The yoga mums have finished their coffee now, and they begin to load their kids back into their strollers. Amid a flurry of bleary-eyed thankyous from the mothers, I take the opportunity to stand, and Carmel, who has been sitting quietly nearby, does the same.
‘I thought you’d like it, Mrs Stevens,’ I say. ‘Now that I have earned your trust, would you consider reading Margaret Atwood’s 2000 novel, The Blind Assassin? Follow me, I’ll see if we have a copy in.’
Mrs Stevens had been turned off by the title The Blind Assassin, and refused to read it so I’d had to lure her into the delights of Margaret Atwood the back way. I was still hopeful that she might enjoy Alias Grace or even The Handmaid’s Tale if she was introduced slowly. ‘Ah, here it is. Why don’t I borrow this for you right now?’
The day goes quickly and most of the time I don’t even notice Carmel hovering. It’s rather nice, not even having to check my schedule for where I need to be. I simply roam the floor and go where I’m needed. To my surprise, Carmel doesn’t stop me, not even once. She is a true shadow.
At the end of the day, she sits on the edge of my desk and lets out a long sigh.
‘Wow. I never realised what a gift we had in the library.’
I replay the sentence in my head, trying to make sense of what she is saying. Still, I come up blank.
‘You, Fern,’ she explains. ‘You are the gift.’
Unlike the shadow analogy, which I had come to respect, the gift analogy bears little logic. I find myself with questions – if I am the gift, who is the giver? And who is the receiver? And what is the occasion? But rather than help Carmel understand the failing in her logic, I decide to let it go. After all, Carmel has been a faithful shadow and hasn’t once brought up the photocopiers, which as far as I am concerned is a win.
At the dot of five o’clock, I place my backpack on my shoulders and start the walk home. It’s my practice to walk home in silence, preferring my quiet thoughts to an audiobook as I wind down for the day. The evening is mild and there are people about, jogging, walking in groups of two or three, or pushing bulky strollers all over the pavement. I even pass a pregnant woman, carrying hand weights and walking briskly. It strikes me as ironic that it is at exactly the moment I pass her that my phone beeps with a text from Rose.
I have made an appointment for you at the family-planning clinic tomorrow morning.
I still haven’t told Rose she is the reason this baby exists, despite plenty of opportunities. It’s not that I think I can keep the baby myself – I understand now that that wouldn’t be what’s best for the baby. But as for deciding to hand him or her over to Rose? That might take a little more time. After hours of discussing my options over the weekend, Rose and I had decided it would be prudent to visit a family-planning clinic. I am aware, of course, that the family-planning clinic is not a place to go to plan one’s family, but rather, a place most people go for the opposite reason – to undo an unplanned family.
‘Just a visit,’ Rose had said, ‘we don’t need to decide anything right away.’
And so, as I turn into my street, I text a reply to Rose: Okay.
When I reach my block of flats, Wally’s van is parked outside, and the back doors are wide open. Wally is sitting in his folding chair with his computer on his lap and, despite the sunshine, his bobble hat is perched high on his head. He grins when he sees me coming.
‘Welcome home,’ he says, reaching for his second fold-up chair, which is tucked into a compartment in the back of the van. He unfolds it and I sink into the canvas seat and, for a glorious moment, close my eyes. I am usually on my feet most of the day but today I feel more tired than usual.
After a deep breath, I say, ‘Do you want children, Wally?’
I open my eyes.
Wally doesn’t seem surprised by the question, but over the course of our short relationship, I have asked him a number of investigative questions as part of (I assume) the normal exploratory process of getting to know someone. Off the top of my head, I can remember asking: ‘At what age did you start walking?’, ‘Do you recall ever believing that you could jump off a roof and fly?’ and ‘Why do you think so many people believe in religion?’ On no occasion has he ever expressed any concern or issue with my questions. Nor does he now. As always, he treats my question with the utmost respect, taking the time to sift through his innermost thoughts before delivering his answer, verdict or opinion.
‘No.’
I feel it in my stomach first, a slight tension, like a gentle punch or squeeze.
‘A number of reasons have led me to this conclusion,’ Wally continues, leaning further back in his seat and winging his elbows behind his head. ‘For one thing, mental illness. Studies have shown there is a strong genetic link, and anxiety is likely handed down through generations. I would feel awful for inflicting that on a helpless kid.’ He frowns off into the distance. ‘Population growth is another of my concerns. People don’t understand how bad an issue overpopulation is. Fishless oceans are predicted by 2048! Our planet just does not have the capacity to provide food, water and adequate shelter for the population numbers we are expecting in the future.’
He shakes his head sadly. ‘Finally, the world is not always a kind place, especially if you don’t fit the stereotypical mould of what it is to be normal. As you know, it’s hard to be a person on the fringes of society. It’s hard for me, even as an arguable success. Imagine how hard it would be for a child, particularly a child who doesn’t go on to enjoy a level of success in his or her given field. I’ve already gone through the hardship of being an outlier. I’m not sure I could do it again as a parent.’
As usual, I am impressed by Wally’s response. It is a good argument, well made. So often in life, people speak in riddles, weighing in on both sides of an argument with pros and cons rather than picking a side. Wally doesn’t do this. It’s one of the reasons I like him so much.
So, that’s it, I think. We agree. A baby is a bad idea.
‘Any other questions?’ he asks cheerfully.
‘That’s it, I think.’
‘Well, I’m just finishing up my work,’ he says. ‘Do you want to sit and read for a bit?’
‘I’m afraid I have some household administration to attend to.’
I think I say it too loudly and brightly, because Wally gives me a puzzled expression. He keeps watching me all the way to my door. I know, because I watch him back. I’m very pleased with myself because I manage to make it all the way into my flat before the tears start to fall.
The next day, I trudge to the bus stop. Rose was supposed to drive me to the family-planning clinic, but she’d texted a few minutes prior to say she has been held up and could I make my own way there? I don’t mind getting the bus, though I would have appreciated a little warning. Looking up the schedule, walking to the bus stop – these are all things I like to plan for in my schedule and Rose knows this. It makes me feel an illogical irritation with her. Illogical, because Rose had no need to be taking me to the clinic in the first place. Still, the illogical irritation is there. But illogical irritation is something one is allowed to have with one’s sister. I have read enough books about sisters to know that is true.
On the bus, perhaps as a subconscious act of rebellion, I sit in the seat reserved for people with mobility issues and pregnant women. It will be the one time, I figure, that I’ll qualify for this seat. It is peak hour and raining, so it’s not long before the seats fill up around me. After a few stops, another pregnant woman gets on, this one at least seven or eight months along. I find myself staring at the woman’s round belly.
‘Excuse me,’ the woman says, holding her belly. ‘Do you mind?’
I look at her. ‘Do I mind what?’
She gestures to her belly. ‘Um . . . it’s just . . . could I . . .?’
‘She wants to sit down,’ a man calls from a few rows back.
I turn to look at the man, who I notice is making no move to leave his own seat.
‘Get up, for Christ’s sake,’ he barks. ‘That seat is for pregnant ladies!’
‘I’m pregnant too,’ I say when I turn back to the girl, but so quietly I can barely hear myself.
‘Get up!’ someone else calls. ‘What is the matter with you?’
The driver pulls over and turns around to see what the commotion is all about. ‘This woman won’t get up for the pregnant lady,’ the man from the back of the bus says.
The driver looks at me, then at the visibly pregnant woman. ‘Those seats are reserved for pregnant or disabled passengers, love,’ he says gently.
‘I’m pregnant too,’ I say louder, standing. My voice sounds funny, as if something has caught in my throat. To my horror, I realise I am crying. I lower my chin and press the button for the next stop.
I alight from the bus, even though we are several stops before my destination, and walk the rest of the way to the clinic in the rain.
I am soaking wet when I arrive at the clinic. The clinic is behind an innocuous shopfront alongside an optometrist and a barber. I’ve walked fourteen blocks, during which time the rain has not relented for a single second. Still, despite the unexpected bus trip and the walk, I still arrive five minutes early for the appointment.
Rose does not. When I fail to see her standing out the front, I feel a distinct note of disappointment. Subconsciously, I’d already handed over the responsibility of announcing my arrival at the desk and filling out any forms to Rose. Instead, I let myself inside, into a small waiting room.
‘May I help you?’ the receptionist says to me. She’s a grandmotherly sort, probably in her mid-sixties, with greying brown hair and lime-green eyeglasses on a chain. I ignore her and take a seat. The woman’s eyes follow me, but she leaves me be, her eyes returning to her computer after a second or two.
The room is about half full. I notice a pair of teenage girls, seemingly without a guardian; a girl of around eighteen years of age with her mother; and a couple who look to be in their mid-thirties, both weepy-eyed and silent. All of them leaf through magazines, perhaps to distract themselves or to blend in. I don’t reach for a magazine. It’s never seemed wise to touch communal property at a doctor’s office, given the fact that they are little more than conduits for germs. Then again, this doctor’s office is a little different from most, and the patients are no more likely to be carrying germs than anyone in an office building. They, like me, are here for a different reason. It’s funny how awareness of this slides in and out of focus. One minute, I’m fine, and the next, it hits like a sudden, sombre surprise.
As the clock ticks over to 10.01 am, Rose comes bursting through the door, wearing a plum-coloured mohair jumper that makes me itchy just to look at. Though she is carrying an umbrella, her hair is soaking wet. She looks like a different person. ‘Fern! There you are!’
She is surprisingly loud, and everyone in the waiting room looks up from their magazines. The woman behind the desk peers at us over the top of her glasses. ‘Fern Castle?’ she says.
Rose looks at me. ‘You haven’t told them your name yet?’
‘No,’ I say, much quieter. It’s not like Rose to make a spectacle.
Rose kneels on the floor in front of me. Everyone else in the waiting room looks back at their magazines, pretending not to pay attention to us.
‘Good,’ she says. ‘Because . . . I had a thought this morning. It might sound crazy. Okay, it is crazy.’
‘What is crazy?’ I ask. I look at the pieces of hair stuck to her face and wonder if it is Rose herself.
‘It’s just . . . this morning I realised I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t ask . . .’
One of the teenage girls isn’t even pretending to read her magazine anymore. Instead, she outright stares at us. I stare right back at her, and I am rewarded when she finally looks away.
‘Ask me what?’
Rose looks around, as if only now noticing the other people in our immediate proximity. ‘Uh . . . maybe we should talk somewhere more private?’
‘But what about–’ I start to say, but it’s too late. Rose is already on her feet on the way to the reception desk to tell the receptionist that we won’t be requiring our appointment today.
Rose takes me to a café not far away from the clinic and orders two cups of tea and a scone with jam and cream without even consulting me. It’s still raining, the kind of rain that fills up the gutters and makes awnings bulge. It hadn’t been forecast, this rain. Everything about today has been a surprise.
When the scone arrives, Rose pushes it in front of me.
‘So . . . this morning, I had an epiphany.’
I pick up the scone and examine it. There doesn’t seem to be an efficient way to eat it without causing a spillage of jam and cream. In the end, I just lean forward so the spillage will land directly on the plate.
‘I thought to myself, here I am desperate to have a baby . . . while you are pregnant with an unwanted baby. Then it came to me! What if I kept your baby?’
My mouth is full of scone. I contemplate spitting it out but decide there is no graceful way of doing that, so instead I hold a napkin to my mouth and chew quickly.
‘Just think about it, Fern. I know it’s a lot to take in, so please don’t answer me yet. I just thought . . . maybe this is a way your baby could have the loving family it deserves. I spoke to Owen this morning, and–’
I swallow. ‘Owen knows?’
Rose looks guilty. ‘I hope you don’t mind. But when I suggested that he and I might raise the baby, he was over the moon. I shouldn’t have done that without speaking to you first.’
I sit back in my chair. I like Owen a lot. The idea that the baby could be raised by two loving parents, two neurotypical loving parents . . . it’s the start to life that every child would hope for.
‘I know that having two parents isn’t everything,’ Rose says. ‘But . . . I often think about what would have happened to us if we had two parents in the picture. When Mum overdosed, we would have had a backup. I would love to give the baby that.’
‘I’d love that too,’ I say.
Rose looks like she is holding her breath, waiting for me to make a decision. But there isn’t really a decision to make. It is, after all, what I’d intended in the first place.
‘Okay,’ I say.
Rose’s eyes fill up with tears. Then she throws her arms around me in another of those straitjacket hugs, only this time the wet mohair jumper gets up my nose, so I feel like I’m choking.
JOURNAL OF ROSE INGRID CASTLE
Daniel, we found out, was a commercial pilot. He had been married to Billy’s mother, a woman named Trish, for ten years before they divorced, and they were still on friendly terms. I knew this because Fern asked Daniel about it. Fern had an amazing way of being able to ask these kinds of questions without upsetting people. Even Mum didn’t seem to mind when Fern asked why they broke up.
Daniel smiled, like this wasn’t rude – like it was, in fact, a very good question. ‘I travel a lot for work, being a pilot. I think Trish got sick of being alone all the time. And I, well, I wasn’t always the best husband, let’s put it that way. We’re much better as co-parents than we were as husband and wife.’
It was funny the way he spoke about Trish. With fondness! He never used the kinds of words Mum used to talk about our dad. Deadbeat. Loser. Dickhead. I wondered how Mum felt about Daniel talking about Trish fondly. Outwardly, she didn’t seem bothered by it at all, but I knew Mum better than that. It would be driving her crazy. But she was on her best behaviour around Daniel. She was her same old self when he wasn’t around, though, and as strange as it sounds, I preferred it this way. The new, uber-nice Mum was unsettling, sure, but the constant back and forth from nice to horrible gave me whiplash.
I was on guard around Daniel at first, naturally. Reassuringly, he was much less interested in Fern and me than Gary had been. He was polite enough: asking about our day at school and appearing genuinely interested in the answer, but he seemed t
o be far more interested in conversation with Mum than he was with us. He never tickled us or massaged us, or even touched us at all, beyond the offer of a high five every now and again. He did, however, talk a lot about Billy. Billy, Daniel’s son, was fourteen, and it was clear how much Daniel adored him. Fern and I wanted to meet Billy, and Daniel kept saying we would ‘soon’. I got the feeling he was waiting for something – but I never knew what.
It took six months before the meeting finally happened. By that time, we were planning a camping trip, at Daniel’s suggestion. ‘Three or four days together,’ he said, ‘so the kids can bond.’ Mum seemed overjoyed about this, though she’d never showed any interest in camping previously. Fern also seemed happy and immediately started reading a book about camping. I was the only one who seemed to be bracing for something bad. Why was it that I was always the only one bracing?
The fact that we didn’t have any camping gear didn’t seem to matter; Daniel simply suggested we go to the shops. I’ll admit, I was excited about that. Mum never had money to buy much other than food at the shops, and when we needed something else essential, like clothes or crockery, we got it second hand at an op shop. But even more exciting than buying something new was the fact that Billy was coming with us to buy the tent. Daniel had told us a lot about him by then, and Billy had built up an almost mythical status in my mind. Not to mention the fact that I was twelve at the time and boys were fast becoming something that interested me.
When we pulled up outside Billy’s mum’s very nice house, Billy was waiting on the manicured nature strip. He wore jeans, a hoodie and a baseball cap. His head was down and he was chewing a fingernail aggressively. His mum was by his side with her hand on his shoulder and she waved at the approaching car.
‘Hello!’ she said to us when Billy opened the door to get in. She looked both Fern and me in the eye. ‘I’m Trish, Billy’s mum. You must be the twins! Let me guess – you’re Fern and you’re Rose?’
The Good Sister Page 14