by Jenni Ogden
TWENTY
I once read somewhere that women over sixty read more books than any other group. Because of a genetic flaw, men aren’t big readers, and women aged between twenty-five and sixty are too busy being mothers and then career women to have time to read, even though they would love to. Since arriving on Turtle Island I’d read no more than ten of the sixty books I’d so diligently downloaded onto my Kindle before I left Boston, thinking I would have endless blissful hours to indulge. In the first five days of life with Hamish, I managed exactly one page of the novel that had been gripping me before his arrival—reading at that point being my only release from thinking endlessly about Tom and me. I was lucky to get through one sentence in the few seconds before I fell asleep each night, only to be woken around two o’clock and then again at six o’clock for Hamish’s next bottle.
I’d never felt particularly tired when I was patrolling the beach every night and tagging turtles, although admittedly I’d slept late in the mornings. But this was another thing altogether. Four-hour blocks of sleep, punctuated with hot flushes, left me exhausted. But I wouldn’t have changed it. The hot flushes I could do without, but the night feeds were strangely precious. Sometimes I woke before Hamish and willed him to open his eyes so I could lift his warm, sleepy body out of the cot and cuddle him close.
Days were filled with goodness knows what: crawling around on the floor, admiring Hamish’s attempts to roll over; walks on the beach with babe in his backpack; cups of tea with Violet while her kids cooed over Hamish and he chuckled back. No time to fret over Tom. By half past six every other evening, I was sitting in Tom’s house in front of his computer, awaiting Kirsty’s Skype call. She’d left strict instructions about this in a note I’d found in Hamish’s case of diapers, bottles, and formula. Although Kirsty had looked a bit teary when she waved her baby goodbye, she was loving every moment of her course and, although she wouldn’t admit it, I think she was enjoying living it up with the other students in the evenings.
ON SATURDAY HAMISH WOKE WITH A SNIFFLE, AND BY midday he was fractious and off his bottle. I spent most of the afternoon walking the floor with him while he cried. Putting him in his cot made him cry louder and when I bravely tried to leave him there and sat on the deck where he couldn’t see me, he kept on crying. When he began to sound choky, I wrapped him up, hot though he was, put him in his backpack, and walked to Violet’s. She of course had some liquid baby Panadol, and within thirty minutes he fell asleep on my lap. Buoyed by Violet’s assurances that it was just a cold and to give him more Panadol in three hours, I inserted him into his backpack again and took him home. Fortunately it wasn’t a Skype night, so I didn’t have to drag the poor little mite to Tom’s, nor did I have to worry Kirsty. With luck he’d be a box of birds by tomorrow; I believed babies were like that.
By ten that night he was burning up and I was sponging him with lukewarm water, trying to get his temperature down. Then, without warning, he arched back in my arms, stiff as a board. His eyes rolled up and he began to jerk. Medically trained I might be, but a seizure in a little baby was frightening. It seemed to go on forever, but was probably no more than a very long two minutes. My head full of meningitis and god knows what other baby ailments, I continued to sponge him, thankful that no meningitis-type rashes were appearing, and attempted to get some water into his crying little mouth. After the third attempt the teaspoon of Panadol I forced into him seemed to disappear down his throat instead of coating his chin. Wrapping him in a towel I walked the floor again, his downy head flopping on my shoulder as he snuffled and whimpered.
“Are you okay?” Tom’s voice said.
I started, and Hamish let out a little squawk. Turning around, I saw his dark silhouette on the deck. “Where did you come from?” My knees felt as if they were going to deposit me in a heap on the floor.
“Is the baby sick?” he asked.
“Yes, he’s got a fever and he had a seizure a while ago. It was terrible.”
Tom was beside me, one hand on Hamish’s head.
“What’s all this, young fellow,” I heard him whisper. “You look done in,” he said to me, pecking me on the cheek.
“Thanks. It’s been a long day. How did you get here? I didn’t think you’d be back until next weekend.”
“I caught a ride on a friend’s catamaran. They were sailing up to Cairns and didn’t mind going off course.”
“Didn’t Collette want you to stay in Brisbane so she could boss you around?”
“Very funny. No, once I’d waved Morrie goodbye I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I’m no city slicker.”
He’d taken Hamish from me and was rocking him gently back and forth, so I eased my aching body into a chair, groaning as I undid the knots in my neck and shoulders. My eyes focused on a pukey stain down the front of my crumpled T-shirt, and then my utilitarian knickers swam into view. I leapt out of the chair, almost knocking Tom over, and grabbed a pair of shorts lying on top of the pile of clothes at the end of my bunk. When I emerged from the bathroom, my hair combed, feeling slightly less exposed and less smelly, Tom was pouring water from the kettle into two cups. Hamish was sound asleep on his shoulder.
“What made you come and see me at this hour of the night?” I mumbled as the scalding tea burnt my parched throat.
“Just felt like it. I wouldn’t have disturbed you if your light was off.”
I sniffed. Perhaps I was getting Hamish’s cold. “I’m glad. You seem to have a way with babies as well as turtles.”
“Call me baby whisperer. Do you think it’s anything serious, with the seizure?”
“I hope not. He was very hot so I’m praying it was a once-off febrile seizure. God knows how I’ll tell Kirsty. She’ll never leave him with me again.”
“Bollocks. But I bet she’ll want to get over here. Perhaps you don’t need to tell her just yet, if he’s okay tomorrow.”
“I couldn’t do that. She would definitely never forgive me, and I wouldn’t blame her. Is that really how you think?”
“I don’t know, Anna. I’m just a bloke, remember.” Tom carried the still-sleeping baby over to the cot and laid him in it. “I’ll leave you to get some sleep. I’ll come by first thing in the morning in case you need anything.”
“Don’t go, Tom. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
“Please stay. I felt so alone before. What if he gets worse again?”
“I’m sure you’d cope.”
I could feel him looking at me.
“Are you crying,” he asked.
“No.” I sniffed again. “I’m just tired and worried.”
“Okay, I’ll stay.”
Tom took the first watch, and I woke two hours later when Hamish’s cry penetrated my dreams. He was burning up again, and we sponged him down and Tom managed to get some Panadol into him. When at last he was asleep, Tom insisted I go back to bed so I would be able to take over the next day. Two hours max, I said, telling him to wake me at five at the latest. But it was well past dawn when I opened my eyes and heard Tom murmuring to Hamish.
“Is he sick again?” I gasped, sliding off the top bunk.
“No, just hungry, I would imagine. He’s been sleeping like a baby.” He handed him to me. “You change him while I warm up his bottle.”
He felt much cooler, and as I changed his almost dry diaper, thinking we had to get some liquid into him, he chuckled at me. We fed him a few ounces of milk at a time, which he managed to keep down. As I tucked him up in his cot, already asleep, the smell of bacon and eggs was heaven.
Perhaps it was my lightheaded relief, but as we scoffed down the feast, I said, without any preliminaries, “Tom, do you have the Huntington’s gene?”
Tom’s fork, halfway to his mouth, halted, and then continued on its way. I held my breath. He didn’t look up, and I watched him as he finished every last smear of egg yolk.
“Why can’t you tell me? Don’t you think I deserve to know?”
; Tom placed his knife and fork carefully on his plate, and looked at me. “What difference would it make?”
“Well, it wouldn’t,” I said. “Not to how I feel about you. But if you did have it, perhaps I could help you.”
“Anna, I know you’re an expert on Huntington’s, and if I do want to know anything, I promise I’ll ask you.” He sighed. “It’s not about facts any more. I’ve watched Dad get worse and worse, and Mum trying to help him. I know as much as I want to know.”
“You haven’t been tested, have you?”
I almost whispered. Tom shook his head.
“But you might not have it. Don’t you want to know?”
He pulled a twenty-cent coin from his pocket and held it in his palm. “You call. Heads I don’t have Huntington’s and tails I do.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Silly is about right. Having the test is no different from tossing a coin. Even odds that I’ll be home free. But what if it’s tails, Anna? Is that better than hoping for a few more years that I might be heads?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” My stomach turned over.
“It’s crazy, but even if I discovered I didn’t have the gene, I’d feel terrible. Somehow, that would make it more likely that my sister had got the short straw.”
“She hasn’t been tested either?”
“No. Hilary and her husband didn’t want to know, even when they decided to have kids. Instead they used IVF, using fertilized eggs that tested negative for the gene.”
“But she would know, surely, if some of her eggs had been positive, or if none of her eggs had carried the gene?”
“They asked not to be told either way. That would have been no better than tossing a coin.”
I could feel my mouth actually drop open.
Tom grinned. “Hilary’s not to be messed with. She wanted her own kids, and she didn’t want them worrying all their childhoods about having to look after her when she got Huntington’s. She says that if she does have it, she wants to enjoy life first.”
“That’s incredible.” I struggled to keep the disbelief out of my voice.
Tom started clearing the table as if that was that. I rehearsed my next sentence carefully, and as I dried the dishes he was so competently washing, I let it out. “I’m sure you know this, but just in case … The whole thing about 50 percent of the children of a parent with Huntington’s having the gene doesn’t mean that if you don’t have the gene, Hilary does. It’s a statistical thing over a whole population. You could both be free of the gene, and in another family both children might be unlucky.” I dried the plate for the third time, not brave enough to look at Tom.
“Just like getting heads twice in a row in that coin toss. Yes, Dr. Fergusson, I do understand. I know I’m not being rational.” He smiled at me—a genuine smile—and the flare of annoyance his words had spurred in me flickered and died.
He left soon after, leaving me to deal with a whirlpool of feelings: overwhelming relief that Hamish, in spite of a runny nose, was back to his happy self, and frustration, helplessness, misery about Tom. I had to face him again that evening when Hamish and I went to keep our Skype date with Kirsty. Hamish was perfect, grinning when he saw his mother’s face on the screen, and I almost didn’t tell her. But I had to, of course. I tried to downplay it, but explaining a febrile seizure isn’t easy to downplay to a first-time mum. It took a while to calm her, and in the end it was Tom’s matter-of-fact contributions that did the trick.
“Kirsty,” he said, inserting his face next to mine, “Hamish is okay, but if you carry on like this you’ll upset him. Get a grip. We sponged him down, gave him Panadol, and he is as right as rain. Heaps of babies have a febrile seizure and it does them no harm at all.”
I’d told her something similar, but there you go. When did anyone listen to me? By the end of the conversation she’d agreed not to move heaven and earth to get back to the island before next weekend, on the condition that we Skyped every night.
Tom asked me to stay for dinner, and afterwards, with Hamish asleep in a tumble of blankets on the deck, we talked. Perhaps the wine helped, but it seemed to me that Tom was relieved that it was out there, that elephant, clear for both of us to see. Watching his face as he told me his story was gutwrenching—his father’s slow and dreadful deterioration, his mother’s exhausted efforts to care for him, his sister’s determined efforts to remain optimistic about her own chances.
“How long do we have to wait until he dies, Anna?” he asked me. “How much more agony must he and Mum go through?”
“I don’t know,” was all I could offer. “I don’t know.”
“WE COULD DO WITH A THIRD MAN ON THE TURTLE rodeo.” Tom was standing on my deck, a silhouette against the bright morning light.
“I thought you only did that in October. What do you mean, a third man?” I felt a pump of adrenaline.
“A third person. You’ll do, given the lack of alternatives. Are you game?”
“They’re not mating again now, are they?” I was peddling for time.
“No, but we do a rodeo midyear as well. You’ll like it better because we don’t have to rip the lovers apart. The idea is we cruise around the lagoon looking out for turtles grazing, and grab them. That way we can get an idea of who stays around and who buggers off for the winter.”
“Sounds like an excuse to me. You’re just bored.”
“Well, it is a little dull around here, with no one interesting to play with,” Tom said.
Hamish chuckled from his rug on the floor.
Tom caught the tea towel I threw at him and ducked inside, grabbing me around my waist and swinging me into a three-step. I realized I had the radio blaring on the concert program, and it was playing a Viennese waltz.
“What would I have to do?” I asked when the music stopped.
“Be another pair of eyes when we’re looking for turtles, and help Bill haul the turtle up the side of the tinnie and tie its flippers to the boat. Then help tag and measure it, just like you did with the females when they were laying. It will give these puny arms some muscle.” He pinched my upper arm and I tensed my puny muscle.
“Okay. I’ll give it a go,” I said, already feeling the nervous energy that being out in a boat evoked. A good feeling, sort of—a lot different from how it used to be. “But I’ll have to see if Violet can look after Hamish.”
“You’ll need your full wetsuit, and I’ve got some gloves you can wear.”
“Gloves?”
“It’s hard on your hands.” Tom stooped down and picked up Hamish. “I’ll drop Hamish off at Violet’s—she’s waiting for him. She reckons you’ve had more than your fair share of time with him.” He grabbed a diaper from the pack on the table, and waved Hamish’s hand at me. “I’ll see you at the wharf in half an hour.”
“Today? Holy cow, you could have given me more warning.”
His eyebrows went up. “How long do you need to pull a wetsuit on? Do you need me to help?”
“Get outta here. I wanted more time to get used to the idea, that’s all.”
“Bugger me, I’d never have guessed.” He stooped and kissed me. “You’ll love it. Trust me.”
“WATCH YOUR ARM.” BILL’S YELL JERKED ME BACK, AS the enormous loggerhead turtle snapped the air, just missing my left arm. I almost fell on my butt into the bottom of the boat.
“Shit, Anna, that was close,” Tom muttered from the water where he was valiantly pressing the turtle against the side while Bill maneuvered a rope around one of its flippers. “It could have taken your arm off.”
“Sorry. I was so busy concentrating I didn’t think.” I edged back towards the flipper on my side and had another go at lassoing it, this time keeping my arms away from the massive jaws. An enormous dark eye looked balefully at me. I got the rope secured and sat back, feeling pleased with myself. Only a few loggerheads came up on the beach and this was the first one we’d caught today. It seemed much bigger than the greens.
> “Good job,” Bill said.
Once the loggerhead was released, decorated with a shiny new tag, Tom hauled himself back into the tinnie. He frowned at me, and then smiled. “We’re a bit sensitive about turtle bites. I had a student assisting me a few years ago who wasn’t so lucky.”
“You mean he lost his arm?” My stomach turned over.
“No, but she got a nasty bite and had to be helicoptered to hospital to have it cleaned and stitched.”
“Oh. Is her arm all right?”
“Fine.”
“I didn’t realize you had women helping you on the rodeo.”
“For my sins, sometimes that’s the only option.” His wink in Bill’s direction was not subtle.
I flexed my biceps, snug and unblemished in Pat’s wetsuit. “Hmmm. Well, what are we waiting for. Let’s get the next bruiser.”
WE STOOD TOGETHER, TOM AND I, TO WAVE KIRSTY AND Hamish goodbye. Violet, Bill, and the kids were there too, and Basil as well. Family. But Pat was still missing and I knew I would feel her absence terribly with Hamish gone. Still as a stone, I glued my eyes to Kirsty and Hamish standing by the railings at the back of Jack’s boat. My nose was tickling, my eyes were watering, my throat was clamped tight, my heart was bleeding.
“You’ll see them again,” Tom said, his arm tightening around me as the boat became smaller and smaller, and still I didn’t move. We were alone on the wharf now; everyone else had returned to their lives.
“Will I? Even if I do, it won’t be the same. Soon I’ll be back in Boston and Kirsty will be busy with her own life. I’ll be forgotten.”
“That’s up to you. If you want to keep in touch, you can. No child can have too many people to love him.” Tom turned me away from the sea and looked into my eyes. “Be happy that you had this extra time with him, and fell so hard for him. Surely that’s better than not knowing he ever existed.”
“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” I said, forcing my lips into a smile. I felt Tom’s finger wiping away a rogue tear, and my smile reached my eyes.
