Breathe

by Penni Russon

  “I’m on my way. Tell Mum I’ll be there soon.”

  “Take care, little brother.”

  “You, too.”

  When Trout replaced the phone, he looked at Sharon. “My dad,” he said.

  “I know,” she said gently. “Tom and I picked him up this morning. He’s getting good care, though. The best.”

  “You picked him up this morning?” Trout asked. The synchronicity struck him like a warning bell. Trout had that hunted feeling again, and the anxiety swelled in him, constricting his breath.

  “Yeah. Cover a lot of ground, don’t we? We were doing a drop-off in Sorrell when your call came through. Bit of a coincidence though, isn’t it? Still, Hobart’s a small place. I remember…” Sharon’s voice filled the car with its soothing, professionally pointless babble about Hobart’s brothers and wives and aunts. She required no input from him—rather like a hairdresser or dentist—and he sat back to half listen and half think his own thoughts.

  When Sharon explained it like that, it suddenly seemed perfectly logical to Trout. Logic. He breathed. He was a man of logic. He had always believed in it, more strongly than he believed in anything.

  Maybe it was time for him to stop being hunted and to stop hunting. Maybe it was time to return to the things he knew: exams, astronomy, Shakespeare. He began to make a deal: if his father could be spared…but he stopped. No deals. No magic. It was time to return himself to himself—he’d been holding Trout hostage for too long.

  At the hospital Sharon jumped from the ambulance. She pointed a direction to Trout, then instantly forgot him, focusing instead on passing over the motionless Max to the emergency room staff.

  The hospital smelled pervasively of cleaning fluid and illness and vegetable soup, but it was a surprisingly soothing smell.

  Trout made his way to the reception desk, where they told him his father was in recovery and directed him to the waiting room in which he would find his family.

  The first person he saw was Richard and with him his girlfriend, Lucy. She rushed over as soon as she saw Trout and hugged him.

  “Oh, you poor things,” she said.

  Richard hugged him, too. “He’s in recovery. They think the operation went well, but we’re still waiting for news. He hasn’t woken up yet.”

  Mrs. Montmorency burst into tears when she saw Trout. “We couldn’t find you,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No, Mum,” Trout said, holding her to him. It was unusual for them to hug, and he was surprised to find how small and frail she seemed in his arms. “I’m sorry. I should have been here.”

  He looked over his mother’s shoulder at Dan, who nodded tightly. His face was white and tense; his hands were clenched fists.

  Trout sat next to his mother. Dan sat alone on the other side of the room, under the window. Richard and Lucy held on to each other by the door. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead; the choking smell of antiseptic, badly brewed coffee, and well-cooked toast filled the air.

  “Have you eaten anything?” he asked his mum. He realized he hadn’t. His shoulders were stiff and sore from the scuba tank and the oars. His body still hurt from when he had been beaten up, though his mother appeared too distracted to notice his bruises. His empty stomach had an airy, achy feeling.

  “There’s a cafeteria downstairs,” Mrs. Montmorency said absently. “Or a vending machine…somewhere. Someone brought me a coffee….” It sat untouched and stone cold by her side.

  “I’ll find something.” But as Trout rose, a doctor entered and he sank to his seat again. His mother stood and so did Dan—Richard and Lucy were already standing—so Trout stood again, feeling faintly ridiculous despite the circumstances.

  “At this stage we can safely say that the procedure was successful.” Trout felt his mother tremble beside him. “He’s awake and asking for all of you, but I’d prefer it if we left most of the visiting until morning. Of course, you may come and see him now,” he added to Mrs. Montmorency. She followed him out, glancing back to smile a dazzling relieved smile at her boys, half including Lucy, who she had never cared for in the past.

  Richard and Lucy hugged each other and Trout. Dan sat on a chair, and held his head in shaking hands.

  “I feel awful saying this,” Trout said, “but I really have to find some food.”

  “There’s a vending machine down the hall,” Lucy said. “I can get you something if you like.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll go.”

  Trout selected chicken soup (or what was dubiously labeled “a beverage with the taste of chicken soup”) from the hot drinks vending machine. He sipped it and screwed up his face, but persevered. Despite his protesting tastebuds, it felt good to have something warm and at least faintly nourishing in his stomach.

  He leaned against the wall, sipping his soup, and found himself wondering about Max, if she was all right. He asked a passing nurse if she knew which room Max was in.

  “You really should go to reception. Shouldn’t just be wandering the halls. It’s a big hospital.” But she consulted her chart and was able to direct him down the hall.

  As he approached he saw a familiar figure come out of Max’s room and walk down the hallway, her back to him. Eliza. He watched her departing back thoughtfully, screwed up his empty cup, and went back to his family.

  He found Richard outside, sneaking a cigarette. “I thought you didn’t smoke anymore,” said Trout.

  “Only in times of stress. Lucy got me back onto it, the rotter. And now she’s given up, but I can’t quite let it go.” Richard sighed, as though the cigarettes were some kind of forbidden lover. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “I don’t know,” Trout said, warily. He felt like he’d been keeping so many secrets that they had solidified inside him, turning to hard lumps of coal in his soul.

  “It won’t be a secret for long,” Richard said. “Nature will take care of that.”

  “All right then,” Trout said, still cautious.

  Richard beamed, though his brow was slightly furrowed. “Lucy’s having a baby.”

  “You mean she’s pregnant? Now?”

  “Yes, now. That’s usually how it works.”

  “Is that why Dad had a heart attack?”

  Richard groaned. “No. I haven’t told him yet. But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Trout thought about his dad’s regret at his sons growing up. “You know what? I think Dad will be happy. Mum will think you should get married, though.”

  “We might. We’ve talked about it a bit.”

  “You don’t feel…young?”

  Richard shrugged. “Sometimes. But I already kind of love it. I don’t know. I mean, it’s coming now, and…we just have to make it work, don’t we?”

  Trout looked sideways at Richard. “Do you ever think about Undine?”

  “No,” Richard said, too quickly. Richard met Trout’s eyes. “Well, sometimes. But not the way you think. I just wish…I wish it had never happened, that’s all.”

  “It’s over now.” And Trout realized that it really was over, in some way. Or at least it would be.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  They heard a noise behind them and Richard hid his cigarette.

  Trout looked up to see Dan’s tense face. “Dad’s awake. He wants to see you,” he said to Trout.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Trout.”

  Mr. Montmorency was pallid and grim-looking—a kind of gray-white. His eyes seemed sunken. He was lying down, and his head lolled to face Trout as he walked in. His lips were loose and droopy, his normally bright brown eyes faint and dull.

  “Trout, come closer.”

  Trout leaned down and kissed his father’s forehead, a gesture he had not performed since he was about seven years old.

  “Apparently they had trouble finding you this morning,” his dad said. His mouth sounded dry, and as if his tongue was slightly too big for it.

  “Oh, Dad,” Trout said, ash
amed. “Please don’t worry about me. Nothing’s wrong with me. Just you get better.”

  “Pretty sorry state, eh?”

  Trout smiled weakly.

  “Trout,” his dad said, then closed his eyes. With effort he opened them again. “This year…something’s wrong. You’re disappearing.”

  “I’m not,” Trout said. “I promise. I’m back now.”

  “You’re sure?” Mr. Montmorency closed his eyes. He patted his heart. “This old ticker. This machine. I thought I was a goner. I thought I was done for.”

  “Dad.” Trout squeezed his father’s hand.

  “It’s all right. When I was your age, I was so scared of dying. I felt…” He stopped and paused for breath. He spoke in spurts, as though each cluster of words hurt him. “…cheated by the prospect of it. As I got older…the fear for myself just went away…but I was so scared of something happening to one of my kids. The day Daniel fell out of the tree outside your bedroom…do you remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “But life is resilient.”

  Trout thought about the baby that Richard and Lucy were having, growing now in darkness, though he seemed to remember reading that even in the womb there are shades of light and dark: light filters through the mother’s skin and fat and blood and tissue, the thick membrane and lining of the uterus. Fetuses dream—he read that, too. What do they dream about? Do they dream of light? Is that how birth begins, the adventurer seeking to observe the unknown?

  “Yes,” Trout agreed. “Life is resilient.”

  “Like me. This morning. A goner. Now here I am.”

  “Don’t wear yourself out, Dad.”

  Mr. Montmorency coughed and smiled. “Is that your way of telling your old dad to shut up?” His face was grayer than it had been when Trout entered the room.

  “Shut up, Dad,” Trout said tenderly, and waited till his dad drifted off to sleep.

  Out in the corridor he rested his head on the cool wall. He had been a witness, perhaps the only one, to the diminishing health of his father. In those long, lonely nights when only he had been awake to see, should he have observed more closely the ashen skin, the tired voice?

  But what could he have done? Could he have held back his father’s darkness, any more than he could hold back any night?

  He heard someone address him. “Trout.”

  It was Dan.

  “We’re taking Mum home. Are you coming?”

  “Are you all right?” Trout asked his brother.

  Dan nodded, but clearly he wasn’t. He looked at the wall. “He nearly died, Trout.”

  “Oh, Dan.” Trout touched his arm. Dan’s hand covered his for a fraction of a second.

  “All right,” said Dan. “That’s enough. Stop touching me.” But he was smiling. “You ready to go?”

  “There’s something I need to do. I’ll walk home.”

  “Walk!” Dan’s face hardened. He crossed his arms. “Where the hell is my car?”

  Trout smiled sheepishly.

  Trout rapped gently on Max’s door. She didn’t look up, but stared at the cracks of light coming through the blinds on the window. She was very pale and appeared quite unwell, blue-white like a wintry moon.

  “I thought I told you to go away,” she said, her voice flat and tired.

  “I can leave if you want me to.”

  Max looked up. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” She looked at the window again. She shrugged. “You can stay if you want to.”

  Trout moved into the room, standing at the end of her bed.

  “I know what you think of me.” Max still would not meet his eyes. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m going away.”

  Trout was surprised. “You’re leaving? What about your research? What about…”

  “The magic?” Max shook her head, her eyes narrow and bitter. “The magic,” she said again, spitting the word out as if it were poisoned.

  Trout knew then that whatever Max had been looking for, whatever it was that she wanted from the magic, she hadn’t found it.

  “It isn’t to do things,” Trout said slowly, as if remembering a long past conversation.

  Max nodded, and answered as if in great pain. “I know.”

  “That’s just a side effect.”

  “You should have left me down there. She should have left me down there.”

  “You would have died.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Dying doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters,” Trout said, angrily. But he wasn’t just angry with Max; he was angry with himself. He’d wasted all this time, believing death had some kind of hold over him. Life was…it was a kind of responsibility. If he had been saved, he owed it to himself, to Prospero who had done the actual saving, and to Undine who had tried, to live. It wasn’t much to ask of someone, that they live.

  “Then why?” Max said desperately, finally looking in Trout’s eyes, searching them for answers. “Why does it feel like this? So flinty and gray and so lonely? Why is living so hard?”

  “Because,” Trout said ruefully, recognizing his own words. “Because. Sometimes that’s just the way life feels.” He sat down on the edge of Max’s bed. “I guess, if you live in darkness long enough, you become a dark thing yourself.”

  “Are you a dark thing?”

  “I thought I was. I thought I was some kind of leftover of the magic, something twisted and strange.”

  “But you were wrong?”

  Trout looked at the light coming through the blinds—glaring white.

  “I’m a boy. A man. Made of light. And darkness, shades of darkness.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Eliza.”

  “So that night in the pub, you planned it? You made it so you would save me and I would trust you?” Trout touched the pale yellow bruise on his face.

  Max closed her eyes and nodded.

  “I…I needed to reach you. Quickly. It seems so empty now. But at the time…the urgency…I didn’t care about you. I only cared about the magic, that’s all. But now…”

  Trout rested his hand on hers.

  “The drugs, too?”

  “They were Eliza’s idea.” Max screwed up her face. “She’s kind of…”

  “She was here, at the hospital. I saw her.”

  “I didn’t tell her anything,” Max said, her eyes wide and honest. “I told her…I told her you made it all up. That I was wrong. There is no magic.”

  Trout studied her, not sure whether to believe her or not.

  “She’s looking for the magic, too?”

  “Not really. She’s a member of the Chaosphere. And a friend. And kind of a bitch. She helped me find you, that’s all. I don’t think she ever really believed in the magic anyway.”

  “But your universe? Your research?”

  “It’s finished.”

  “You’d give it all up?” Trout asked softly. “Sacrifice everything you’ve worked for?”

  “For Undine?” Max thought. “Maybe I would. She did save me. But that’s not why. And it’s not for you either, though if you asked, maybe…”

  “Then why?”

  “I know I’ve done things, horrible things. I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I’m not a bad person. The magic, it’s so…living. So fragile. Almost human.”

  It was a revelation to Trout. “Yes,” he agreed, marveling at the idea of it. The girl is the magic but the magic is also the girl—as if the more Undine used it, the more closely tied they became. He had loved the girl, but he’d feared the magic, like it was a monster taking hold of her, making her less human. But now it was as if Undine was tempering the magic, making it more so.

  “It needs protecting.” Max sounded surprised at her own compassion. “Besides, I wouldn’t be able to use it. It nearly crushed me. It would have if she hadn’t…”

  “So what will you do?”

  Max looked away again, staring at the blankness of space in the airy hospital room. “What will I do? I
don’t know. But whatever it is, it won’t be here, in Hobart. There’s nothing for me to stay for. Unless…” She looked at Trout, who looked quickly away. “I didn’t think so,” she said softly.

  “I have to go,” he said apologetically. He stood up.

  “I crossed the threshold,” said Max. “It wasn’t just chaos. It was true chaos. It was discordant, disordered, without structure or form. It tore me from myself.” She shivered.

  Trout understood. “What descends, ascends. I promise.”

  “What goes down must come up, you mean?” Max smiled sorrowfully. “I like it. It has a certain logic to it.”

  Trout reached out his hand, touched her fingers gently. “Bye, Max.”

  At the door, he turned back, but Max was already staring at the window again, at the cracks of light coming in through the half-closed blind.

  Outside, the late sunlight stretched across the hospital car park, illuminating color with heightened brilliance. Trout looked up at the sun; warm, fragrant air touched his face.

  “What was the date today?” he asked a nurse walking past.

  She gave him a quizzical stare. “The second of September.”

  Spring had already happened, and he hadn’t even seen it coming. He smiled. Winter was over. He felt it in every bone.

  He looked ahead. Grunt was waiting for him, leaning on the Datsun, which was parked on the busy main road in front of the hospital. Trout raised his hand.

  “Hi,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “After you left, Prospero called. It’s Undine.”

  “What about Undine?”

  Cars sped by. The world buzzed and sang.

  “She’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  Grunt held up his hands, palms facing upward and his fingers open as if she had literally slipped through his grasp. “Gone,” he said again, and even the word seemed slippery, as if Grunt couldn’t hold on to that, either, the meaning of it. “Gone.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Lou stood in Undine’s hotel room. The sheets of the bed were rumpled perfectly in the shape of Undine’s body as if she lay there still, but she did not. Instead, where Undine had been was simply an absence of her and the fading breath of the sea.