by Tabitha Bird
‘I’m sorry about the ocean noises. I won’t hear them again, I promise,’ his small voice says.
Words about how it’s not his fault and I don’t know why I am crying are stuck inside me. The gentler Sam is with me, the more the tears come.
Sam puts Eli in bed and I listen as he sings our boy a lullaby about bears going to the woods for a picnic. Fatherhood: I don’t remember it like this. I catch myself thinking how much better Sam and the boys would all be without me. Without the mess of me always threatening to entangle our careful world. If I left the boys with Sam …
I hover by the door, watching as Eli drifts into sleep.
Back in my own bed, I lie rigid. Sam asks questions that I should have answers to. We talk about Lottie, and I choke on the part about her staying with our father. Sam holds me. Do I want to call the police again? Sam tells me I am a good sister, a good mother, we will figure something out. The word ‘father’ keeps showing up and distorting sentences, and I am not at all sure what I’ve told Sam when the night grows old. I can’t talk about it anymore.
‘I have to work for a bit tomorrow. I don’t think I can cancel.’ He holds my hand under the covers.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Oh, and by the way, there’s a collection slip from the post office beside your bed. Must have missed the delivery van yesterday,’ Sam murmurs between sleep and waking.
‘Delivery for what?’ I whisper.
‘Box. Ocean something. Night.’ With his finger on my forearm, he gently draws three kisses. Then he drifts into sleep.
I reach behind me, find the collection slip and shove it into my top drawer, where it will be hidden among Sam’s letters and various other cards and papers.
There is no way the ocean of my past will flood this house.
I stroke the fall of red hair about Sam’s head. Sam Elkanah. A man I don’t deserve.
I never took his last name, but both our babies have it. Not that I am shy of his beautiful name, but Grammy’s last name is Waters. She always said it was a most special link between us women, and I could never ditch the belief that it was both magic and important to be a Waters. As I watch Sam, I wonder what still links us. Are the bonds strong, or as fragile as silk thread? Maybe I’ll find Lottie, take a little break, get myself together. And maybe fairytales are true.
As I lie beside Sam, he takes hold of my hand without waking, the action a beautifully ingrained memory.
Chapter Seven
2050
Willa Waters, aged 93
Katie bursts through the yellow front door, packing boxes in hand, and marches into the living room. It can’t be morning yet.
‘Goodness, dear. It’s a bit early, isn’t it? You look knocked up.’ I rub my eyes from where I sit in the recliner.
‘What? Knocked up?’ Katie looks horrified. I haven’t a clue why.
‘Yes, you look tired, dear.’
‘You know, Willa, “knocked up” does not mean tired.’
I stretch a little. Crinkle. Crackle. ‘Oh. What does “knocked up” mean?’
‘It means pregnant. So don’t say that anymore.’ She places her pile of flattened cardboard boxes on the coffee table.
‘Well, I was plenty tired when I was pregnant.’
‘I haven’t time for this today.’
‘If anyone hasn’t time, it’s me. Not you, dear. What are you? Eighteen? Twenty-two?’
Katie almost explodes. ‘I’m thirty-five, Willa!’ Then she asks me if I am sitting down. I am sitting when she asks.
‘Time to talk,’ she says.
‘Fabulous, dear. Not enough of that going around. People should talk and drink tea for two. Don’t you think?’
She sighs. ‘How do I put this? You need increasing help with cooking, showering, remembering, being safe. Eli agrees with me that it’s time you moved to a nursing home.’
Perish the thought! I take out my notebook.
2. Stay out of the nursing home.
‘No, no. I can’t go!’
‘What you can’t do is take all this stuff with you.’ She waves her hands about. ‘The nursing home would drown under your collections.’
‘Collections can drown you?’ I am dubious.
‘Your collections certainly have that potential.’
Katie dumps her bag on top of the boxes and begins taking things off the bookshelf as if she’s on some mission. Gumboots are unceremoniously dumped on the floor.
‘These, for example. How many pairs do you have? They don’t all need to go with you, do they?’
My hands shake a little. ‘Depends how alive you want to be in a minute.’
Katie folds her arms. ‘I knew you were going to make this difficult.’
‘Listen. I will make this very simple, dear. Number two says I must stay out of the nursing home. So, I will stay here. In this house. With Sam.’
Katie takes a pile of papers off the shelf. ‘Willa! For crying out –’
‘Where is my Sam? He wouldn’t want me in a nursing home!’
‘He’s – gone. You and Sam divorced, anyway!’ She unties the string around the pile of letters to inspect them. No doubt looking to trash the lot.
She opens an envelope. ‘Ah, see here.’ She riffles through the rest of the pile. ‘These are all your letters from Sam and the divorce papers. I’ll let you look at them while I sort. Maybe they will help you understand.’
‘Understand what, dear?’ There’s a tear on my cheek. Leaving scares me because I am very sure there’s an important reason I have to stay. Something to do with Super Gumboots Willa.
Katie places a pile on my lap. Letters upon letters bundled together. I put my reading glasses on, but already I’m remembering how Sam and I began.
Someone was watching me from across the schoolyard and I knew it was him before I turned around. Sam’s laces were untied, his shoes slapping the ground as he walked up beside me. He carried an army canvas bag over one shoulder with a huge red X painted on the underside. Freckles spread across his face as if someone had thrown a handful on him at birth.
‘What’s the X stand for?’
‘Malcolm X,’ he said matter-of-factly, like everyone had Xs under their bags. ‘The black activist.’ He wore a raucous grin.
‘You’re Sam, right?’
‘Yep, the one and only.’
Oh, that name. Simple. Uncluttered. How I needed words like that in my life.
‘Have you read the biography?’ He was looking right at me.
‘What?’
‘Malcolm X. Have you read his biography?’
A boy who reads? ‘No. You?’
‘Uh-huh. You should read it.’
‘Oh, and you’re telling me what to read now?’
Sam laughed as he walked off. ‘Not telling, suggesting.’
The next day Sam used a pen to tattoo my name W.I.L.L.A. on his arm for all to see. And then, over the following months, his letter-writing started. Letters by the pocketful. On actual, real paper.
Dear Willa,
X is a great letter, isn’t it? It can stand for anything. ‘Hey’ or ‘whatsup’, or something more important. Malcolm X used it as a last name to symbolise the African family name that he’d never know. What would you use X for?
From Sam
Dear Sam,
Letter X? It could stand for my whole life.
From Willa
Dear Willa,
There’s this game you can play with a coin. It’s basketball for your fingers. I can show you sometime. You look like you could play coinball. Letter X could be a good thing. Like a possibility?
Sam
Dear Sam,
What kind of look says I can play coinball?
And yeah, letter X could be good. Or it could simply be unknown.
Willa
Dear Willa,
What kind of look says you can play coinball? Your kind of look. Pretty and stuff. Nah, that’s not what I mean. I do mean you are pretty, though. What I’m sa
ying is … Thanks for the other day, when you said you don’t believe I’m happy all the time ’cause no one can be happy all the time. And sometimes I have ‘sad’ in my eyes. Cool, the way you said that. No girl ever searched my eyes before. You say stuff you really think. I like that. That’s what I mean about being pretty. It comes from inside and from the stuff you say and think.
Yeah, letter X is unknown. But you’re different. You know stuff. Tell me about it.
Sam
Dear Sam,
I know stuff? You’re weird. Okay, then, I had a little dog, but I killed her.
Willa
I put the letters down. I remember being that scared teen.
I couldn’t imagine why I said such a thing in a letter; all I knew was that Sam had begun to seep under my skin. It had been six months and we were officially ‘going out’. We sat under clouds and talked until the skies turned shades of lemonade. We ran through art galleries, shared milkshakes and began to tell our stories. Sweet, dangerous things. Moments where I might let myself be seen, might begin to love. He was getting too close to me.
I was sitting in the shadows of the school building when Sam appeared wearing that grin.
‘Didn’t think you’d show up again.’ I tried to make the words harsh.
‘Sorry about your dog, but … I don’t believe that you killed it. Maybe … something bad happened and you feel responsible?’
I couldn’t answer him.
‘You had one of those tiny dogs?’ He crouched down next to me.
I nodded. ‘They’re called Chihuahuas,’ I whispered.
‘Yeah, but … You can’t possibly own one of those dogs. You’re too cool.’
I stood up, and he stood too. ‘Cool people don’t have Chihuahuas?’ I asked.
‘No. There are rules. You haven’t read the rules?’ He was playing with me, but I wasn’t ready for this.
Gently, he said, ‘What was its name?’
I thought about not telling him. About walking off. ‘Frog,’ I said. And it felt good to say her name at last.
‘Frog! Why did you do that to it? Did you say its name aloud? Like, in public and stuff?’
I stepped towards him and he moved back, hands up in surrender. ‘I’m just joking. Frog is a cool name. I had a dog called Bear once. Huge thing with a brown woolly coat. Probably should have called her Sheep.’ Then quieter he said, ‘She got hit by a car when I was little.’
I let my shoulders slump forwards. ‘Sorry about your Bear. That’s horrible.’
He touched my arm. ‘Yeah, and I’m so sorry about your Frog. Dogs are the very best kinds of people.’
We didn’t say anything more for a while, but inside me a hard shell around a seed began to crack a little.
‘Look, this is probably dumb, but … I got you something.’ He reached into his pocket, shifting from foot to foot, then put something into my hands and closed my fingers over the top.
‘What is it?’ I opened my hand.
He stood it upright in my palm.
‘A clown,’ he said.
‘Yeah, I can see that. I mean …’ What did I mean? I knew what to do with roses. You said thank you, and then let the giver smear sweaty hands anywhere they wanted. But what was a girl to do with a clown?
He kicked at the ground. ‘It’s okay. I can take it back or whatever.’
‘Oh, well, it’s cute. Um …’ I was going to have to come right out and say it. ‘But why are you giving me a clown?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess I thought you could use a smile.’
I shone. This boy saw things in me that even I didn’t see.
Perfect. The clown was perfect.
The ceramic clown is inside a drawer somewhere. I slide those letters to the back of the pile and pick up another one. This is an official-looking thing with stamps, signatures, dates and full names. 27 March 1992. Sam Elkanah. Willa Grace Waters. Divorce certificate.
It falls from my fingers to my lap.
Katie is marching around taking more things off the shelf and opening cupboards and drawers.
I really left him. I remember thinking that I had to protect Eli, and that the only way to keep my little boy safe was to leave him with Sam. No wonder Eli doesn’t want to talk to me. But what about Seb? I must have left him, too. The only images I have in my mind are of Eli clinging to my waist and how I picked him up and placed him firmly in Sam’s arms. What happened to make me feel I had to leave Eli and Sam?
My hands wobble the divorce certificate.
‘Why did I leave?’ I say.
Katie doesn’t slow her important sorting work. Doesn’t ask if I need anything. Tea. A blanket. Alpacas. I let my reading glasses hang about my neck. I almost let the letters slip from my hands when I notice something else. A piece of paper curled at the edges.
Putting my glasses back on, I see it is an Australia Post parcel collection notice dated 1 June 1990. Address: 21 Graves Place, Brisbane North, 1990. Sorry we missed you. To collect your: Letter. Large envelope/magazine/catalogue. Parcel. Perishable item. Other. A tick is marked beside Other. The handwriting in the space next to it reads, One ocean: soggy box. There is no tick in the box that reads Collected.
‘Katie!’
She drops a bundle of magazines. ‘For the love of – Why are you yelling?’
‘Did we post boxes yesterday?’
She rolls her eyes and begins picking up the dropped bundle. ‘Yes, and before you shout at me again, the date was the first of June 2050. We delivered two boxes. No, your son isn’t coming to visit. Is there anything else, Willa? I am busy.’
‘Call them!’ I poke the collection slip at her like a sword.
‘Call who, Willa? It’s quite early in the morning.’
‘The post office. They have to deliver the box again. Super Gumboots Willa got her box, but the other one, the one sent to North Brisbane, it wasn’t collected.’
‘What? Super Gumboots, honestly!’ Katie walks over and takes the collection slip from my hand. ‘Oh, Willa. This is from the year 1990. I think that box is long gone.’
‘No, I never collected it. See, you have the paper in your hand and now something’s gone terribly wrong in my life! I left Sam and Eli, and where is my Seb?’ I grab the divorce papers and throw them at her. ‘Oh, goodness, call – please call!’
‘Don’t go getting flustered. So this is about Sam again, is it? Collecting a box is unlikely to fix something that happened so long ago.’
‘Call!’
‘Oh, sweet mother of –’
‘Katie, you make that phone call right now or I’ll do a whole lot worse than getting flustered.’ I try to think what’s the worst a lady my age could do. ‘I’ll snort my apple juice. I’ll take my teeth out in public and call for cats like, “Here puthy, puthy, puthy.” I’ll say “knocked up, knocked up” to every tired person we meet!’
Katie glares. ‘Okay. I’m calling.’
Her phone thingamabob lights up. ‘Hello? Boonah Post Office, how can we help?’
‘Ask Post Office Lady to pretty please with cherries on top deliver that soggy box again.’
‘Did you get that?’ Katie asks the holographic image.
‘Indeedy. Gerald? Get out here. Go deliver that box again. And never mind it being early. It won’t take you long to get to North Brisbane …’ Post Office Lady stops mid-sentence and clears her throat. She turns back to a red-faced Gerald and wags a finger at him. ‘And don’t come back here with that box or I’ll knock you up, so help me.’
Katie hangs up the phone thingy.
‘See?’ I say to her. ‘“Knocked up” can mean lots of things.’
Chapter Eight
1965
Willa Waters, aged 8
It’s Wednesday morning, the school bells waking up Boonah. I lie with my eyes closed, listening to them. I remember the story I was telling myself last night about the beach and the old Queenslander with the butterfly stairs. I remember how I ran inside and caused the fighting. I rem
ember my wishing. Please, please let me fix this! Just help everything be okay.
With my eyes still closed, I listen to the house. No sounds from Mummy and Daddy.
After their fight last night, we won’t be going to school today. Mummy will stay in bed and when the school rings she’ll say we are sick.
There’s a tap-tap at my window and I sit bolt upright in my bed. Only a seagull. My body hurts, but I’m not thinking about that.
The seagull flaps at the window and then flies off. I watch its wings, wishing I could do that. Fly over the waves. Eat fish on the beach.
I search under the covers, singing to make myself feel better: ‘I have a little dog, not much of a dog, but she’s a brave little thing called Frog.’
There’s a lot of sand in my bed. ‘Come on, Frog. Wake up.’ She is snorting in her sleep. That’s why I named her Frog Dog, ’cause she snorts like a bullfrog.
I look up and that’s when I see it. Our bedroom, it’s all changed!
The walls are painted a bright yellow: a sunshine room. No more tin roof creaking. No corrugated walls with dints and bangs. This house has wooden floorboards and high ceilings. It looks like how I imagined the inside of that Queenslander we saw beside the beach that day with Grammy.
‘Froggie, Froggie, wake up. Wake up!’
Frog Dog snorts and snuffles and tries to burrow further down the bed. The kookaburras outside laugh, but I don’t care. I have a new house that smells like salt. I think about it while I get out of bed. Lottie is still asleep under her bed so I don’t wake her. I wipe the hair out of her face. No bruises on her anywhere I can see. I’m wearing my robe from last night, and inside my pocket is a sandy jam jar. I dress so fast that I almost trip over as I pull on the leg of my cowboy pants. Frog hears me and thumps off the bed. She’s a bit big for a Chihuahua.
‘Shh, Frog!’
I tiptoe to our bedroom door. Across the hall is another bedroom with blue flower wallpaper and new floorboards. I guess that could be Lottie’s room if she ever gets brave enough to sleep alone. But, what are Mummy and Daddy going to say about the house changing?