Zac and Mia

by A. J. Betts

  Ideas are born this way: a convergence of two unrelated things. The first: a Friends DVD case. The second:

  the memory of a postcard. Two images come together like strangers in a doorway. They jostle, apologise and sidestep, but still … something happens.

  Something flutters in my chest.

  Back at home, I watch episodes of Seinfeld as if I’m looking for Zac. Why is it suddenly so hard to picture him there?

  I reread his postcards and letter. There’s no doubt it’s his handwriting. It’s Zac’s style too. His careless talk of celebrities. Weather. His mum’s obsession with Starbucks.

  But now that I think about it, that feels odd too. On the few times I’d spoken to Wendy, she’d always offered me tea.

  I run my fingers over the right corner of an envelope. There’s an Air Mail sticker and a blue $2.20 stamp of the New York City skyline. It’s the old skyline, complete with the Twin Towers.

  It’s been over a decade since the World Trade Centre fell. It makes me wonder why the buildings would still feature on stamps when even old Friends DVD covers have been updated to a skyline without the towers. Why would a country risk opening old wounds?

  What I feel isn’t dread. Dread is an anchor in your gut. Dread is losing your hair, dropping out of school, waking up without a leg and wishing you’d died. Dread is heavy and it holds you down.

  What I feel is up higher, in my ribcage. It’s more like the stirring of fear and I don’t know why. I’ve been through so much already. What could possibly still scare me?

  I check Zac’s other postcard and envelope, with stamps proclaiming ‘Los Angeles’ and ‘San Francisco’.

  Is it odd that none of them have dates? Is it coincidence the postmarked circles end at the stamp? That the corners peel off too easily, as if they’ve been peeled off before?

  I have no reason to believe that Zac is anywhere but New York, doing all the things he tells me.

  But giant wings beat at my heart and I know.

  I know.

  I know I’m being had.

  36

  Mia

  I ring the number from the website.

  ‘The Good Olive, olive oil and petting farm.’

  ‘Bec?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re there.’

  ‘Yes … who is this?’

  ‘You’re back?’

  ‘Back from where?’

  I hang up.

  I try Zac’s mobile but it rings out. I sense him watching it; letting it. Does he know I know?

  The wings have become a panicked bird in my chest. Nothing helps: the air in the courtyard, the tree with five green olives. Its kind, calming leaves. So many mixed messages.

  ‘The Good Oli—’

  ‘Bec.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Is Zac there?’

  Silence.

  ‘Mia?’

  ‘Is he?’

  A goat bleats in the distance. A cackle of chickens.

  ‘He’s at home.’

  ‘But he told me—’

  ‘I know.’

  My voice crumbles. ‘Why would he say that?’

  What an awful person I must be to make him go to such lengths—fake letters, old stamps, all those American clichés—just to avoid me. His whole family must be in on the joke, laughing at my gullibility. My ugliness.

  ‘Mia,’ says Bec. ‘Mia, he didn’t—’

  ‘He didn’t have to lie. If he hates me that much—’

  ‘He doesn’t hate you.’

  How stupid I was for believing Zac could like me, when all his kindness was designed to get me to leave, to fuck off out of his life once and for all.

  ‘Mia, I told him not to—’

  ‘Because of my leg?’

  ‘It’s not your leg. It’s nothing—’

  ‘I won’t bother him anymore.’

  ‘Mia, he’s sick.’

  Everything stops but that word. It snaps off in the air. It drifts from the other words, sending ripples across the courtyard, rustling each leaf of the tree. Five olives hang their small heads.

  In the ordinary world, ‘sick’ means a cold. A headache. A sore throat. A complaint: I’m sick of this. She makes me sick.

  But in our world it’s something else.

  I’d assumed he was still well. I’d figured he’d had his turn and survived unscathed, to live as ordinary people do with ordinary marrow. He was supposed to be the one giving me strength. To keep distracting me, reminding me how lucky I am.

  It’s not fair. I’ve been the lucky one all along—the ninety-eight per cent—and I never deserved to be.

  Zac?

  And the bird rips free, screeching up and over the fence, already tearing south.

  My own cancer was a dog at my ankle, refusing to let go. I’d thought that all cancers were like that, gripping fiercely at bone until cut free and disposed of. But they’re not. Zac’s wasn’t.

  I should have suspected something. He’d stopped updating Facebook, the way I once had. He withdrew into that dark place where you don’t have to be strong or funny. I should’ve realised he was hiding because I’ve hidden there before.

  One website leads me to another as I track my way through help sites, forums, blogs and online diaries. I had no idea there’d be so many. When I was sick, I thought I was the only one.

  Who’d have thought you can empty a human of their blood and marrow and replace the whole lot, only to have cancer reappear months later.

  Unlike my cancer, Zac’s has nothing that can be cut out. Leukaemia gets into the blood and lungs, heart and stomach. It’s everything that makes him who he is—that boy who dared to knock, who’d rather make up lies than drag me down with his sadness. Even now, he wants to keep me safe.

  Mum finds me in my dark room with the iPod on repeat. I don’t know what the song is. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s loud.

  She stops at the door.

  ‘Are you sore?’ she says, but I shake my head and turn away. Why does it always have to be about my leg? There are worse things.

  She’s supposed to avoid me when I’m like this. My music is the signal to leave.

  But tonight it draws her in. I recall something Bec had said once. When an animal’s kicking and fighting the most, that’s the time you need to pull it closer.

  Mum pulls me close and I’m just a kid, terrified. She smooths my hair as I tell her all about the boy from Room 1. The beautiful boy who put my pieces back together.

  ‘He shouldn’t have lied.’

  ‘He thought it was best.’

  ‘He should’ve told me.’

  ‘Everyone’s doing their best, Mia.’

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Get some sleep. We’ll do something tomorrow.’

  She helps me into bed and squeezes my hands. When she leaves, she switches off the music and the light.

  There’s no sleeping. In the darkness, I read online tributes to children now dead. Children who still believed in Santa. I watch the videos of bald teens, bored in isolation like Zac must have been. I read the blogs of patients who fought the first time, fought again at relapse, then ran out of momentum at the third attempt, or fourth. How many times before they give in? How many times can they go through this?

  How many times will Zac?

  I force myself to ignore the sites with statistics, focusing instead on survivors’ stories. I hope he reads them too.

  I read about patients having four treatments. There are successes even then, even after the fifth. A woman has six bone marrow transplants over ten years and she lives, the blood of strangers colouring her cheeks. Twelve years in remission, thriving on a vegan diet. Others, too, who’ve fought so long and won, grateful to acupuncture, spirulina, wheatgrass, Vitamin B, yoga and prayer.

  I hope he’s not out of fight.

  It’s 3 a.m. and my mind runs hot. I check Facebook, wanting him to be there, his green dot pulsing like a faraway star.

  Of course
it’s not. I type a message anyway.

  Zac, you can’t lie anymore. I know you’re home. Bec told me

  But the words look accusing. I remember how patient he was with me in hospital.

  I start again, slowly. I let the tears fall.

  Hi Zac.

  How’s New York? Is it cold? Does steam really come up from the grates? Does it feel like a big movie set?

  I won’t bore you with my news. Your life’s way more exciting than mine.

  When do you get home? I’m all out of pears, and could do with a decent cheese toastie. I can’t seem to get it right. What’s the secret?

  It occurred to me that I haven’t said thanks yet. So … thanks. You always knew what to say, or not say. Thanks for letting me stay at the farm, even though it got you in trouble. Thanks for worrying, and for not giving up on me. You didn’t care about my leg or my hair (maybe a little bit about my hair …). You saw me for what I was, not what I wasn’t. You made me imagine that life could go on. That I wanted it to.

  If you get this message (if I don’t chicken out and delete it first) can you reply? I know you’re busy in New York stalking Emma Watson, but if you find yourself in an internet cafe and get this email, please reply. I’d like to read your typos again;-)

  Love

  Mia

  PS You always called me lucky and I’m beginning to think you might be right. I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have a friend like you. You’re the nicest person to have ever knocked on my wall.

  Typing this has taken all I have. I’m wrung out.

  Before, everything I’d written had been about me—it’s always been about me.

  I need this message to be for him.

  37

  Mia

  Mum finds me asleep over my laptop in the morning, my fingers still at the keyboard.

  ‘Mia.’

  ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’

  ‘Come on, Mia. Come wash your face.’

  I stay in the bathroom as Mum phones the farm. I hear pieces of conversation but I can’t make sense of it.

  ‘Bec says we’re welcome to visit,’ she explains to me, after. ‘But she doesn’t want us to … waste our time.’

  ‘What does Zac want?’

  Mum shakes her head, not understanding. ‘Bec says he doesn’t talk.’

  ‘At all?’

  ‘He goes to school, but at home … no. Not about the relapse. Do you want to go, Mia?’

  ‘I can’t just show up.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Mum, he doesn’t want me there.’

  ‘Don’t guess what’s inside his head, Mia. Think what’s in your own.’ She holds my shoulders still. ‘What do you want to do?’

  Me? It’s a no-brainer. My whole body feels the pull of him.

  Mum rings her work.

  ‘Sorry Donna, something’s come up … No, Mia’s fine. She’s well.’ Mum smiles, and I see her relief in being able to say that. ‘She’s good. Her hair’s at her shoulders now. No, it’s something else. I’ll need a few days, okay?’

  She cancels her date with the roses man—Ross, his name is—fielding the same, lightning-quick questions. ‘No, she’s well. My daughter’s well.’

  I don’t understand why people I’ve never met are jumping to these conclusions. What fears has my mum been sharing with them that she hasn’t shared with me?

  I follow her into the garage, where she tops up the car’s water and oil, and checks the spare tyre. She’s never seemed afraid. Not to me. Irritated, yes. Pushy and controlling, definitely. But I never imagined she was scared of losing me.

  And I was so keen on being lost.

  She grabs a suitcase. We chuck some clothes in, then raid the cupboards for water bottles and snacks. Into the boot of the car she throws towels and blankets. She’s efficient at escape—much better than I was.

  She pulls up the roller door then starts the car.

  ‘Mia?’

  I can’t move.

  ‘Mia, jump in.’

  Zac doesn’t want me there. He just wants to drop out and I can’t blame him. If it was me, I’d want to bolt to the Gold Coast and go out with a bang: parties, drugs, strangers in hotel rooms. Fuck the world and all its bad luck. Fuck doctors and needles and pain. Fuck Google and all its statistics because they don’t mean a thing when it’s your life they’re talking about.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘We can’t fix him, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We can’t just turn up and fix him.’

  ‘Then we just turn up. Here.’

  She passes me an old map book. It gives me something to concentrate on as I navigate the best way through our suburb and the next, zigzagging our way to the turn-off for the Albany Highway. Here, the car starts to struggle as the road climbs up and away. The city shrinks in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘I don’t want to go.’

  ‘I know.’

  I put the book away. We won’t be turning off this road for another four hours.

  ‘So it’s back? His leukaemia?’

  Mum nods.

  ‘When’s he coming up to hospital?’ It’s selfish of me, but if Zac came to Perth for treatment, I could visit him whenever I wanted, couldn’t I?

  Mum keeps her eyes on the road. ‘I’m not sure he is.’

  The highway dips and curves at speed. Suburbs segue into bushland; bushland turns to paddocks so green it looks like carpet’s been laid out for the lambs. Near and far, canola fields form bright yellow squares. The world looks honey-sweet out here, the trees pale and gentle.

  But every now and then I notice thin shadows cast by birds and I know there’s so much yet to be afraid of.

  Near a town, we slow from 110 to 90 to 60. We pass a few houses with stands selling fruit, then a real estate agency and takeaway chicken shop. The place feels familiar, though it’s not until we pull into the service station that I remember. This is where I told the guy I was a shark victim. Where Zac and I bought Chiko Rolls and ate them in the sun.

  Mum fills up the petrol tank.

  ‘Do you know what a Chiko Roll is?’ I ask her.

  ‘Of course. I used to work here.’

  ‘Here?’

  I look around. There’s nothing but the service station and its four bowsers. Next door is a brick factory and, across the road, an orchard.

  ‘It wasn’t self-serve then. We had to fill the cars for them.’

  ‘Since when did you work at a service station?’

  ‘Since my parents owned it.’

  ‘This?’

  ‘I grew up here. Our house was around the back.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me that?’

  ‘I did.’

  Even if she had, I wouldn’t have remembered. History and geography were always my least favourite topics.

  The fuel pump chugs and Mum stares at the columns as they tick-tick-tick. I wonder how many times she’s leaned against cars, watching the numbers flick over.

  ‘This is where I met your father.’

  I push myself off the car to examine the bowser in all its dirty, smelly significance. This is the starting point of my life? At bowser number two, unleaded?

  ‘I said I met him here,’ Mum clarifies. ‘You were conceived about twenty k’s that way. Weeks later. By a river.’

  ‘Gross.’

  ‘You asked.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Who was he?’

  ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘Chris. A salesman from Perth. I put twenty dollars in his Magna. His window was down and he was playing Silverchair. He caught me singing along as I cleaned his windscreen. He even gave me a dollar tip.’

  ‘What colour was the car?’

  ‘Red.’

  ‘Was he tall?’

  ‘Why does that matter?’

  ‘Cos I’m taller than you. Was he?’

  ‘Not overly. No, not really.’

  ‘Did he ask
for your number?’

  ‘We didn’t have mobiles, Mia. He came back the next week to fill up, over there.’ Mum points to bowser number three. ‘He was playing Powderfinger then.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He kept coming back.’

  ‘You liked him?’

  Mum releases the trigger and the ticking stops. She hangs up the nozzle, screws on the petrol cap, and blinks slowly at the bowser as if it’s him, eighteen years ago.

  ‘I thought he would be my ticket out of here.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘You were, Mia.’

  We leave the servo and coast through the main street of town. We pass a burger place, a supermarket, butcher, newsagent and park. There’s a sign for a school and a hospital. There are rows of houses behind the highway. It’s a community, I guess, but not one I’d want to live in.

  I try to imagine Mum as a schoolgirl laughing with friends in the park, telling them about the man in the Magna who’s so much more sophisticated than the local boys. I picture her in a short uniform, drinking Coke through a straw, enjoying the word sophisticated.

  On each corner I see ghosts of her. Mum drives slowly, as if she sees them too.

  She slows the car even more, then parks in front of a bakery. I follow her lead up the pavement and through plastic strips that create a kind of door. The place stinks of yeast.

  ‘It’s changed.’ Mum frowns, disappointed. ‘There used to be long trays of jam doughnuts there.’ The doughnuts on the shelves are small and iced with sprinkles. I wouldn’t mind one, but Mum orders us something else.

  ‘We used to sit at a table in the corner and eat bee stings every day after school.’

  ‘And you weren’t a fatty?’

  ‘Bonnie was like a stick and Clare was … voluptuous … in all the right places.’

  I carry the bee stings and iced coffees to a table, then push crumbs off the plastic tablecloth.

  ‘Don’t you want to get going?’

  I shake my head—there’s no rush. Whatever time we arrive at Zac’s house, the outcome will be the same. If I’m honest, I don’t want to go at all.