by C. A. Larmer
Mum befriended him, though, of course she did. She cooked him endless casseroles and looked in on him before and after. So when I got my diagnosis, I guess he returned the favour. I guess that’s why he was wearing that beanie we saw earlier, the same one on Paul’s kids’ heads. It’s got FightMND stitched across the front. All proceeds from the sale go towards finding a cure for motor neurone disease. I was too preoccupied with my own crap to really notice or to thank him for his donation. But I bet Mum did, and I bet she gave him her mobile number before she left for Dubbo and asked him to keep an eye out.
That’s the reason he texted her in Dubbo, worried about the party, not because of the noise, not really. He was more concerned about my health. He didn’t think it was doing me any good.
And it’s the reason he came to the door that night. I remember now. I agreed with him wholeheartedly. It was all a bit much. I was feeling very drained, suddenly very weary. I’d already abandoned my suicide pact, and it was time to clear the place out. I thanked him, I turned back, and that’s when I saw the light on in Dad’s study. That’s when I wandered in and spotted the small child on tippy-toes, reaching for Dad’s gun.
I smiled.
Yes, I remember it distinctly. I was smiling.
I wasn’t worried, not one bit. The kid was a good two feet from reaching the firearm; he never even got close.
“Naughty, naughty,” I called out, gently scooping him up and sending him on his way, then I turned back, I thought about it for, oh, three seconds, then I reached for the gun myself.
I remember holding it in my hands, just as Dad had done the day I walked in on him. But it was the future I was weighing up, not the past. It suddenly seemed like the perfect solution, one simple way to end my suffering without causing the suffering of others. One quick, unequivocal death, and no one could bring me back and no one would get the blame. No one, of course, but me.
I lived my life in control, and I would finally control how it ended. Gramps had taught me how to shoot when I was twelve, just as he’d taught my brothers, as though preparing me for this very moment. So I knew how to work a firearm, but first I had to check there were bullets, and it didn’t take long to find some. They’d been shoved to the back of a bottom drawer, the box old and faded. It felt like a sign to me, a green light from above.
So I quickly shut the office door, I sat down at Dad’s desk, and I got to work. I had a new plan, better than the last, or at least that’s what I thought.
First I typed a quick farewell on my Facebook page.
It’s been fun guys. Love you all. Good night.
Nothing too cheesy, nothing too alarming, although Jan was clearly alarmed when she stumbled upon it while breastfeeding in the dead of night; I hadn’t thought of that. I bitterly regret that now.
Then I typed a more private note, this one for Tessa and Roco. I gave them my blessing. I knew they had chemistry, even before tonight. It’s one of the reasons I broke up with Roco last week, even though he thought I was trying to give him a break from my disease, a way out. The truth was we were just biding time, and while my time was running out, he was wasting his.
We had a good relationship, it really was genuine, but Roco only ever latched on to me at that FightMND fundraiser because I looked so damn terrified. Then he stayed with me because, like I said, he’s a rescuer, and I needed rescuing, badly.
There was never any future for us, and I should have released him earlier. I should have set him free.
“It’s okay, guys,” I wrote. “I love you both so much. Please don’t spend too long doing ‘what’s right’—that’s just bollocks. You’re perfect together, so just get on with it and you’ll make me the happiest person alive, well, dead, but you get the drift!”
Then I added a laughing emoji and two red hearts and clicked Send on Facebook messenger. I knew they wouldn’t see it for a while; they were still splashing in the pool last time I looked, trying hard not to flirt, pretending not to be madly in love.
Next I looked around for some paper. This note had to be done just right.
That’s when I found Mum’s light pink stationery sitting on top of Dad’s desk. That’s also when I noticed the family photo, my favourite picture, the one in Vanuatu. It always made me smile, and I needed more than ever to smile. So I grabbed the frame, I removed the picture, and I tucked it down my jumpsuit. I wanted my family close to my heart. I needed them there for the grand finale.
But I had one last letter to complete.
I took a steadying breath, I jotted the letters D for Dad and M for Mum on that now-infamous pink envelope, and I began to write…
Dear Mum and Dad (Dear Peter, Paul, Jan and the kids),
Please know that I love you all more than life itself, and this is why I choose you, over life. I hope you understand that.
This disease has gone far enough. There is no cure. Let’s not kid ourselves. There is no reprieve. And it has left me broken. But I cannot watch it tear you apart as well, and I will not die slowly under your horrified gaze.
There’s very little time, and I have to do it while I still have the strength, without implicating anyone else, without any of you here to bear the burden.
I know you’re planning to sell Nevercloud, Dad, you think the money will somehow buy me a medical cure, and I love you so much for that. But we all know, deep down, that there is no miracle for me. And while it certainly won’t save me, selling your precious land will destroy you and your dreams of ever returning to the place you love most. I won’t let you do that. I just won’t.
You need to go back there, Dad, and you need to open your heart to that, Mum. It’s time. Hell, it’s long overdue. If you can’t do it for Dad, do it for the boys. They need it just as much as he does.
Please know that I leave with love and joy in my heart. I’m not scared. Not one bit. And I need you to forgive me, because it’s the only way forward.
Love, always and forever.
xo Maisie
“And yet you cannot forgive yourself.”
This is Neal and he’s sitting beside me. He has one mangled arm around me and I feel so secure, so warm and safe.
I cry for some time. I’m not sure how long, but there aren’t any tears, not really. It just feels as if I’ve cried a river.
“But it was my choice,” I splutter eventually. “I chose to shoot myself, so why couldn’t I remember it? Why did I struggle with that?”
He hugs me tighter. “Most of us regret suicide the second it’s done. Most of us don’t want to face the fact that we’ve taken what the world considers the coward’s way out, the selfish way out.”
I look at him for the first time tonight. Properly I mean, and I say, “You?”
“I slammed my father’s Ford Escort straight into a fig tree. Didn’t even hesitate. Killed on impact. Destroyed my entire family in the process, and I was the only one in the car.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, aren’t we all?”
“Why?” I ask now, and he shrugs.
“Bullying. Depression. Never feeling like I belonged.” He smiles and puts on a silly Welsh accent. “The only gay in the village.”
I smile back. I glance around. “And Deseree?”
“Overdose of prescription meds. Most common way for women. She lost her only child a few years back—Serena, she was six-months pregnant. Terrible case of domestic violence. The guy got off with barely a slap. Des never could move past it.”
“Oh the poor thing. How horrendous.” I feel so terrible about the way I treated her, my smarmy attitude, my mean-spiritedness. “And Emie?” I’m almost too scared to ask.
“Her story’s more complicated. Let’s just say she slowly starved herself to death.”
“Anorexia?”
“Lots of childhood trauma and abuse. Lost the will to eat, to live. Wanted to punish herself.”
My eyes close. I gasp. It’s all so bloody tragic.
“But it’s not, don’t
you see?” says Neal, his tone upbeat. “Your death isn’t tragic! You were dying anyway, you just put your family out of their misery sooner.”
“But how is speeding it up somehow better?”
“Because it put the brakes on all the insanity. You did it to stop your dad from selling his beloved farm and breaking up your family, because you and I both know their marriage would have struggled to survive that.”
I’m glancing downwards now, but Neal is not finished yet.
“You did it to stop Peter and Dr Singh from getting accused of manslaughter because, yes, assisted suicide is still illegal in this state.”
“Vijay?” I’d forgotten about him. I didn’t even know the man; how did he become mixed up in all this?
He frowns. “They call him Dr Sleep. He’s a euthanasia campaigner and has assisted several suicides in the past, not that they’ve been able to make anything stick.” He sniggers. He’s glad of that. “Una brought him in to meet you, see if you were at that stage yet. She didn’t know you’d already got hold of some drugs through Peter; she just wanted some advice. Vijay’s the one who put the brochures into that green plastic folder and tucked them under your pillow. The ones that fell down the side of your bed. He eventually confessed all to Ruth back at headquarters.”
“So that’s why he was staring at me all night? That’s why he asked me up to my room.”
He grins. “That and the fact he’s a total sleaze and thought he had a chance.”
“No!” I say, aghast, and suddenly we’re laughing.
And we laugh for some time. It feels so nourishing. We’re both buckled over, roaring with hysterics.
Then a thought occurs to me, and I swallow back my laughter. “So why’d he pinch my suicide note?” I say. “My final letter to my family, the one in the pink envelope. Why’d he go and complicate things by removing that? I mean, that put everyone in the clear, including him. The cops would have cleared out a lot earlier if he’d just left it where it was.”
“I know!” Neal wipes away happy tears. “He’s a sleaze and a meddling twit! Dr Sleep thought Una had written it. Like you, he’d seen her go into your dad’s study earlier, during the party, while he and Arabella were sneaking upstairs to have their fun. He didn’t realise Una was just dropping off the cash for that flight. He didn’t know what she was doing, but then your body was found and everyone was in a flap, and he noticed the letter on the top of your dad’s desk while he was calling triple zero. He thought Una must have got a bad case of the truths and was going to incriminate herself or, worse, him, so he swiped it during all the chaos. He didn’t get a chance to really look at it until much later. That’s when he realised it was your suicide note and asked Una to give it to your family.”
“Oh how decent of him,” I say, snidely. “And the cash?”
“Yep, again, he thought it could be incriminating, so he stuffed that down the couch before the cops got there.”
“Meddling fool,” I say, then I almost blush. “I can’t believe I thought Una and my Dad… Well, I can’t believe I even entertained the idea!”
“Hate to break it to you, honey.”
“Sorry?”
“Well they were stuck in a hotel in Bangkok together, remember?”
I stare at him, the colour draining from my face, and he laughs again. “Don’t worry, nothing happened! Your Dad was a total gentleman, so you can wipe that look of horror from you face. He might be a flirt, but he’s all show, your old man. Still quite fond of your mum, despite everything. But don’t think the thought didn’t cross Una’s mind.”
“Oh stop it!” I give him a metaphorical slap. “You’re a troublemaker!”
“And you’re a good person, Maisie. So stop beating yourself up so much.”
I scoff. I know what he’s saying, but I don’t quite believe him and something still doesn’t add up.
“So why didn’t I remember?” I ask. “If I was so gallant and brave and really did shoot myself to protect my loved ones, why did I hide the truth from myself for so long?”
His face clouds over. He’s not laughing anymore. “It’s like I told you before, Maisie. Most of us regret suicide the second it happens. For you—and me, as it turns out—we regretted it the second before. Just as you squeezed that trigger, just before the bullet was released, you wished you weren’t doing it, and that’s why you hid the truth from yourself.”
I look at him blankly.
“Rule #2, remember?”
I still look puzzled, and he glances at the tunnel, then back. “You really had trouble with that one, didn’t you?”
“Come on, Neal, it’s been a very long day.”
He smiles and I see the Rules of Death have materialised in his hand. He points to the second rule and says, “Thou shalt not see what the living do not wish thee to see. Your living self did not want your dead spirit to see what you’d done. Despite everything, despite your best intentions, you did regret it, Maisie, you were ashamed, so you blocked it from yourself. It was too hard to face. It’s taken us quite some time to pull it out of you, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Oh, don’t mention it! I was almost as bad. Poor Des had such a hard time of it with me. She kept showing me the absence of brake marks in front of the fig, the lack of vehicles in the vicinity, the weather report—it was a bright and sunny day. No reason to crash; yet I kept searching for a reason, searching for a culprit, someone else to blame. Des couldn’t exactly tell me what I’d done. It wasn’t her place to, you see. Rule #4?”
Again I stare at him blankly, and again he glances towards the tunnel, but this time he sniggers and I’m not sure who or what he’s sniggering at. “Thou shall see all when thou is open to seeing,” he chants. “I wasn’t open for many hours. You, well, you were a closed book for almost twenty-four.”
I shake my head at myself and I sigh. I get it now. Now it makes sense. I thought I was being the brave one, opting out early. But they were the brave ones, my family, willing to sell their precious possessions and travel to foreign countries and put their freedom on the line, or in my mother’s case, just pad my nest, hold me tight and watch me die. How agonising that would have been for her, for all of them, but they were willing to do it. I was the coward. I couldn’t bear to see their agony, to witness their pain. I was the cop-out.
“You loved them, Maisie. How many times do I have to tell you that? You thought you were doing the right thing. You have to stop beating yourself up over it.”
“Or shooting myself in the head?”
He smiles. “Or that.”
I breathe in now, a deep, settling breath, then I turn to him and repeat Jan’s question. “So what happens now?”
“Ah, this is the best bit! I love this bit!” His face has lit up like the Sydney Harbour Bridge on New Year’s Eve, but it dims considerably when I still look puzzled. “You gave your life for them, now you get something in return. Yes?”
“I do?”
“Oh. My. God!” He turns back to the tunnel, and this time he yells out, “You owe me a fiver, Emie!” Then he turns to my startled expression and says, “I knew you didn’t read all the rules properly. We had a wager going. I said you wouldn’t get past #4, she was sure you’d get right to the end, to that last one. That’s the one almost everyone gets fixated on, especially these days. It’s an instant gratification thing. Most deadies want their gift before they do all the hard yakka.”
“What gift? I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I say, adding, “And you guys bet on me?”
“Sorry, darls, but we had to do something to while away the time.” He produces the Rules of Death again and points to the final one.
Rule 7. Thou shall be granted one final wish upon entering the light.
“When you see, once you see, you get a final wish,” Neal says as if it needed interpreting. “And I think it’s safe to say you have finally opened your eyes. Hallelujah! So, you get anything you want, honey, just name
it.”
I smile. I know. I glance down at my house, and I sense that it has already started.
Epilogue
It’s just as I expected. There is not a cloud in the sky. I chuckle. Hell, I laugh uproariously. I would have been bitterly disappointed if it was raining.
I hear the rumble of a motor, and I watch as Paul’s family drives up the gravel road, pulling short just on the other side of a wallaby-proof fence and a rickety old gate with a letter box beside it. It’s an old milk can with the word Nevercloud scribbled across the front.
A young child jumps out. It’s Toby. He’s grown two inches.
“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” he squeals, racing to unlatch the gate.
He then stands aside as Paul pulls the car across the cattle grills and stops at the other side so Toby can latch it back up and jump back in.
Within minutes they are rumbling down the dusty road towards the old homestead. I can see it’s had a fresh lick of paint, and there are newly planted rosebushes out the front. There haven’t been roses there since Grandma’s day.
I watch as first Mum and then Dad and then, most surprising of all, Peter appears from inside the timber house. I barely recognise Pete. He has a battered Akubra on his head, and is that a plaid belt around moleskin trousers? He used to mock Dad’s old country uniform, now he looks every inch the part. He has abandoned the slick suits and dinner shirts, and his hair is overgrown, his face partially covered in a thin, reddish beard. He looks more handsome than he ever has.
They all wave happily as Paul pulls up in front of the house.
“So yer Dad finally won the toss, hey?” This is Gramps and he is chuckling beside me.
“Poor Mum,” I say. “How is she coping?”
“Better than you’d think. I even spotted her whipping up some scones the other day. I wasn’t sure she even knew how to bake.”