Don't Leave Me Breathless

by A Kelly

‘No.’

  ‘Did you lose a pair of glasses?’

  He cringed and hold the glasses he had on. ‘No. Why?’

  So those glasses at St Therese weren’t his as her mum had thought. Summer said, ‘Nothing.’

  Scipio smiled at Cornelia; 10am and she was still in her pyjamas. That was what coming home was for, he guessed.

  ‘Your poached eggs are the best, Dad!’

  And for his food.

  ‘Your hollandaise. Mmm! You should set up a booth at the Sunday market and watch it fly off the shelves, your chutneys and relishes, too!’

  Joseph studied his daughter’s puffy eyes and messy hair, recalling those mornings when she’d pretended to have a temperature to avoid school. He would rub her head, purposely tousling her hair – knowing she didn’t like it – and she would grumble louder but get up anyway. Despite her tantrums, she’d never skipped breakfast.

  ‘I’ll stick to selling pet food, thanks.’ Joseph plated breakfast for himself and sat down. He put more spinach on Cornelia’s plate.

  ‘Had dinner with Carl last night; he seems to be doing really well.’

  Joseph looked at her.

  ‘His car is cool. Alfa-Romeo, metallic blue. He crossed over on the Spirit of Tasmania. Today he’s off to the Bay of Fires. His girlfriend is very pretty. A French girl.’

  ‘Right… he didn’t tell me he was here. But hey, good on him.’

  Joseph hadn’t heard from Carlton, and the fact that he was with a girl gave him some relief – perhaps the boy’s focus had changed. Or, it could be worse, that he wanted his house more than ever. But… why would he want an old house if he was doing well and towing a gorgeous French girl?

  ‘Is it true your neighbour is the prettiest woman ever to set foot in Penguin?’

  Joseph almost spat out his breakfast. ‘Is Carlton going out with Summer?’

  Cornelia chuckled. ‘Look at you! How did you conclude that?’ she said.

  Scipio turned to the kitchen bench.

  ‘She was in your head. That’s how,’ Cornelia said. ‘No. Carl’s girlfriend is called Laura.’ She thought for a few seconds. ‘Is Summer French?’

  ‘Kind of,’ Scipio said – making a guess solely based on her comments about Napoleon and the way she said ‘Bonaparte’. He looked at Cornelia, ‘Who told you about Summer?’

  ‘The gang. Levi and Justin. I keep in touch with them, you know. So you’re not completely out of my sight,’ she said, rolling the sautéed spinach round her fork. Then she winked at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s ok, Dad. You can like her.’

  ‘Huh… those losers? Have they been spying on her or something?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Whatever you’re hearing, Summer is my neighbour, that’s all.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘So tell me about this neighbour of yours.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Is she blonde? Brunette? How tall?’

  ‘Those losers didn’t tell you?’

  She grinned. ‘I just want to hear it from you.’

  Joseph sighed. ‘She’s tall, taller than you.’

  Joseph could see Cornelia imagining how tall Summer was compared to herself, then to him. Cornelia stood up to his chin. He was 188cm, and Summer was in between.

  ‘Right…’

  ‘She’s brunette, wavy hair, very slim,’ Joseph continued.

  ‘Bust size?’

  Joseph glared at her.

  ‘You do like her!’ she teased. ‘I won’t be surprised if tomorrow you suddenly finish your song. “Summer Moon”… “Endless Summer”… “On a Moonlit Summer Night”… “Love in the Summer”…’

  ‘HA-HA.’

  ‘The guys say she’s very sexy. How old is she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Guess!’

  ‘Twenty-five?’

  ‘Thirty, then,’ Cornelia said.

  ‘Why thirty?’

  ‘Guys usually think a woman is younger than she actually is.’

  Joseph didn’t think Summer was quite thirty yet. ‘You look twenty-one to me,’ Joseph said of his nineteen-year-old daughter.

  ‘Thanks, Dad! That’s how I got a part, by looking older,’ she said and got up. ‘Gonna have a shower, then I’m off to Devonport. I’ll say hello to Summer when I come back.’

  ‘I think she’s away. I saw her wheeling a suitcase the day before yesterday.’

  Cornelia laughed. ‘You were spying on her!’

  ‘Well, when she’s back, and if you’re still here, go on and ask her all you want to know.’

  ‘I will,’ Cornelia kissed Joseph’s crown as she walked behind him.

  ‘You know that I love you, right?’ Joseph said as his daughter was about to close the bathroom door.

  Cornelia came to Joseph. ‘Am I going to have a new mum?’

  ‘No!’

  Cornelia tried not to laugh. ‘You look so goofy, Dad.’

  Perhaps he told his daughter he loved her excessively. It was his version of a pulse check to gauge if Carlton had told her anything. Scipio himself had stayed mum – too afraid to tell her the truth.

  ‘I’m a middle-aged dad and I just want to know that my daughter still loves me. I always ask that.’

  ‘Yeah… but not three times a day!’

  The smell of oven-fresh beef and pastry filled up the Russos’ dining room. Joseph usually made a one-pot dinner for himself and had the leftovers for lunch the next day, but since Cornelia was here, he’d been making all her favourites, and tonight it was his signature chunky beef and mushroom pie, complete with roasted veggies and garlic mashed potatoes.

  ‘You need to learn to cook. I’m not gonna do this forever,’ Joseph said as he served Cornelia’s plate.

  His daughter chuckled. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘I mean it!’

  ‘You planned the menu for me, probably a couple of weeks before I arrived.’ His daughter winked.

  Joseph had, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  ‘You know I love your food,’ Cornelia added. ‘Lucky Mum, she never had to cook.’

  ‘You’ve got to be able to cook.’

  ‘I’ll just marry someone like you.’

  Joseph patted his daughter on the head and then sat down.

  In between the clinking of cutlery and Cornelia saying ‘yum’ and ‘wow, Dad!’, noises from the outside broke the pattern. They both heard them, metal hitting metal, followed by a thump like a piece of machinery had fallen to the ground.

  ‘You said Summer was away.’

  ‘I thought so.’ Joseph got up and rushed out, calling, ‘Stay here!’

  The Beam House was as dark as it had been when Joseph last checked. No, Summer couldn’t have been there. The noises must’ve come from elsewhere, or there was someone else inside.

  ‘Hello!’ He knocked on the door. ‘Summer, you there?’ He jiggled the handle; locked. He tried to make out any movement inside through one of the door’s frosted glass panels, but there was nothing but darkness. Then he heard a faint cry.

  ‘Summer!’ Joseph swung his elbow to break the middle glass panel, right next to the door handle, then unlatched the lock from the inside.

  The cry got louder. He groped for the light switch and as soon as he reached the open-plan living and dining, he found Summer writhing on the floor; her throat wrapped in a piece of long, grey, knotted and twisted cloth. Attached to the other end of that cloth was a fan that had clearly broken from the ceiling – two of its four blades had snapped, one had been thrown about a metre away from her head and the other had landed near her left foot. One of the steel dining chairs had toppled sideways right next to the fan. Summer must’ve climbed up and kicked that chair to hang herself. He could see the fan might’ve banged against the chair as it collapsed from the ceiling before it hit the floor.

  ‘Summer!’ Joseph knelt, frantically loosening the piece of cloth around her neck. He recognised it as the sc
arf he’d wiped his rain-drenched face with in the car the day they met.

  Summer moaned then coughed. She tried to get up as soon as Joseph freed her neck.

  ‘Don’t move.’ He held her head in place and reached for her right hand. He wanted to squeeze it and tell her she was going to be all right. But in her palm he found a piece of paper. The top and bottom parts had been torn away, leaving only two lines of neatly written notes:

  …my life is one long nightmare. No one deserves to live through it. I hope you understand. I need to wake up from it, and this is the only way.

  ‘Oh, Summer…’ he whispered. He scrunched up the piece of paper and put it in his pocket. No one else needed to know, he determined. He wouldn’t leave her bound to a hospital bed under suicide watch. He wouldn’t let doctors prescribe her with antipsychotics. He wouldn’t allow her to be a zombie who didn’t recognise him like Emily had been in her last days.

  ‘Fuck…’ Summer grumbled. ‘Fuck me…’ She resisted Joseph’s pressing her head and got up.

  ‘Summer, stay down.’

  ‘I’m fine! I’m fine!’ She rubbed her neck and head. Realising her hands were empty, she scanned the floor. Then she stared at Joseph.

  ‘Give it back to me!’ she snarled.

  ‘Summer, calm down.’

  ‘Give it back! You have no right!’

  ‘Summer, please…’

  The next thing Joseph felt was a fist boxing his left jaw.

  ‘I’ll give it back, but you need to calm down,’ he said and held down her hands. She squirmed and kicked about, but he didn’t let go. She started to pant. ‘Take a deep breath. You’re okay.’

  ‘Shit… what a mess…’ She softened and stopped fighting. She gazed at Joseph – this time she was speechless.

  Suddenly her eyes widened. Joseph knew someone was behind him.

  ‘Who is she?’ Summer shouted.

  He turned around and found Cornelia frozen, white, freaking out. ‘Dad?’ She trembled.

  ‘Go home, Cornelia! And don’t tell anyone!’ he said, and Cornelia duly left.

  The moment he turned back to Summer, ready to embrace her…

  Whack!

  Another blow landed on his lips.

  This time he bled.

  ‘Summer… whatever it is you’re trying to get away from, let me help you.’

  ‘Go back to your daughter! Go back to your wife!’ She pushed him and got up.

  ‘What’s happening here is just between you and me,’ Joseph said, using his sleeve to wipe the blood off his mouth. He braced himself to approach her. ‘I promise, it’s just between the two of us. My daughter won’t tell anyone. I will do whatever it takes to get you out of your nightmare.’

  ‘So you read the note, now you think you understand?’

  Joseph gave her back the note, which she didn’t take.

  ‘I’m not worth your while, Scipio.’

  Scipio? She clearly didn’t like Joseph.

  ‘You are worth more than anything I have, Summer.’

  She shook her head. ‘You can’t have two wives.’

  Had she wished he would take care of her like she was his wife? Surely Summer didn’t mean she wanted to marry him literally (how could she!).

  But he had to clarify one thing: ‘I’m here whenever you need me. My wife died years ago.’

  Her lips trembled. Her eyes were glazed with tears, but she gave him a look of trust. And Joseph knew this was a call for him to be more than just a middle-aged Penguin man who believed everything was fine. Late in life, unexpected, but he was ready. He became Scipio once again – a man who wasn’t afraid to put himself out there, a man who hadn’t gone past his use-by date, and a man who had something to offer. This time it wasn’t for those critics, it wasn’t for those executives, it wasn’t for the hundreds of strangers who’d paid him to sing. No more Les Mister Creep, he was simply Summer’s Scipio. She needed him and she believed he had what it took to turn her tears into smiles. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself, but if she was the one, he promised himself not to let his fear sabotage his happiness. For Summer, he would take a risk. Perhaps in time she could come to accept him; and he, Scipio, would be a man who pleased her, not hurt her.

  He pulled her close and pressed her head against his chest. She wriggled, as if putting up one last fight, but she quickly surrendered.

  ‘Look at me! I can’t even kill myself.’

  ‘Because you didn’t want to.’

  ‘Why the hell did they flush all the beams! All! I should’ve known that damn thing was useless.’ She was about to kick the fan.

  ‘Summer, let it go,’ he said. ‘You’re here. You didn’t want to die.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘Didn’t you hesitate?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Didn’t you think of something, someone, as your body swung? And wish that chair was still upright? Didn’t your feet want to reach it and stand on it again so you could breathe?’

  She welled up.

  ‘When you felt those bolts giving way,’ he said. ‘Weren’t you glad?’

  Then she really cried. She released a long howl until she almost choked.

  ‘I’m tired, Scipio. I’m really tired.’

  He kissed her crown and ran his fingers through her hair. In his arms she softened, then buried herself in his embrace. Slowly, he stroked her back. She twitched, so he stopped but she put her hand on top of his and pressed it against her back.

  Keep stroking… she said silently. And as he did, she sighed. ‘I’m so tired.’

  ‘Then rest. Don’t think about anything. Just rest,’ Joseph said. He carried Summer to her bedroom. She hung on to him when he lowered her onto the bed, like Pierre the green rosella who didn’t want to leave her embrace.

  ‘Stay with me, Scipio. Please…’ she said when she finally unwrapped her arms.

  He swore, from this moment on, he was to call himself Scipio. Whoever this ‘Joseph’ was whose name she couldn’t bear to hear, he didn’t want to be him. Others would still call him Joe, Joey, Joseph or Russo, but in his mind he was now Scipio.

  He, Scipio, lay next to his Summer. She quickly moved closer to him and rested on his shoulder. She clung to him once more.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said – sensing that she anticipated he’d leave as soon as she fell asleep.

  Summer used her shirt to wipe the faint blood stain from the corner of his lips. ‘Good night.’

  He watched her face – a face of Summer that had hardly shone. She was tired, she’d said, and now she was asleep. He didn’t know what was in store for him, but he didn’t want to lose her.

  Minutes later she woke up, huffing and puffing.

  ‘I can’t…’ she said. ‘How do I sleep?’

  ‘Sshh… Just breathe,’ Scipio said.

  ‘I can’t…’

  ‘Breathe with me, Summer,’ he said, and drove her hand to his chest.

  She opened her palm and rested it on his left pectoral muscle, over his heart. He put his hand on top of hers and she breathed in the same rhythm as he did. In his head he said, ‘I love you.’ He’d never said that to Emily. Their marriage had felt right at the time, but no events had compelled him to say those three words. And he’d never been with a girl other than Emily. He caressed Summer’s flawless face and slowly she closed her eyes.

  This time she stayed asleep. And she slept… and slept…

  Summer couldn’t believe she’d slept for 13 hours. Yes – from 10pm last night to 11am this morning. Next to her she found the bedsheet had creased, revealing Scipio’s silhouette. The big man had been there and stayed by her side till the morning. She had woken a few times throughout the night, but she was never fully awake. For as soon as she put her hand back on his chest, and felt his fingers caressing hers, she’d fallen back asleep. His beating heart and the warmth of his palm were sedatives.

  She put her face into the pillow Scipio had used. That eucalyptus smell. I
t wasn’t a dream.

  When she came out of the bedroom, the mess from last night was gone. And on the kitchen bench she found a plate of poached eggs, crumpets and sautéed spinach, with a note on the side:

  I don’t know how you like your eggs, hopefully this is enough to make your morning.

  She pressed it to her chest. A note that didn’t break her heart.

  She was about to take the plate to the dining table, but from where she stood, she couldn’t tell which of the four chairs she’d used last night. She vividly remembered dragging one of them right under the ceiling fan, stepping on it, and reaching up to hook her scarf above the fan’s motor housing. She’d made a loop, yanked it a couple of times to test the strength, then put it around her neck.

  Then she’d kicked the chair.

  Scipio might’ve made up what he’d thought to be the chronological order of her suicide attempt, but the accuracy of his words scared her – because that ‘someone’ she’d thought of as her scarf tightened around her neck was him. A pet shop owner who had helped her save a rosella, a neighbour who’d brought in her things and offered to buy her groceries. She’d asked herself, as she swung from that ceiling fan, would life be better with him? With such gentle hands holding her? A sweet smile that said everything would be okay? When she’d told herself it was too late, something had cracked above her and then gravity pulled her to the floor. When she’d opened her eyes, Scipio was by her side.

  She was still trying figure out which dining chair it was. She could inspect them to see which one had dents and perhaps get rid of it, but she didn’t want to. For now, she’d eat standing up at the kitchen counter.

  Summer removed the cling wrap and took in the buttery smell. But she didn’t feel like eating just yet. Wasn’t sure she deserved to. If she had died last night this breakfast wouldn’t have existed.

  She split one of the crumpets and used the crescent-shaped piece to pierce the egg yolk. Perfectly runny. Then with the yoke-dipped piece of crumpet she scooped some spinach and hollandaise sauce and opened her mouth wide.

  Upon her first bite, Scipio entered, carrying a toolbox. Summer could only wave at him in response to his greeting. She hurriedly munched her mouthful of breakfast.

  ‘I can see you like the brekkie.’