‘So, good news for you guys,’ says Kieran. ‘I heard Mr Mills is being discharged soon?’
It’s like he’s talking to me, the way he’s watching me drink my milkshake, but I know he’s speaking to Mum. ‘Have you got everything you need?’
‘I think so,’ she says. Mum’s been busy getting our house ready for when Dad comes home. She’s hired a special hospital bed with sides, to make sure Dad doesn’t fall out, organised Henry to fit a grab rail in the bathroom, and borrowed a comfy recliner chair for the TV room. Our house feels squashed with all the extra furniture, but I don’t care. It’ll be nice to have Dad back. It’s been five weeks since his face went slippy, and it’s not the same at home without him.
‘I’m sure it will work out,’ Kieran says. He looks into my cup, which is only half-empty. ‘Sorry, guys. I gotta go. Awesome seeing you, though.’ He hands my drink back to Mum.
‘Okay, well, bye, Kieran,’ she says. ‘Good luck with your house hunting.’
‘Bye, Mrs Mills. Bye, Ava, Nic. See you round.’
Once he’s gone, Nic sighs noisily from her chair.
‘Nic! Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t say thank you for the flowers.’ Mum scoops them up off the floor. ‘Thank you, love. And tulips too. My favourite! That was very thoughtful of you.’
Too late. Nic stares at the flowers like they’re a bucket full of fish heads.
Guilt knots my stomach.
So much for Jin-Soo’s magic wand.
‘So, what do occupational therapists actually do?’ asks Nic on the drive home.
Mum flicks on the indicator and checks her blind spot before answering. ‘Pardon?’
‘You said that Kieran’s studying to be an occupational therapist. What do they actually do?’
Mum’s been talking about Kieran the whole way home from our disastrous ‘treat’ – about how polite he was and how good he was with me. How much Dad likes him and what a shame we won’t see him once Dad’s discharged from hospital.
‘Well, they’re sort of like physiotherapists,’ Mum says, ‘but they use everyday activities to help patients strengthen different muscles and get better. The OTs at the hospital have been giving Dad all sorts of strategies he can use when the usual ways of doing things don’t work. Like, little tricks for getting in and out of the car. Kieran’s been part of the team helping him.’
Nic nods, then stares out the window.
But Mum’s still thinking. ‘I wonder …’ she begins.
Nic’s gaze doesn’t shift.
‘Do you think Kieran would be interested in our place?’
Nic jerks her head around and narrows her eyes. ‘What?’
Mum explains about Banjo and how much trouble Kieran’s having finding a place to rent. ‘We could offer him free rent in exchange for helping me with Dad and Ava,’ she says.
Nic snorts. ‘Like, how? Where’s he going to sleep?’
With our jam-packed house, Nic’s got a point.
‘My office is pretty self-contained. We could borrow a sofa bed and a microwave, and our yard’s fenced, so he could bring his dog and …’
Mum rambles on while I watch Nic stare into her side mirror, pursing her lips together. She’s trying to do an impression of Mum’s chook-bum face, but instead she looks more like a fish. I laugh.
We could be great sisters, Nic.
Dogs are always happy to see you, even if you drool and drop crumbs everywhere. In fact, they’re happy to see you because you drool and drop crumbs everywhere.
After Mum and Nic talk about renting out the garage office, Mum invites Kieran to come and have a look. When he agrees, she packs away her drawings and computer – I guess she’s too busy with Dad to be needing them at the moment – and borrows a sofa bed from Henry.
But my heart sinks when, two seconds after arriving at our house, Kieran makes his first mistake. He lets Banjo, his black-and-white Border Collie, bound through the front door and onto the couch. Pets aren’t allowed in our house. The garage is okay, but Mum doesn’t like animals on the furniture.
Luckily, after Mum’s explained, Kieran makes Banjo wait patiently outside. Through the glass doors I watch Banjo’s pink tongue loll and his hairy tail wag. He looks pretty friendly. Even if Kieran doesn’t rent the garage office, maybe Mum could invite his dog to come and visit? One of the girls at school has a companion dog; maybe Banjo could be mine? We could train him to call triple zero. Or to run and get help.
After Mum’s shown Kieran around, she pulls out her list of questions. With Banjo looking hungrily in through the glass, she goes through each item on it, one by one.
‘Have you had any experience caring for children with special needs?’ she begins.
Muuuum. You had no experience before I came along.
‘Well, we’re learning heaps at uni, of course,’ says Kieran, ‘and now with my placement in the hospital, I guess …’
‘But no actual experience with children?’
Kieran flushes. ‘I did work in after-school care for a while, at the local primary school.’
‘So you have a Blue Card then?’ asks Mum. ‘For working with children?’
Kieran has a folder pinned under his arm and only remembers it now. But he opens it too fast and papers fall to the ground. He puffs as he scrambles to pick them up, as well as his Blue Card, which has skittered under the table.
‘Okay, great,’ says Mum, writing down the details of his card.
‘And I … um … I come from a sheep property out west, so I figured, maybe …’ Kieran raises his eyebrows, but Mum frowns. Banjo whines and presses his nose against the glass door.
Kieran explains a little more. ‘Well, so, the orphaned lambs? I had to care for them, feed them, make sure they had water, that sort of thing.’
Mum scratches her forehead. Comparing me to orphaned animals is probably not the best interview tactic.
She hammers Kieran with heaps more questions, while I wait, hoping he gets them right. Luckily, he does a pretty good job of answering, until, eventually, Mum has asked everything on her list.
But she still looks a little unsure.
I smile and try to settle my squishing hands. I’m hoping Mum will interpret calm behaviour as a ‘thumbs up’ from me.
‘I could do a trial session,’ offers Kieran. ‘You know, a test run. Before I move in my stuff. That way we can see if Ava likes me. And if it goes well, we can work out the rest?’
It’s the first time someone’s worried about whether I’ll like them. Usually people only worry what Mum and Dad think.
‘A trial? Okay, yes, good idea,’ Mum agrees. ‘So, in that case, I’ll need to tell you a few more things. Let’s see. Ava doesn’t like sudden change. She likes everything in a routine, and she only likes it if …’
Mum rattles off the five million things Kieran should know about caring for me. ‘We always tell her what we’re about to do before we do it, so she doesn’t get a fright. We help her along by keeping a hand under her elbow, like this’ – Mum demonstrates – ‘and then hold on to both elbows to help her sit down.’
Kieran nods and listens, even though I’m sure they’ve taught him all this at uni.
The test run is scheduled for Saturday, when Mum takes Nic to her maths tutorial. Mum usually sits in the car with me and we wait for forty-five minutes while the tutor tries to teach Nic maths. It’s boring waiting so long, and I know Mum hates wasting time in the car when she could be doing something productive, like the weekly grocery shop. But it’s impossible to do things like push a full trolley and my wheelchair at the same time, so we always just sit and wait.
If you include the drive there and back, Mum and Nic will be gone for exactly one hour. You’d think Mum was preparing for a six-week camping trip with all the things she’s explaining to Kieran.
‘I’ll cut up some rockmel
on in case she gets hungry, and she likes Vegemite sandwiches.’
I actually prefer jam.
‘So, but like, how will I know when she’s hungry?’ Kieran asks. He has one small pimple close to his hairline, and I wonder if Nic would mind lending him her ‘Die, Pimple, Die’ cream. She uses it by the bucketload these days.
Mum tips her head to one side and squints her eyes.
‘You know, what I mean is, if she can’t talk, how will I know what she wants?’ Kieran’s talking quickly, like he’s worried Mum might sack him before he’s started. His pimple suddenly looks extra poppy.
Mum looks at me. ‘Well, we just sort of, we know her pretty well, I suppose. We don’t really know when she’s hungry. We just make an educated guess.’
‘So, if she screams, she’s not trying to tell me something? She doesn’t have, like, some sort of communication system?’
Mum’s chook-bum face starts creeping in. ‘No, nothing we’ve tried has worked. But yes, I suppose she usually screams when she’s unhappy, or if she wants something. But it’s hard to know. We often just have to try a few things and—’
‘Like offering her choices?’
Mum squints again. ‘Well, no, not really. We just check when she last ate, or see if she’s cold or—’
‘Oh, so you don’t kind of like see if she’s enjoying what she’s doing, or if she wants to do something else?’
‘Um …’ Mum chews her lip. ‘Not really. With her hands and speech the way they are, we sort of don’t really know how.’
Even though Kieran’s only known Mum a little while, he knows to stop asking questions. Mum likes to think she has everything covered, and Kieran’s questions are rattling her. Instead, he just smiles and tells her, ‘No biggies. All sweet. Ava and I will be fine.’
It takes forever for Saturday to come around. My heart squeezes. My head spins.
My very own carer.
But my pulse skips a little too. Will Kieran know what to do?
‘Call me if you need anything,’ calls Mum after she’s run through the list of instructions with Kieran – twice.
‘Mum! You told him that already,’ hisses Nic. Her face is stony, like she’s not convinced Kieran is up for the job.
‘We’ll be back by 10.30,’ repeats Mum. ‘There’s plenty of food in the cupboard. Help yourselves.’
Kieran’s supporting me at the front door so we can wave goodbye.
My bottom lip wobbles. Kieran could be a serial killer for all we know. Those orphaned lambs? What if they all died from neglect?
But my nerves settle when Mum drives off and Kieran lets Banjo into the house. Banjo hesitates at first, but then bounces around our ankles. Serial killers don’t have dogs like Banjo. And they probably don’t wear Superman t-shirts like Kieran’s, either.
‘Let’s eat!’ says Kieran, opening the kitchen cupboard to eyeball the possibilities. Banjo sits beside him, sniffing the delicious smells and occasionally licking his lips.
‘What about ice-cream?’ Kieran opens the freezer and, taking my silence for a yes, he scoops choc-chip ice-cream into some bowls, sprinkling each with hundreds and thousands. So much for routine. I’m never allowed ice-cream at 9.30 in the morning!
But I’m not complaining. Kieran knows to spoon the silky ice-cream slowly into my mouth, and it slips down my throat without a hitch.
So far, so good.
We’re halfway through our second serves when Kieran pulls something out of his bag. ‘It’s old,’ he says, placing an iPad in a tattered case on the table. ‘But it works, I guess.’
Mum and Dad bought me an iPad once. The games looked awesome, but because I couldn’t use my hands to press the screen, I never got to play them.
Now Kieran chooses a song on his iPad and flicks up the volume. He’s obviously decided that, as well as ignoring ‘Ava likes routine’, he’ll ignore the ‘Ava doesn’t like loud sounds’ rule too.
That’s okay. I like this song.
Kieran checks a chat site on his iPad and smiles to himself as he types. He doesn’t try to hide the screen like Nic would – so I read over his shoulder. He’s talking to his friends about a new computer game and how he’s planning on staying up till midnight to be the first to play it.
So, I’m guessing, as well as training to be an occupational therapist, Kieran’s a gaming geek?
Kieran’s soon so engrossed he completely forgets to feed me my ice-cream. It’s melting into choc-chip soup. I glance at the door. How long till Mum comes back?
Hey, Kieran. My ice-cream is melting.
But he continues tapping messages out to his friends. My heart sinks. Kieran seemed so perfect. What if he’d rather spend twenty-four hours playing computer games than actually caring for me? I’ve heard about people who are so addicted to gaming that they forget to do normal, everyday things like eating or cleaning their teeth. What if Kieran’s like them? Did he forget to feed those baby lambs?
Don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream.
Kieran’s too cool for screaming. So I stare at him, trying to make my eyes say, ‘Kieran! Ice-cream!’ before it’s too late.
But it’s impossible. How can a pair of eyes say that? I could swirl my eyeballs around in their sockets all day, but Kieran wouldn’t understand me.
Then I have a flash of genius.
My gnarled fingers twist tightly around each other, but I concentrate super hard and manage to pull my right hand slightly away. My whole arm shakes. My fingers jiggle.
Keep going. Keep moving. Don’t stop.
Kieran’s still smiling and typing when finally I manage to slam one sticky palm onto the screen of his iPad. I was aiming for the letter ‘I’ for ice-cream, but instead I’ve left a creamy smear on the case.
Kieran’s head jerks up. ‘Ava, you okay?’ He peers at me carefully before wiping his iPad with the hem of his t-shirt. ‘What’s wrong? The ice-cream given you a sore tummy?’
No, I wanted you to keep feeding me.
‘No sweat. How about I show you some stuff on the net? What do you think? Okay?’
Kieran whistles as he cleans away the ice-cream bowls, then asks me if I like watching YouTube videos. Although I can’t say yes, he chooses one of a cat jumping into a bath. The cat gets wet and then leaps out like it’s on fire.
Next is a girl being headbutted by a goat. We both laugh and I forget about the wasted ice-cream. Encouraged, Kieran keeps flicking. There’s one of cats stealing dogs’ beds and another of birds hiding behind their wings.
I laugh and laugh and laugh.
Until a message beeps through on the screen. The YouTube videos stop, and Kieran flicks back to his special site.
Hey! I was enjoying that.
Before I realise what I’m doing, my whole fist jabs towards the screen. I don’t hit it this time, but Kieran looks up, mid-type. He peers at me strangely, and then his eyes widen when I stare right back at him and then at his iPad.
‘Oh, wait! Okay, cool. Let’s see. How can we do this?’
He flicks back to YouTube and selects a clip for us to watch. He doesn’t start the video but instead holds the iPad within my reach. ‘Ava, can you press “play”?’
I stare at the triangular button on the screen, but now I can’t unclasp my hands.
An aeroplane flighs up high in the distance. A fly buzzes around our bin.
‘Come on, Ava. Try.’ Kieran smiles and holds the iPad closer. ‘If you want to watch a clip, press there. See? The sideways “play” triangle. Press it. Go on.’
I want to press the play button, I really do. I try shutting out all the other senses and send my energy to my fingers, but they stay clenched and stiff.
After a few minutes, Kieran’s smile fades, and he pulls the iPad back towards him.
My nose and palms bubble with sweat.
Wait! I can do this.
‘Okay, so maybe next time?’ he says when he sees me slumping. ‘Let’s go do something else. Want to go outside? For a walk?’
Don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream.
I really want to try your iPad, Kieran. Imagine if I could use it to tell you the things I want to say.
But there’s nothing I can do as he helps me up from the chair, just like Mum showed him. Although he’s skinny, he’s surprisingly strong, and he takes me for a stroll around the backyard. Banjo comes too, and three rosellas bounce off the grevillea bush and fly away. The basil in Dad’s veggie patch has gone to seed, and little white flowers dot the coriander. I spy a shiny purple eggplant and wish I could ask Kieran to pick it. We could give it to Dad when he comes home.
‘Hello.’ Henry next door is hanging out washing. ‘All okay over there, young Ava?’
Kieran smiles and tells him, ‘All okay’ but I notice Henry watching us closely as we continue around the garden.
It’s okay, Henry. Really. We’re fine.
We do two more laps of the garden before Mum’s car pulls up in the driveway.
‘Hey, Mrs Mills,’ calls Kieran as Banjo bounds over and wags his tail to welcome Mum and Nic.
Mum’s arms are full of shopping bags and she gives me a careful once-over. ‘How’d it go?’ she asks, while Nic scowls suspiciously at Kieran.
‘It was awesome,’ he says.
Yes, it was awesome. Totally awesome.
I hope Mum says Kieran can stay.
With Banjo.
And his iPad.
Kieran passes his trial. On the day he moves into the garage office, Banjo stays outside while Kieran hauls piles of clothes and stuff from the back of his ute and sets himself up.
It’s perfect timing. Dad’s finally coming home.
‘You’ll be okay?’ Mum asks for the hundredth time. ‘We won’t be long. Maybe an hour?’
Mum and Nic are going to the hospital to collect Dad while Kieran watches me.
I can’t stop smiling. Dad’s coming home!
Everything I've Never Said Page 9
