The Problem With Crazy

by Lauren McKellar

  I pressed my thumb and forefinger to the bridge of my nose.

  “Oh, and the one with the roses,” Mum continued, splaying the stems out so each of the flowers settled into the perfectly balanced display, “it’s from Johnny.”

  Johnny.

  Johnny, who had also lost Lachlan.

  Who didn’t have anyone else.

  He’d sent me flowers.

  No wonder all these horrible things kept happening to me. I was a truly selfish person; I deserved to have Huntington’s.

  I don’t know how, but I escaped out the front door without Mum noticing. The keys to the Corolla were in my hand, tightly fisted, ready to aid me in my mission.

  The engine turned without any protest and I was off, driving at a slow pace down the road. There was the street corner where Lachlan had walked me, the very first time we’d kissed. There was the cul-de-sac where the bush track branched off to the skinny-dipping pool.

  It wasn’t on my way, but I drove through town, noting both the Thai restaurant where we all went to dinner, and the toilet block where Lachlan had waited outside.

  Even then, he’d gone above and beyond for me. So why had he left me? What had I done?

  I took the freeway exit, and cruised five minutes down the road till I saw the turning bay. I pulled my car in, conscious of the dimming light around me.

  I remember reading somewhere that a majority of car accidents happen at dusk.

  6:01 pm, the clock read.

  Looked like the timing was perfect.

  I waited and waited until finally I saw the bouncing headlights of a car in the distance. I didn’t know how big or small it was—it really didn’t matter. I turned the car and inched out, making sure it was only just my side in the line of impact. I didn’t want to hurt the driver of the other vehicle. I was the bull’s-eye in this game.

  “Lachlan, I’m sorry,” I said to the empty car. Tears were wet down my cheeks.

  “I really liked you, and you—it’s not fair,” I gulped. “You were just—you were everything, and you’d been through so much, and you weren’t supposed to die!”

  The headlights beamed closer, so close I could trace their path till impact.

  “I don’t kn-know that anyone else will ever see in me what you did,” I choked.

  Five seconds.

  “You set me free,” I whispered. Now I could make out the shape of the vehicle, a four-wheel drive. Perfect. They would most likely pull through, and I would undoubtedly be ruined. Survival of the fittest. Big car versus small car.

  Three seconds.

  “I—” The headlights were close now. I braced myself for impact, my heart pounding in my chest, my body already numb to the impending pain that was rapidly descending upon it.

  Two.

  Shit.

  One.

  When I opened my eyes, I was back in the turning bay, the car in reverse. I blinked, staring at the little red R light, as if it were a joke.

  Had it been me, all along? Was I the one who didn’t want to die?

  I turned the car on again, heard its throaty rumble, and drove home.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I’D CALLED Johnny to see how he was doing, but he’d closed the café temporarily, so it went straight to voicemail. I was on full-time Father duty, a task that seemed a breeze compared to my recent life drama.

  Dad set himself down in the living room in front of the television and I got us both some snacks from the kitchen. I could have started on dinner but it was only five, and even if it felt like I’d started to live in a pensioner-care house, I figured I didn’t have to eat like I was in one.

  I put a can of soda and a bowl of chips down in front of the television, then took a separate bowl and can to the kitchen counter where my laptop was set up. It was easier this way. This way I didn’t have to connect.

  I didn’t want to connect with anyone.

  I pressed the start button and checked my emails, noting that some final running orders had come through from the caterers on food to be provided, and timing for the launch. The launch, for the guy who was dead.

  I hit the reply button, ready to cancel it all. The words were stuck in my mind. How do you say, “Sorry, but the event I planned? The star of it all died. So, do we lose our deposit?”

  I felt more tears well in my eyes and I pressed them tight together. Why wouldn’t it stop? I just wanted the pain to stop.

  “Kate.”

  Dad stood in the doorway, his hands by his side. His drab, brown shirt was creased from sitting on the couch too long, and his hair was sticking up. I wondered if Mum had taken him out at all today, and fervently hoped not.

  “Yes?” I snapped my eyes back to the screen. I’d just gotten him some snacks and a drink; what could he possibly want now?

  “W … want to watch TV with me?”

  I blinked, staring at the document on my screen so hard that the words all blended into a bright, white light. Did I want to write the body of this email?

  Or did I want to watch TV with my father?

  Why would I? It wasn’t like we talked much. We hadn’t seen much of each other at all, ships passing in the ocean of our house. Sure, I took him out when I needed to, but it wasn’t like we were friends. We weren’t proper “father and daughter”, and I saw no reason at all to stop that now.

  Except that, one day, he’s going to die.

  Like Lachlan.

  Like, maybe, you.

  “Sure.” I pushed my chair back and stood up.

  What are you doing?

  One part of me was screaming at myself, tsking and shaking my head as I went to waste time with someone who wouldn’t even remember it tomorrow.

  The other part of me grimaced and plonked myself down on the couch, trying to feign an interest in The Price Is Right, a television show I’d never really cared for.

  “How—is work?” Dad’s eyes were glued to the screen. I ground my teeth together.

  Work has been on hold since Lachlan died, thanks for asking.

  But he didn’t know about that.

  “Fine,” I said. On the television, a new contestant had come up to play the Higher or Lower game. He was super excited, as all the contestants were, big smiles and bright eyes. I wondered if they had problems like we did in their real lives. Real problems.

  “Are you scared?” I turned to look at Dad. His head spun and met mine, a serious look on his face. There were parts of him that were the same as the dad I’d known before, the father I’d grown up with, mixed with new lines of age, a slackness of the jaw, a skinniness of the cheeks.

  “Of what?” Dad spoke slowly, and I felt him really watching me, like he was judging everything behind my eyes. I was worried about what he might find—and what he might not.

  “Everything.” I shrugged. “Dying, what people think, what will happen in the future …”

  “But—everybody dies, Katie.” Dad reached a shaking hand out to grip my knee. “Everybody.” His voice was soft, and I looked into his steely eyes and saw what I thought was an understanding there; knowledge of the situation, answers about the future. I reached my hand down and squeezed his.

  “Lower,” Dad urged the contestant on screen to drop his price. I smiled.

  “But what about … what about how it feels? What about pain?”

  “It … it hurts, sometimes.” Dad nodded. When he looked at me, it felt like he was looking through me. I shivered. “But everything hurts.”

  I thought about Lachlan. All his first-time tries.

  There has to be an element of hurt, or it isn’t worth it.

  As he’d said, something small and good was a part of a greater whole. It was all a complicated, intricate series of good and bad.

  “But don’t you think it’s unfair? And what about what everyone else thinks?” I blurted out.

  “Ish—it’s not fair.” Dad said the words with care, correcting himself. “But life never is.”

  It never is.

  Ev
er.

  But it started me thinking. Maybe fair is relative. Maybe pain is relative. Maybe, my hurt now, and the depths it had given me, the capacity it had shown me to feel pain for others? Maybe that meant the happiness I’d feel, one day, would be great.

  Maybe.

  “As for what the other p … people think,” Dad shook his head, took his hand and placed it back on his lap, “fuck ’em.”

  I widened my eyes.

  “Pardon?”

  “You h … heard me.” Dad gave a wicked grin. “Fuck ’em!”

  I couldn’t help it. I cackled with laughter, for the first time in almost a week. It was so ridiculous. Dad smirked, too, and I knew he was proud he’d made me laugh. I leaned closer to him, rested my head against his arm like I’d used to when I was a little kid. It felt nice there.

  It felt safe.

  “Lower again,” I chimed in, as the contestant on the screen went to a cheaper price bracket. It wasn’t cheap enough. The contestant lost the prize and I clasped my hands to my head, pretending to be disgusted with his choices. Dad grinned at me.

  We were going to be okay.

  “He’s an idiot.” Dad shook his head.

  “The biggest,” I agreed.

  “Do you think $20?”

  “For sure.”

  We watched the screen, anxiously awaiting the price announcement. When a big two zero flashed up on the screen, Dad cheered. He clapped me on the back, and I caught his enthusiasm, grabbed it with both hands. I was—surprisingly—okay.

  When the ad break started, I excused myself to run upstairs. I grabbed some of my horror movies and took them down to see if he wanted to watch them with me. It had been so long since I’d spent quality time with Dad, without being forced; maybe it didn’t have to be all embarrassing moments, and duty of care. Maybe we could co-exist, in some sort of crazy harmony.

  As I walked past my parents’ room, I noticed the door was shut. Funny. Mum never shut the door unless they were sleeping, and I was almost 100 per cent certain I’d left it open when Dad had finished dressing earlier today.

  I swung open the door, intending only to let the air in but stopping in surprise last minute. Mum was on the floor next to the bed, curled up in a foetal-like position, her hands tying her legs to her chest.

  She was still in her work clothes, her freshly pressed suit skirt from this morning crumpled, her blouse untucked, her neat bun hair frayed and curling around her shoulders. Mascara streaked from her eyes, and her cheeks were the colour of the flesh of a blood orange, a sort of orangey red that implied heat and terror all at the same time.

  “Mum.”

  She looked at me with her red-lined eyes, and, even though she must have heard the door open earlier, her face was all shock.

  “Are you okay?”

  I pulled the door to behind me and slowly walked to her side, kneeling on the floor next to her. She sat up, smoothed her hair down and smiled at me, the kind that doesn’t reach the eyes. My mother, the cool and composed control freak was sitting here, freaking out.

  “I didn’t see your car,” I said.

  “I parked around the corner. I didn’t want you to know I was home.”

  “You left early?”

  “Yes.”

  I rested my hand on her shoulder, feeling uncomfortable about playing the grown-up to one of my parents for the second time that day. Mum shrugged me off and I placed my hands in my lap before getting to my feet. Maybe she hadn’t wanted my help after all.

  “Kate, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I paused. From up here, she didn’t look like the woman she’d always been. She just looked sad and fragile.

  “It’s just—he’s my husband. And it’s him, but it’s not him, and I love him, and sometimes he doesn’t even remember who I am, but …” Mum trailed off into a series of silent tears, her body shaking with each word. I didn’t know what to do. I placed an awkward hand on her shoulder, and this time she let it rest there. “If you have it, too … and your friend … I don’t know that I can keep this up.”

  She’d been faking it? The whole time, her acceptance of him back into our lives, her permission for Dad to have a beer—deep down, she’d been just as scared as me?

  “We’re going to be okay.” I hoped it was true. God, I hoped it was true. Mum nodded and looked up at me, those big, red-rimmed eyes raining black.

  I turned to walk away and froze at her hand on my wrist.

  “Kate.”

  I tilted my head in confusion.

  “You’re—you’re doing so well.” Her lip wavered. “I’ve asked so much of you and you’ve given, and given. I feel like I’m falling apart all the time and you’re just … you’re handling this with aplomb.”

  Mum stood up, placed her arms around my neck and held me.

  Why haven’t we done this before? Why hadn’t we talked? We were both sharing the same problem, yet all our communication had been so surface level that the deepness hadn’t been touched. And now, here we were, both of us in tears over a life we both didn’t have all that much control over.

  But then again, did anyone?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I SAT on the cold, stone bench seat in the park. In front of me was a metal table, the kind that was cold as ice on wintery days and hot as the sun in summer. I’d spread out a chessboard in front of me, black and white pieces all ready to go.

  I checked my watch, anxiety creeping in. I was nervous. Very nervous. He should have been here by now.

  “Kate,” Johnny said. I looked over at him, strolling toward me. The green of the park blurred into the background. His long hair was pulled back, his goatee thicker than normal.

  His skin was a pale white, the deep purple bags sinking under his eyes a heavy contrast. The whites of his eyes were rimmed with red and his cheeks looked sallow, like he’d lost weight.

  I rose to my feet and threw my arms around him, noting how skinny his frame felt against me. His body shook a little and I blinked back my own tears.

  It hurt, God, it hurt.

  But it’s supposed to.

  “I’m … I’m so sorry,” I whispered when I pulled back. He gave a curt nod then moved to the other side of the table, seated opposite me. He clasped his hands together tight, and I saw the whites of his knuckles.

  “Sorry about the—about the, uh, lack of shifts at the moment.” Johnny attempted a weak smile.

  “No! Don’t you dare …” I shook my head.

  “I knew you’d understand, I just …” Johnny let his hands finish the sentence, drifting them across the table into space. “This is fucking hard, you know?” He touched the bridge of his nose, pressed there for a few seconds. “It’s so fucking unfair.”

  I reached a hand across the table, knocking over a few pawns in my way. I grabbed hold of his wrist and squeezed, squeezed tight. Because it wasn’t. It wasn’t fucking fair, and nothing I said would change that.

  “He just—he told you he had cancer, right?” Johnny’s brows raised, and I nodded. “He was supposed to be okay. He was in remission, and he was going to live.” Johnny’s lower lip wavered and I felt a hot tear slide from my eye.

  It was the same thing I’d thought, over and over again. He’d already survived a deadly disease. Why let a freak incident take him now?

  “I have grandparents alive, but my proper family, my mum, my dad … he’s all I had. All that was real.” Johnny broke down, his shoulders shaking, big, full body depressions over the table. I ran to the other side to hug him, to try and make it stop, but only ended up joining him.

  My legs couldn’t support me so I knelt beside him and we wailed, loud, ugly, noisy tears, meshing together in the stillness of the park. I felt the gaze of people walking by. I felt the curious stares of children and the judgmental glares of the elderly and, most of all, I felt pain, great, big shuddering heaps of pain.

  Pain for Lachlan.

  Pain for Johnny.

  Pain for my dad.

 
And pain for me.

  “I … I really liked him,” I said. “I don’t know if you knew, but we were—he was—”

  “Kate, I knew,” Johnny said softly into my hair. “He was coming back from your house when—”

  “Don’t!” A sharp gasp of air jolted through my body. I didn’t need to know. I couldn’t know. It was too much.

  “He was—amazing.” I finally pulled away. Tears had dampened the chessboard in front of us.

  “He was.” Johnny gave a sad smile. “An annoying little shit, with all his psycho-babble crap, but he was—he was amazing.” His clarity was contagious. I took a deep breath, sighed.

  “And he has a pretty great brother.” I nudged his arm, and then winced. Had. Not has. Johnny just pushed me off, but I could feel him smiling a little more, his happiness gently touching his eyes. Not enough to numb the pain, but perhaps enough to dull it for a while.

  “I’m stalling on sorting out a freaking funeral.” Johnny’s hands writhed against each other. “I’m just—I’m sick of doing it, you know? So tired of death.”

  “That’s actually why I wanted to meet you.”

  “To organise a funeral?”

  “Not exactly.” I took a deep breath. “I thought … what if we combine it with something we already have?”

  Johnny slowly leaned his head to the left, his tired eyes studying mine. God, they looked nothing alike, but they were so the same. A fresh wave of pain washed over me again, and I tried to swallow it away.

  “We have the launch coming up in two weeks, now. What if we made it a celebration of his life? A tribute?”

  Silence.

  I peeked open an eye I hadn’t realised I’d scrunched shut. Johnny was staring at the chess pieces in front of him, his face blank.

  “Is this why you bought a chess set?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You win, we have your event. I win, we don’t?” Cold, hard, rage boiled in Johnny’s eyes, and I wished I could take back what I’d said.