by Margaret Way
He heard the door creak and could imagine his mum peering around it, judging whether to leave him or come in. The door closed and he heard her padding back down the hall, no doubt to make him some more of her amazing dumplings for lunch. Maybe it was a good thing he had scarcely any appetite or he’d be the size of a house if she kept trying to feed him like that, while he was lying uselessly in bed, half a man, no good to anybody.
Steffi’s car spluttered to life in the driveway. It sounded much like his, unpretentious, probably unreliable, and no doubt the only one she could afford, just as his had been when he’d bought it. He’d been unkind not to see her, but that thought passed quickly enough when he tried to change position in bed and remembered again that he couldn’t.
He’d not had the slightest twinge of feeling below his lower back since he’d woken in a hospital bed in Adelaide. The only thing that had been returning was exactly what he didn’t want. Memories of the accident. Old Jimmy’s lower body crushed beneath the rocks and beams. Just like mine, the negative little voice that was ever-present now in his head told him. The collapse trapping his legs. The light on his helmet going out. The feelings he’d fought against, the terror and helplessness that had come from being trapped, imprisoned in a dark tomb. Slowly, more and more images were being added to the stockpile of memories he didn’t want to have.
He knew this was normal. To think about the event, re-experience it, even. It was normal to be stressed by what had happened. It was, after all, less than a week since the accident and only a day since he’d been flown home from hospital.
But was it normal to feel like he’d never walk again? For the doctors, the nurses, the physiotherapists all to cajole him along when it was bloody obvious it was all over for him?
He was a cripple.
Useless.
And most definitely useless to Steffi. He wasn’t even sure she’d wanted him when he’d been whole, when his limbs had functioned. She’d pushed him away the moment Rick had reappeared. He shut out thoughts that she’d come to him in the hospital—hadn’t she needed to come to Adelaide anyway, to tie up loose ends?—and that she’d been calling him, had come to see him here.
He opened his eyes again and looked down the length of his bed, seeing the way his immobile legs made little hillocks under the thin blanket. Where was he meant to go from here?
Steffi’s weekend was spent moving things between the farm and Lauren’s unit, with lots of negotiation along the way about what furniture to leave and take, what their parents would take with them the next week when they made the shift to the city, how to agree between Jack’s kettle and Lauren’s.
“You won’t turn a kettle on, anyway, Lauren, from what I’ve seen, so you might as well give both to me.”
“The kitchen table should stay as it is, dear, to make sure there’s lots of room for the big family reunions that you’ll be cooking for now.”
“Then you should keep my table, Stef.”
“Anyone want an old wardrobe? Complete with mothball coat-hangers?”
And so it went on. Good-natured banter, deciding between a lifetime of memories on the farm, delegating, offering, no fights, no bickering over furniture. Just as it should be, thought Steffi. By the end of the weekend, she had more furniture to her name then she’d ever had. But she’d have traded it in an instant for the chance to talk to Matt.
Rick even pitched in to help, mainly by looking after Jess, but that was more than he usually did. And it was showing. There was a new brilliance in Jess’s eyes, a new spring in her step. She was coming along in leaps and bounds, things were working out for her.
By Sunday evening, Steffi was ready to collapse in Lauren’s unit—her unit now—but Rick would be dropping Jess off any minute so she didn’t have that luxury.
She contemplated having a shower but the doorbell ringing to herald their arrival eradicated that possibility and, tired as she was, she was certainly looking forward to seeing her little girl. She felt she’d hardly seen anything of her lately.
“Hello, sweetheart.” Jess flew into her arms the moment the door was opened, and Rick loped inside behind her, dropping a kiss on Steffi’s cheek.
“She’s had her dinner and a bath. She’s pretty well pooped out so …” he motioned behind him to a box on the ground filled with take-away containers “… I thought we might get her off to bed and have a talk.”
It was the last thing Steffi felt like. The very last. But it was also the first time he’d taken any initiative when it came to talking—it would be about Jess, of course—so she said yes. And when their daughter was tucked up in bed and she came out to find Rick had served the food and even set the table, it was all she could do to stop her jaw from hitting the floor.
When they were both seated and served, Rick said, “It’s nice here, Steffi, being back in the old town. Good for Jess, I think.”
“Yes,” she said with some difficulty around a mouthful of rice, tofu and prawns. She swallowed. She may as well articulate what had been playing on her mind the last few days. “It is nice. Would you ever consider moving back here? To be close to Jess, be a hands-on dad?” She could see from his startled expression he hadn’t been expecting that. She’d long ago given up on asking him for anything, let alone to move his life. “Being back in Port Cadney is exactly what Jess needed, but she’s even happier now you’re back. She needs a dad, she needs a male role model. A constant in her life.” From the look of things, that role wasn’t going to go to Matt. And, by the way Rick was shifting in his chair, he didn’t want the gig either.
Rick laid his chopsticks down across his bowl. Not a good sign, because not much came between Rick and his food. “When I said we should talk, that wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“I know I’ve dropped this on you …” Although she couldn’t help thinking, You have had eight years to think about it, really. “But you’ve been great with her this week. You’ve changed, or maybe it’s because she’s older now, I’m not sure.” She was rambling again, but she felt a sudden urgency to convince him, to go in to bat for Jess and what she needed.
“Maybe a bit of both.”
“So can’t you at least think about it? For Jess?”
“I could say I’ll agree to that, Steffi, but it wouldn’t the case. My life isn’t here.”
Steffi interrupted him. “Your daughter is.”
He ignored her. “My work isn’t here.”
She interrupted again. Who cared if it wouldn’t get them anywhere? “What work, Rick? You’ve never stuck to anything longer than a month.”
He grinned at her. Typical Rick. Impossible to offend. Laid-back. Easygoing. Far, far too much so to ever be an effective parent, to ever share the responsibilities with her. “That’s different now.”
“Is it? Is it really?” She felt like his mother in this relationship, a relationship based on the fact they’d created a beautiful human being together. But there, it seemed, his adult responsibilities had ended for ever.
“Yes, doubting Steffi, it is. I’ve got a long-term contract with an oil company in Saudi Arabia. It’s great money, and I’m happy doing it. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here now rather than wait for the next school holidays. I’ve got something to give you.” He pulled out an envelope from his back pocket and handed it to her, creased and crushed from him sitting on it for goodness knew how many hours.
“Open it.”
She did and saw a bulging wad of notes.
“My first month’s wages.”
Steffi opened her mouth to protest but he silenced her. “It’s the very least I owe you. And from now on I’ll send money regularly, if you’ll give me the details. I want to help. I feel bad I’ve only given you the odd bit here and there over the years. It’s just that you never asked and you always seemed to be doing so well. I guess it was easy to tell myself you didn’t need anything from me.”
“I did ask you, Rick. But there was always an excuse, no matter what the request was.
” She shook her head. “Look, it really doesn’t matter any more, so let’s not go on about it. One thing I do think you owe Jess, though, is to let us know what role you’re going to play in her life. Can we make some plans about when you’re going to see her and, if we do that, can you stick to them? She has a right to see you and to know when you’re coming, so she can look forward to it and I can help her be excited about it. You owe her that. And me.”
“You’re such a mum.” His sigh was over-dramatic. “Always bossing, organising.”
She picked up her chopstick and aimed it like a mini-javelin at his head.
“Joking.”
“Sure.” She got up from the table.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my diary, to work out your next few visits.”
“You’re even more of a type A personality than I remember. Joking, really,” he added when he saw the look on her face. “But I don’t have my roster with me.” She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head on one side in disbelief. “It’s true. They’re usually done three-monthly. We’ll be getting the next one soon, and I’ll email it to you with all the times off that I can get here and you can pick what suits. Promise.”
What else could she do? “How often are you thinking?”
“We work eight weeks on, four off. So I’d like to say I’ll come back in each of those blocks of time off but, realistically, probably twice a year for a longish stay?”
She sat down again. “We’ll work it out, Rick. If you’re finally on board with this, we’ll work it out.”
“Hey, there, monkey.”
Steffi twisted in her chair in time to see Jess hiding behind the door.
“Jess.”
Her little face peeped out. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“How long have you been standing there?”
“I wasn’t listening.” But she was grinning from ear to ear. Clearly, she thought she knew something.
“Back to bed.” Jess opened her mouth, ready with another excuse, Steffi knew. “Now.”
“See you in the morning, Dad?”
“No,” said Steffi. “It’s school in the morning.”
“Dad can sleep here so I can see him in the morning.”
“No, Jess, and anyway my stuff’s all back at the hotel. I’ll work it out with your mum about seeing you after school.”
Her bottom lip dropped but she scooped it back up again when she saw her mother’s face, and Steffi knew she was wearing her don’t-push-me-any-further look.
She waited until the door closed behind Jess then turned back to their semi-cold dinner, scooping up a prawn. “So, tell me how a reformed no-hoper gets his kicks on an oil-rig in Saudi?”
“Matt, that doesn’t go there, it’s got blue on that side.”
It was Jess’s third visit in a week and, along with his niece’s visits, it was the only bright moment in his life right now. They didn’t probe, didn’t try to push him to get better, just accepted that his legs weren’t working and went on from there.
“So it does.” He hadn’t even been looking at the puzzle pieces, and he’d only been half watching Jess do it, too. He’d been wondering since her first visit how to fish for information about her mum and dad—how did you do that without feeling underhanded and mean?
You didn’t, he decided, you just had to live with the guilt. “Is your dad still here?”
Jess slipped another puzzle piece into place and looked up at him for confirmation that she was doing well. He nodded his approval and then she answered. “Yep. I think he and Mum are going to get married. I heard them talking about working it out. Victoria at school says that’s what parents do when they’re getting back together.”
What could he say to that?
Jess continued talking, not giving him a chance to respond. “I’ve always wanted a dad around. Dads let you do stuff that mums don’t.”
“Your mum will still be there, Jess.”
“She won’t care. Victoria said Mum will be too busy trying to stay pretty for Dad, she won’t mind what I do.”
It seemed he’d been right all along. Steffi did still have feelings for Rick and, no doubt, he himself had helped clarify the situation for her, his accident removing him as a contender. Even if Jess didn’t have the full story, they were clearly moving in that direction. Steffi wouldn’t let Jess get her hopes up if something wasn’t on the cards.
“Mum said to see if you wanted a visitor when she picks me up. Do you?”
He didn’t. “I think you might have worn me out with jigsaws, Jess.”
“That’s OK. Your mum said I could go and cook with her if you got tired.” She jumped off the bed. “I’ll do that now, and then you’ll be ready for Mum to visit.”
He should never have agreed to Jess visiting him. Maybe he could pretend to be asleep again when Steffi came, but sooner or later his mum would catch him out on that.
As it turned out, he was asleep, and as Steffi sat and watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest, she knew that this time, at least, his mother’s excuse had been genuine. Which was probably why she’d allowed Steffi into his room in the first place, to slip through the net while Port Cadney’s most intractable patient was unaware. Was that what things had come to between them?
She was still sitting on the chair next to his bed when he woke. He opened his eyes to look straight into hers and it seemed like the shutters came down almost in the same instant.
“Did I wake you?”
“No.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better.”
“You’ve treated me better, too, Matt.”
That startled him, caught him off guard. She knew it probably suited him to avoid dealing with anything more than he had to. But maybe it wasn’t doing him any good.
He raked a hand though his hair and she saw that it was clean—evidence of his mother’s home-nursing—but he was pale and thinner even than usual. His grey T-shirt hung from his shoulders, which looked even broader now he’d lost some body weight, and while the colour did nothing for the pallor of his skin, it did amazing things to his clear grey eyes.
She’d thought she may have imagined her strong feelings for him, but the moment she’d looked into his eyes, she’d known beyond a doubt that this was the man she loved.
But the fact that it wasn’t mutual was pretty evident in the way he’d already turned his face away from her, concentrating on rearranging the blanket over his legs. This wasn’t the Matt she knew.
He glanced at her and turned away again. “You say I haven’t been treating you well.”
She started to rephrase her earlier words. They sounded callous now that they were coming back at her from a man who was dealing with paralysis, but he pressed on and the harshness in his voice rocked her.
“I’ve had other things going on, Steffi. I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you. But from the sound of things, you’ve been pretty preoccupied yourself.”
What was he on about now?
“Preoccupied ringing and dropping into see you?” There was anger in her voice now, too, and she gripped the arms of the chair she was sitting in. “Preoccupied flying down to Adelaide on the first flight I could get, dropping everything to come to you?”
“Let’s just leave things, can we, Steffi? You’ve seen me now, you can see there’s nothing more you can do for me. Just leave it at that.”
She gave a short whistle. “Lying there feeling sorry for yourself is the last thing I thought you’d do, Matt.”
“Is that what you call it? I call it lying here because my bloody legs.” he ripped the blanket off to the side, patches of colour rising in his cheeks, forcing her to look at his legs, long and thin, a little muscle wastage evident already “. don’t work.”
Steffi leaned forward in her seat. “At least you might find anger a more motivating emotion than self-pity.”
“There’s a lot more going on than you know.”
“Then why don’t you enl
ighten me instead of shutting me out?” She paused for a moment to soften the tone of her voice and made a conscious effort to loosen her grip on the arms of the chair, to relax her muscles. Getting as hot under the collar as he was wouldn’t get them far. “And if you won’t let me help, would you think about seeing a counsellor?”
“You think I need to see a psychologist?” There was derision in his voice.
“I can recommend a good one.” She chewed the inside of her lip, unsure whether to make her admission to Matt or not. She’d made the decision not to previously but maybe, just maybe, it would lend some weight to her suggestion. “I haven’t told you this before but I’ve been seeing a psychologist myself. I’ve had some trouble with panic attacks over the last few months.”
He was clearly going to ignore that and she shrugged off the thought that he really didn’t seem to care one way or another about her. This was about him, not her. “So maybe you would benefit, maybe you wouldn’t. What’s to lose?”
He snorted.
“If you won’t consider that, let me help you. I’m ready to go through this with you, Matt, every last bit of it.”
“You didn’t turn to me with your panic attacks, didn’t trust me enough, Steffi, so don’t turn the tables now.”
She tried to interrupt, to explain that that had been different, that they’d only just started seeing each other then and he’d given her the clear message that to admit problems was in itself showing weakness. She’d taken a big risk to confide in him now, but it hadn’t paid off. He was rummaging in the drawer next to his bed, ignoring her, and when she tried again, he pulled something out of his drawer and cut her off.
“You can’t help. Here.” He thrust a piece of paper at her. “This is the icing on the cake. In case I don’t have enough to deal with.”