*
Every month, Louise took Mary into the Royal Alfred Hospital to speak to the head surgeon on the “transplant team”, Mr Williams. He was an unassuming man of about Louise’s age; unimaginatively dressed, who wore unremarkable spectacles. His hair was both whispy and thinning, and scantily framed the kindest face Louise had ever seen.
They had been seeing him for two years now. Before moving to Melbourne, Mary had flown down from Canberra for these meetings and Louise had accompanied her to those appointments, too. Louise had sat and listened on each visit, slightly in awe of the surgery they discussed and aware that she had a lot to learn.
But this time she wanted to clarify a couple of things. “Would it be alright if I asked a few questions too this time, Mr Williams?” she asked.
The surgeon smiled encouragingly at her. “Yes, of course,” he said. “As Mary’s support person, it’s very important that you are involved at every stage.”
“Good,” said Louise, taking a notebook out of her handbag.
“Oh!” Mr Williams laughed. “She has a list!”
Mary chuckled. “Louise is very well organised,” she explained. “An accountant.”
“Ah – I see.” They spoke to each other over Louise in a friendly fashion.
“I just want to make sure I am putting all this together correctly.”
“Fine,” said Mr Williams. “Fire away!”
“Mum has been on the waiting list for two years now,” she began.
“Er, yes,” Mr Williams answered a little nervously.
“And the normal waiting period is 8 months.”
“Well, that varies,” said the doctor.
But Louise continued. “And the reason it varies is because some people are more difficult to match with a donor than others.”
“That’s right,” the doctor sounded relieved.
“And the reason that Mum is hard to match is because she has had children, and therefore is harder to match than a man, or a woman who has not had children; and because she is small, and therefore cannot fit an organ from a larger person; and because she is over 65 and is therefore immediately and forever placed below anyone younger who might need an organ that could have gone to Mum.”
“Well, I think –“
Louise could see that her summary had embarrassed the doctor. “I’m not being critical, Mr Williams,” she assured him, “but Mum and I and the family are at a point where we have to make some decisions, and I think we will make a better decision if we have realistic expectations about Mum’s immediate future.” Louise paused to make sure that she was communicating clearly, and not being too brusque. “The other thing that is impacting Mum’s slide down the waiting list, other than her age, is the increased survival rate of people born with cystic fibrosis. A few years ago, these people would not survive long enough to be eligible for lung transplants, but now they regularly do, and since they are always added to the list when they are young, they not only go in ahead of Mum because they are younger, and therefore regarded as being higher priority, but they are young enough to be as small as Mum, so they are receiving any small organ that is available and might otherwise have fitted Mum, who is a small woman. Am I right so far?”
The doctor nodded. “Pretty much,” he agreed, and cleared his throat.
Louise continued. “Added to all this, is the hospital’s mandate that only patients who are most likely to survive for five years after receiving a donated organ should be selected as transplant recipients.” Mr Williams did not interrupt her, but sat back, waiting to hear what she had to say. “Public hospitals, and transplant teams, measure the success of their organ donation surgeries on their patient’s survival rates. If a patient survives one year, or two years, or five years, the hospital and the transplant team are graded accordingly, and the program is deemed a success or otherwise.”
Mr Williams nodded. “That’s right,” he said.
“And as a person gets older, and closer to the ‘three score and ten’ natural life span quotient, they provide the hospital with a diminished return simply by being mortal.”
“Yes,” said the doctor. He tried to smile apologetically at Mary but couldn’t pull it off.
Louise looked over at her mother, who appeared to be startled by Louise’s summary of her situation. Louise knew with a pang that until that moment, Mary had really thought that the phone would ring at any moment and she would be told that her surgery had been scheduled. She saw now that, for the first time, her mother understood that this was unlikely to happen.
Louise gulped. “So, in fact, on the balance of probabilities, given all the factors I’ve just outlined and probably a few I haven’t, it would be fair to say that Mum will not receive a lung transplant.”
“We can’t say for sure,” the doctor protested.
“But on the balance of probabilities,” insisted Louise.
“Probably not,” the doctor sighed.
*
It was clear that Mary was annoyed with Louise. They’d wrapped up the meeting, thanking Mr Williams, and walked back to the parking lot. “Well,” said Mary, “that’s that then.”
Actually, she felt more than annoyed – she was angry. It was so typical of Louise to barge in and boss everyone around and paint the devil on the wall. Mary knew she was dying – she wasn’t completely stupid. She could barely sleep anymore, her breathing was so distressed. The oxygen was keeping her alive but it was borrowed time and Mary was more aware of the decline in her ability to stay well than Miss Bossy-Boots Louise knew.
They drove home in silence. When they arrived, Mary looked at her daughter as she manoeuvred the car into the driveway. Louise was so in control of her life. She had a career; she had a family and a home of her own. She had as much as most married couples, and seemed to think that she was normal. It infuriated Mary that Louise didn’t even acknowledge that she had so much more control over her life than most people. Mary even suspected that Louise had accepted her emphysema as a normal outcome of having smoked for 40 years, rather than the horrific and deadly condition that it truly was.
Mary spoke first. “Well, I suppose there’s no point in staying in Melbourne anymore.” Louise glanced at her mother but didn’t say anything, so Mary continued. “I might as well go back to Canberra. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it?”
Louise sighed. She turned off the car and turned to her mother. She knew she was upset and could see the bitter glint in her eyes. “Mum, what am I supposed to do?” she asked plaintively. “This house is too small for all of us. I can’t share a room with my teenage daughter forever.”
“It’s not forever,” Mary left the fact that she couldn’t live much longer unsaid.
“Come on, let’s go inside. I’ll put on the kettle.”
Once inside, the conversation resumed.
“I can’t share a room with Camille for much longer,” said Louise. “We have to work out what to do now. Once we accept that you will not be receiving a lung, what are we left with?” Louise handed Mary her tea and they sat at the dining table to continue their discussion.
“I’m left ‘gasping for breath and waiting for death’, as they say.”
But Louise was not going to be made to feel any guiltier. “Mum, my main job is to raise my kids. I work full-time to support my family; and they are all growing up. None of them will be leaving home for another decade, since they all plan to go on to tertiary education. I can’t afford to move and none of us want to move. You have a one-level house in Canberra, which is perfect for you. You have the air-conditioning all set up and are close to the Canberra hospital if you do need emergency care.”
“But I can’t manage on my own,” Mary had tears in her eyes. “I can’t drive in this condition and I’m stuck there, on my own, plugged into the wall.”
“Well, those are the issues we must deal with,” Louise sounded more confident than she felt. “You are eligible for government assistance to get any of the home services you require.”
Louise sipped her tea and saw that her mother was actually listening. “And let’s face it, Mum – if we are able to make your life comfortable back in Canberra, wouldn’t you prefer that to living here, where we are so cramped, and you have to struggle up and down the stairs to your room every day?”
It was true. Mary found the journey up to her – Camille’s – room a real struggle at the end of each day. They’d considered giving her James’ room, which was on the ground floor, but as the bathroom was upstairs anyway there seemed little point.
“Well,” conceded Mary, “if I had a Blue Nurse coming by a few times a week to help me wash my hair,”
“Yes,” Louise nodded.
“And a cleaner once a week to do the house,”
“Of course,”
“And if I could get a driver to take me to my appointments,”
“I know that they have volunteers in Canberra who drive people to their doctor’s appointments,” said Louise.
“But that still leaves the garden,” said Mary.
But Louise had seen the acceptance in her mother’s attitude and was determined to close the deal. “Well, who is looking after the garden now?”
“No one,” answered Mary. “It’s winter, so there isn’t much to do. But it is almost Spring and it will need a lot of work over the next 6 months.”
“Well,” said Louise cheerfully, “in that case, isn’t it a good thing that you will be back there to oversee it?” And she poured them both another cup of tea.
*
Alone in bed that night, Mary conceded that Louise had a point. She would be more comfortable in her own home. It was the loneliness that frightened her. Everyone was so busy. Jane and Michael, the only two of her five children who still lived in Canberra, were both married, with careers and families they battled to manage. Mary’s house was not far from theirs – but months could slip by without them bothering to look in on her.
But Louise had addressed that issue, too. “Take in a border,” she said. “Don’t charge them the going rate – charge them half what they would pay elsewhere; explain the situation – or let me do it. I’ll advertise on the internet and see what I find.”
“But,” Mary had argued, “Who’d want to live with an old, sick woman?” She blinked away her tears of shame at describing herself so bluntly.
Louise had softened her business-like stance, and patted her mother’s hand. “We might find a divorced or widowed woman your age who doesn’t own her own home. Or, we might meet a mature-aged student who wants to be within half an hour’s drive of the A.N.U. and can’t afford to rent in O’Connor. Or someone who wants to spend a year saving up – we won’t know till we advertise.”
Mary sank back into her pillows, trembling with fear at what the future held for her. Was this what she worked her whole life for, raising five children, paying the never-ending bills, providing years of free baby-sitting for grandchildren, lending her adult children money for mortgages and school fees and car payments and whatever else they couldn’t live without but couldn’t afford to pay for themselves? Five children – three daughters and two sons, and now, when she needed help from them, they were too busy raising their own children and telling her that she was lucky that she could retire on Dad’s pension – she was lucky!
Mary didn’t feel lucky. She felt alone. She’d never been alone before – she wasn’t meant to be alone now. She’d married at 18 and moved from her parent’s house to her marital home. Then she had had six children in eight years. Her life had been a surplus of people till now. Why had Jim died so young, leaving her - just when she was sick and needed him? He was only 59 – he should still be alive now, taking care of her as her health failed. Maybe she should have been the one who died. She’s gotten sick just months before Jim’s fatal heart attack, and had had been getting slowly worse ever since.
Mary thought bitterly that it would have suited everyone very well if she had died instead of their father. He had dropped dead suddenly, ten years ago, in front of Louise and Jeff. The shock to the whole family had been terrible. Michael and Marie had never really recovered from it. They certainly didn’t bother with Mary much anymore. That wouldn’t change.
Mary wiped away the tears that streamed from her eyes and wet her pillow. She dug the hanky from under her pillow and blew her nose quietly. Then she sighed and lay back on the pillow. She had a lot to think about. She’d been alone and sick for ten years. Now she had to plan her last remaining – remaining what? Years? Months? How long did she have? All through this long and desperate illness, she had feared death and struggled against it. Even now she did not feel ready to die. Despite being hooked up to an oxygen tank for the past decade; despite being eschewed by her own children – people who once couldn’t go a day without calling on her for one thing or another, long after they had left home to have families of their own; and despite spending at least half her day resting, trying to catch her breath, and to arrange her jagged breathing into a steady pattern so that she could live another day. Even with all that, Mary wanted to live. “Dolce vita,” she thought, and she faded into sleep.
When she awoke the next morning, she felt surprisingly refreshed. She couldn’t recall her dreams but knew that a problem had been resolved. But which problem was it? She checked her list of concerns. Returning to Canberra made her happy that she would be there when the first blossom tree bloomed. That was one of her favourite times – September first, when her apricot tree blossomed each year without fail. Being alone? She suddenly knew that she didn’t want to share her home with a border. She would join a mah-jong club – she’d heard of one at her local community centre. And besides – she would have the Blue Nurse coming a few times a week; and the cleaner; and the gardener once a week for the next six months. Actually, she realised that she wanted to re-do the courtyard completely. She’d draw a plan and employ a gardening professional, then watch it come to life.
And there were the legal details to be organised, too. She wouldn’t leave everything in a mess as Jim had done – a mess she had been left to clean up. The first thing she would do when she got home was see a lawyer about her will.
Louise knocked and opened the door. “Mum, do you want a hand coming downstairs?” she asked.
“I’d rather have it up here, thanks love,” said Mary with a smile. “I want to start packing.”
“Oh, OK.” said Louise. “Can I help?”
“Of course!”
“I’ll bring my tea up then, too,” said Louise.
Chapter 21 – Inheritance
A year and a half after returning to Canberra, Mary died in the Royal Canberra Hospital, surrounded by her children. She died a month before her 68th birthday.
Louise, as executor of Mary’s will, immediately received financial requests from both her brothers. “I just need an advance,” said one. “I’ll pay you back out of my share,” promised another.
Marie, the youngest, had driven down from Sydney in a van, packed up all Mary’s white goods and electrical appliances, and driven back to Sydney. Marie already had a beautiful home full of these things so no one really knew why she wanted a fridge and a vacuum cleaner, but at least there was now less for Jane to deal with. Marie didn’t even stay for the funeral. At least she’d been there at the end, though. Louise had not made it back to Canberra till it was too late.
Mary waited till the others had gone home to speak to Jane about it. They sat on the patio beside the pool in Jane’s backyard. Jane had taken a week off work to arrange her mother’s funeral, and commence the enormous task of emptying Mary’s house to prepare it for sale.
“I’m sorry to leave all this to you, Jane,” Louise said as she sipped the coffee Jane had made her.
“It’s alright,” said Jane. “You’re doing the estate, and I’m the only one here who would get the house ready, so what choice is there?”
“I know, but it is hard on you.” Louise shrugged. “It’s at times like these that I find living in another state especially d
ifficult. You are never there when the extended family needs you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Jane. “The boys are right here and they are no use at all.”
It was true. Despite checking in to see how the probate was progressing, their brothers had failed to offer any real assistance. And Louise was about to decamp back to Melbourne. Jane and her husband would have to clear out Mary’s house; organise the removal and sale - or discarding - of her belongings; clean the house; make any repairs required; keep the garden maintained; choose an estate agent to list the house for sale; and monitor the property till it was sold.
“Why are the boys so desperate for money? Louise asked Jane. “What would they have done if Mum hadn’t died? I don’t understand how they urgent need of a few thousand dollars happened to magically coincide with Mum’s death.”
Jane scoffed over her cigarette. “God, Louise – don’t you know that they are always in need of a few thousand bucks? Remember when Dad died?”
Louise nodded. She did remember. She and her mother had gone through her father’s finances and discovered that he was all but financially supporting Michael, James and Marie. “But that was over ten years ago - they were younger then,” she said to Jane. “Surely they’ve become financially independent since then?”
“I doubt it,” answered Jane. Then she shrugged. “Just give it to them – you won’t get any peace until you do.”
“Give them what?” asked Louise. “Mum’s estate is primarily her house. If they want their money, they will have to wait till the house is sold. And the more they help, the sooner they will get their inheritance.”
Jane laughed. “I don’t think they want it that badly,” she said.
*
But eventually the house was sold and probate was passed on Mary’s estate. There had also been a nest egg in her bank account; and funeral insurance.
Louise met with the solicitors, paid all the outstanding bills, settled with the estate agent and distributed the funds. Each of Mary’s five children received their inheritance with relief.
Morning in Melbourne Page 16
