The Missing Pieces of Us

by Fleur McDonald

  Todd didn’t think he’d be able to sleep, but he must have because the sun was high when he finally opened his eyes. His friend the magpie was outside, warbling and pecking at the window, waiting for his morning feed. Somehow Todd managed to go through the motions of showering, still turning over everything in his mind.

  When he ran the razor down his cheek, he swore as he nicked a pimple and it started to bleed. With shaking hands, he grabbed a towel and held it over the spot.

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ he said, staring at his reflection in the mirror.

  A knock at the door echoed through the house, and Todd dabbed at his face, taking one last glance at himself before he went to answer it.

  Skye. It was very strange. To his eyes, she now seemed to look just like sixteen-year-old Jacqui. He had to remind himself that it was just a coincidence.

  ‘You’re late,’ she said, with raised eyebrows. ‘I thought we were going riding. I had so much fun yesterday, but, oh my God, my arse and legs are so sore. There are muscles in places I didn’t know! Geez, what did you do to your face?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Oh, shaving accident.’ He dabbed at the wet spot with his finger—must have nicked it worse than he’d thought. ‘I didn’t sleep that well. I’m coming now. Just wait while I make a coffee to go.’

  ‘Have you fed the magpie?’ Skye asked.

  ‘No, not today. I heard him earlier this morning, but he seems to have got impatient and gone home.’ He beckoned to Skye and gave her a small smile. ‘Come in and make yourself at home while I get ready.’

  They walked into the kitchen, where he started making his coffee.

  Then he realised that Skye was staring at the photo of his wife and shifting from foot to foot. He knew enough about teenage girls now to know that she was extremely nervous.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ she said.

  ‘What would that be?’

  She took a deep breath, then the words rushed out of her without pause. ‘I wanted you to be my counsellor because I saw your post on Facebook about looking for babies that been adopted out and the photo you put up looked like me.’

  Todd stared at her. ‘Slow down. You saw the post? But I put that up months ago. How . . . ?

  Skye nodded. She was trembling, as though she was afraid that he’d be angry with her. ‘I want to make my mum happy by finding her birth mum. I don’t know if Jacqui is her, but they look so alike. And I didn’t want to just contact you and put you in touch with Mum. I wanted to know who you were, in case you were, you know, some psycho or whatever. When you said that Jacqui had melanoma, I nearly told you . . . but I just couldn’t. I was still scared that I was wrong.’

  So it hadn’t been a wild goose chase after all. Todd knew he wasn’t angry with Skye for deceiving him, but otherwise he didn’t know how to think or feel. He just stood there for a moment as they both gazed at Jacqui’s photo.

  ‘You look like her too,’ he said finally. ‘I thought you reminded me of someone, but it took me until I was looking at photos of a young Jacqui last night to realise who it was. Of course, until now I thought it was impossible.’

  They stared at each other, both realising the enormity of the situation.

  ‘Skye, what’s your mum’s birthday?’

  ‘May twelfth. Oh, and she was born in 1969.’

  Todd nodded solemnly. ‘You mustn’t say anything to your mum yet. This type of thing has to be handled very carefully. Will you leave it to me?’

  They didn’t go horseriding that day. Todd and Skye explained everything to Pastor Connor, who at first was incredulous and shocked, but soon burst out laughing and told Skye that she would make an excellent super-spy for the Australian government. She grinned and thanked him. Todd assured Connor that he would handle this issue with Skye’s parents. Of course, it would no longer be appropriate for him to counsel Skye under the Walk This Way program; something that made him a little sad.

  When Todd got up the nerve a couple of hours later, he dialled Lauren Ramsey’s number with shaky hands. In his experience, kids didn’t always know exactly what was going on in their parents’ lives, even if they thought they did. Perhaps Lauren wouldn’t be as interested in this information as Skye had led him to believe. And he didn’t know what he was going to say. He’d rehearsed a few lines in his head but nothing had sounded right.

  ‘Hello?’ she said. Was he fooling himself, or did she sound a lot like Jacqui?

  ‘Is that Lauren?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Todd Atkinson, from Walk This Way.’

  ‘Is Skye alright?’ she asked immediately.

  ‘She’s fine. In fact, I’m happy with her. She seems much more content within herself, and that’s the aim of these types of camps.’ He paused and gave a little laugh. ‘She very much likes my horses and they seem to love her.’

  ‘She’s been riding?’ The surprise in Lauren’s voice was obvious. ‘I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t know she liked animals. We’ve never even had a goldfish!’

  ‘Well, I’ve led her around the yard a few times on horseback. She’s been learning more about the responsibility of keeping an animal—grooming, feeding and so on. Responsibility is a good tool to have. Animals teach that very well.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Todd took a breath. ‘But I’m ringing with something else on my mind, Lauren, and you’ll have to bear with me. This information is very new and I’m not sure what to make of it all.’

  ‘Right?’ Lauren’s tone was surprised and curious. Surely there was something reminiscent of Jacqui in the upward lilt of Lauren’s questions.

  ‘Skye and I have spent a bit of time talking, and she told me you’ve recently had an operation for melanoma?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘My wife had melanoma too. Look . . .’ What should he say about Skye’s involvement in this? ‘I’ve been cleaning out a few of Jacqui’s things while I’ve been visiting the farm. We used to live here, you see. It’s my property.’ He coughed. ‘Skye also told me you were adopted and have been trying to find your birth mother.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Lauren replied, ‘I’ve tried the government agencies and an online DNA test, but no results as yet.’

  ‘I don’t want to get your hopes up, but in my wife’s study last night, I found a diary as well as a letter written to the two children she gave up for adoption. I want to find Jacqui’s kids, so I can bring them stories of her—’

  ‘What did the diary say?’ Lauren broke in over the top of him.

  ‘I found out that her first baby was born on the twelfth of May in 1969. I understand that’s your birthday?’

  On the other end of the line, Todd heard Lauren gasp. ‘Yes,’ she said, faintly.

  ‘Lauren, Skye looks like my wife at sixteen. The resemblance is uncanny.’

  A long pause. ‘You said Jacqui was sick. Is she still alive?’

  Todd swallowed. ‘No, no, I’m sorry. She died from her melanoma.’

  Chapter 33

  ‘You just wouldn’t believe it,’ Skye said to Tam. She was sitting on the glass-topped counter after closing time, swinging her legs. She couldn’t wait to tell Tam the whole story, but she wanted to do it right. ‘The horses were so cool. Their noses are so soft and smell amazing. I think I want to be a jockey now.’

  ‘A jockey?’ Tam asked. ‘Why can’t you just have a horse and ride it? Jockeys need to get up early to train and they can never eat.’

  Skye’s eyes widened. ‘Really? Good point.’

  ‘How did you get on with all the others?’

  ‘They’re cool. Especially Paige—she knows all of Rihanna’s songs off by heart! But I didn’t spend the first day with the kids. Todd and I mostly mucked around with the horses that day. He said that’s what he likes to do with the first-timers. “Teaches responsibility,”’ Skye chanted. ‘You just have to fall in love with them.’

  ‘And what were Todd and Pastor Connor like?’

  ‘T
odd is awesome. He’s like this great big bear. He and I talked heaps. His wife died from melanoma too.’

  ‘Hang on, your mum isn’t dead!’ Tam cut in, looking really exasperated. ‘You exaggerate so much!’

  Skye shrugged. ‘You know what I mean. Anyway, Todd knew a lot about melanoma. We talked heaps about it and what it meant. It’s possible I have the gene because of my fairness. Anyway, the thing is—’

  ‘Everyone has to be careful,’ said Tam. ‘It’s not only fair-skinned, red-haired beauties who can get melanoma!’ She wagged a finger at Skye with a smile.

  ‘Yeah, that’s true.’ Skye leaned forward. ‘Listen, I’ve got a secret . . .’

  Raising her eyebrows skyward, Tam said, ‘And what’s that?’

  As dramatically as she could, Skye told Tam all about seeing Todd’s post on Facebook and how she’d become a super-spy at Walk This Way, and all the rest of what happened on her adventure.

  ‘I’m a hundred percent positive that Jacqui’s my biological grandmother. Todd thinks so too. See, the birth dates are the same, and Mum has the same hair colour, eye colour as his wife had. All that’s left to do is the DNA testing.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Tam, who was looking a bit stunned. ‘So, does your mum know about this?’

  ‘Yeah, totally. Todd called her. It’s all good.’

  Coming home on the bus, Skye had imagined what it would be like to have Todd as a grandfather. She’d be able to go to the farm and ride the horses whenever she wanted. And now that she knew him, she knew she’d always be able to go to him in a crisis. The thought made her really happy.

  ‘So, anyway, Jacqui gave up two babies,’ Skye said. ‘The other one we still don’t know anything about, except that it was probably a boy. So I might have an uncle out there somewhere! How cool is that?’

  Tam had been folding a stack of black pants, but now she stopped.

  ‘You know, I was adopted,’ she said, without looking up.

  Skye stared at her, eyes wide. ‘Really? Wow.’

  ‘Mmm, yeah. I only found out a few weeks ago when I reunited with Mum. I don’t have a lot of information yet. Just a confirmation of my birthday and a few other details.’

  Skye was hit with an idea. In her mind, she went back to the letter that Lauren had let her read, the one Jacqui had written when she was dying.

  ‘Hey, when’s your birthday?’ Skye asked. ‘I want to put it in my phone.’

  ‘The first of March.’

  ‘And the year?’

  Tam gave her a look. ‘Let’s just say I’m very old.’

  ‘Come on, I need to know how many candles to put on your cake! And Mum says that ageing is nothing to be ashamed of. Should I be ashamed of getting older?’

  Rolling her eyes and chuckling, Tam said, ‘Alright. I was born in 1973.’

  Skye grinned in pure delight, and Tam gave her a questioning look.

  Suddenly, Skye was positive that the nurses had lied to Jacqui about the baby being a boy. It had been a girl! And that girl, now a woman, was standing right in front of her. How had she not realised before? Their mannerisms, the way they laughed, even the way they sneezed. The shape of their eyes and how they walked. How was it that two half-sisters could be brought up in different houses by different families, but still have so many things in common? Genes were incredible. And how amazing that they lived not far from each other!

  Now that Skye really thought about it, it was all so clear. She supposed that after all the failed efforts she’d made when she was a little kid to randomly find her blood relatives, with her mum telling her over and over to stop doing it, she’d switched off that bit of her brain and kept ignoring what it was telling her about Tam. But some part of her had known. She hadn’t only wanted her mum’s attention—she’d wanted Tam’s as well. She’d wanted to chat with Tam like they were chatting now.

  My cool aunty!

  ‘So, anyway,’ Skye said, ‘are you going to try and find your birth mum?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not a high priority for me, but that might change.’

  Skye studied the woman she was now sure was her aunty. ‘How’d it make you feel, finding out?’

  ‘Oh, now that’s a loaded question. There was so much other stuff going on at the time. A fair bit to process. But in some ways it helped me make sense of a lot of things. My father wasn’t very nice to me when I was growing up. When I found out I’d been brought into the family as a baby, I understood him a lot more.’

  ‘But . . . aren’t you curious about where you came from?’

  ‘I know where I came from,’ Tam answered. ‘I was raised in Whitfield Street with my mum and dad.’

  ‘You might have a whole other family out there who’s really cool!’ Skye gushed. ‘You might have a father and mother, sister . . . or a brother. Though they can be a bit boring at times. But you might even have a really smart, pretty, wicked niece—just like me!’

  ‘And modest too. God help us all if that’s the case!’ Tam said, snorting. ‘Have you counted that float yet? And can I ask why you’re putting your bum prints all over my nice shiny counter? You’re going to need to polish that before we go home.’

  ‘Uh, no. Sorry.’ Skye jumped down and opened the till.

  Chapter 34

  Three weeks later, when Lauren’s arm had healed and she felt well enough, she appeared at the door of the kindy classroom and was met with shrieks of delight. She smiled and bent down to greet each and every child. The pure joy on their faces made her catch her breath. They loved her, and she loved them.

  ‘There must be so much news to tell,’ she said to them all as they came inside.

  Joy had been setting up the room just as Lauren had asked the previous day. There was butcher’s paper spread over the tables next to colourful pencils and crayons. Today they’d start working on a large drawing for Dirk’s hospital wall.

  ‘Now, children, first I’ve got some big news to share with you. Shall we all sit down and I’ll tell you about it?’

  Once she and Joy had the kids settled, she sat down with them. ‘I guess some of you have noticed that Dirk hasn’t been at school very much,’ she said.

  ‘Is he sick?’ asked one child.

  ‘Yes, he is. He’s in a hospital especially for children and the doctors are doing all they can to make him get better. His mum says he’s missing all of you so much!’

  ‘Is he going to die?’ A pair of large hazel eyes looked at Lauren.

  That was the question she’d hoped not to be asked.

  When Zoe had rung Lauren out of the blue, she had given her the news in a low, flat tone. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s not looking good at this stage, but the doctor says that things often get worse before they get better. Dirk’s neutrophils—that’s a type of white blood cell—are very low, which means he’s got to be on a special diet. White blood cells help fight infection, so the doctors are worried about him catching something that could kill him. It’s a whole new language to learn: neutrophils, white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets. Blood transfusions. God!’ Zoe sounded exhausted. ‘Did you know, he has to have a white cell injection in his stomach every week? He’s covered in bruises. Nothing like the ones you saw—these are deep and purple. I’m sure they go through to the other side.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Lauren said. ‘Would he like to see the other children? I can organise a visit. Or would it be too much?’

  ‘The doctors won’t let them in, I don’t think. It’s the risk of infection. And he’s so tired, just sleeps all the time. The chemo is making him sick.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said Lauren. ‘I’ll organise something. And let me know if there’s anything—I don’t care how small it is, just anything, we can do here from the school.’

  ‘Thank you. And, Lauren . . . I need to thank you. When we had that meeting, I was a bit taken aback. But you also helped me see that I was being so stupid.’

  Lauren had felt empty when she’d hung up
the phone. She hadn’t been sure whether to cry or just sit and stare.

  ‘Mrs Ramsey?’

  She blinked and saw the children looking up at her, waiting for her to answer their difficult question. ‘Well, the doctors are doing their very best to make Dirk well again, but he’ll be away from kindy for a while. I think it might be nice if we draw a great big picture to go on his hospital wall, don’t you?’

  Smiling at them, she reached around her arm to touch the spot where the lesion had been. She was beginning to get nervous about her check-up, but she had to get used to the idea of these three-monthly check-ups, always with the risk of finding something again. It was just how she had to live from now on.

  Guiding the kids over to the tables, she watched as they all started to draw. Some drew love hearts; others, green grass and sunshine. But they all took turns at tracing the letters: ‘To Dirk, love from the kindy class of the Goose.’

  Later that day, Lauren stood in front of her letterbox and stared at the envelope with the government symbol in the corner.

  Dear Mrs Ramsey,

  Thank you for your enquiry. The Departmental records have been searched and the following information was recorded:

  Name: Lauren Connie Jenkins

  Born: King Edward Memorial Hospital, Subiaco, Western Australia

  Date of birth: 12 May 1969

  Records state that the child was born without complications at 2:56am and weighed 3778.75gm. Length was 48cm and her Apgar scores were 6 and 7.

  Birth mother was sixteen, single and a student.

  It was the birth mother’s wish, at the time, not to have any contact.

  As of today, the first of April 2016, the birth mother has not requested to be put on the Contact Register.

  Yours sincerely,

  Flora Dune

  This was all what she’d expected. The letter fell to her chest as she took out another piece of paper from the file.