beads between her fingers.

  The sound of Dad’s hand on Mum. “I don’t think she messed up. I think he’s just very unlucky.”

  Unlucky! Unlucky was when you lost your wallet, when you pranged your car, when your house got broken into. Unlucky was catching your girlfriend two-timing you, losing a bet at the races or breaking your leg. This was the end of him, the end of everything he’d built and made his life into. If he didn’t have a voice he couldn’t work, when his savings ran out, he’d need to find some other way to earn his living, but doing what? What skills did a blind, mute man, who’d spent his adult life pretending to be a cartoon character, have to offer?

  “You’re already at the empty pot, mate. Get off the rainbow.”

  “Your father’s right. It might be okay still.”

  Doing their job, they were only doing their job, but they’d heard doc. He wasn’t getting his old voice back, he might not have a voice. He didn’t know who Damon Donovan was without being The Voice. And fuck what did this mean for Georgia. He couldn’t lose her, but it wasn’t right to hold on to her either. She’d been to this place with Hamish; if he dragged her back there he was a calculating, selfish bastard.

 
; “Darling, can we get you anything? Are you sure you don’t want us to stay. I think we should stay, Dunc.”

  Mum would fuss. Dad would go mad with nothing to do in the city. There was no one to mind the farm for more than a day or two anyway. He shook his head. He had Georgia and Taylor, and Angus was coming to collect him. He’d be fine, physically fine, and there was nothing anyone could do for his mental state. He needed to keep it together. He’d drug up and sleep for as long as possible and otherwise hold his breath until there was something more to know.

  He picked up the pen and found wrote. “Don’t tell. Only us,” and turned the pad around so they could see.

  “You don’t want to tell the boys and Taylor, darling?”

  He shook his head. He couldn’t handle the questions, the way this would change everything. Not yet, not yet.

  “Are you sure that’s best, mate?”

  “What about Georgia?”

  Georgia, Georgia. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand over his face. They’d not met Georgia yet and that was probably for the best. He was desperate for a shower. He wanted to be home. He wanted to be in Georgia’s arms and he’d let himself have that, the coolness of her touch, the healing of her presence.

  He turned the pad, wrote, “4 now.” There was now, when the worst was unclear, and there was what happened when he knew the worst for sure and he needed to make changes.

  He needed time to think this through and he didn’t want everyone second guessing the future, or tiptoeing around him any more than they were already going to. He needed to get through these next two weeks and then he’d make a new plan, but for now, for now, this was the right use of silence.

  26: Postmarked Sorry

  Dear Georgie,

  I imagine a letter from me is like a dose of plague. You were well rid of me and now I’m back like a bad smell. And I appreciate that if you’re reading this, it’s a miracle. You might well have chosen not to. If I was you, and I’d been treated so poorly by someone who’d professed to love me, this letter would be confetti now.