Love and Other Battles

by Tess Woods

  ‘But why can’t we explore more options? Why?’ She’d raised her voice. ‘It’s so unfair. He’s going to wither away until he dies because nobody in a position to help him has an open mind.’

  The doctor had clicked his pen. ‘It’s not about having an open mind, it’s a matter of facing reality. The most helpful thing you can do for your husband is accept things the way they are and support him as best you can.’

  ‘Accept things the way they are. Hmph,’ Jess muttered in her bedroom now as she clicked on the next article, ‘Thermography in the Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease’.

  The words blurred and she closed her eyes. She still hadn’t gone to the doctor about the dizziness and headaches that were worsening each day. She blinked a few times, rubbed her temples and the words cleared up. She read the article — maybe this was the treatment that would work.

  ***

  She was woken by Jamie’s gentle shaking.

  The sunlight streamed in, casting an angelic glow over her daughter who stood at her bedside.

  ‘Hey.’ Jamie smiled, stroking Jess’s hair. ‘I popped in on you before but didn’t have the heart to wake you. I’m on my way to the clinic. Are you okay?’

  ‘What time is it?’ Jess croaked.

  ‘Ten-thirty.’

  ‘Bugger!’ She bolted upright, knocking her laptop onto the floor. ‘Your father will be beside himself!’

  ‘It’s okay, Mum, don’t stress.’ Jamie sat down beside her on the bed. ‘I’ve already been on the phone to the home, and they let him know you were still in bed. He’s absolutely fine. He’s still in bed himself.’

  ‘Thank goodness. Thank you, sweet.’

  ‘How late were you up anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe four?’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ Jamie let out a sigh. ‘This has got to stop. You went through this last year, remember? You found out then that nothing really works.’

  ‘The marijuana helped.’

  ‘That’s true. But that option’s gone now. Mum, I honestly think you’re wasting your time with all this research. And look at you! You’re exhausted. Falling asleep sitting up in front of your laptop three nights in a row. And you’ve got the stress of the court case coming up too. I’m actually more worried about you these days than I am about Dad.’

  Jess wasn’t up for a lecture from Jamie so she changed the subject. ‘How’s my granddaughter going? I’m sorry I’ve barely been in to see her. Your father’s taking all my attention at the moment.’

  ‘That’s okay, you don’t need to worry.’

  ‘What’s the plan for her now?’

  ‘Well, we’re aiming for her to come home at the end of the week. Her psych suggested yesterday that I shouldn’t send her back to school. She thinks it would be too much on her to have to make new friends when she’s already part-way through Year Twelve. I can see her point.’

  ‘It would be stressful for her to start again somewhere new,’ Jess agreed. ‘Is there no way she can go back to St Bernard’s?’

  Jamie shook her head. ‘Nope. The school policy about drugs isn’t negotiable. It would probably be just as hard for her to go back there after everything that’s happened anyway.’

  ‘She’s such a clever girl. It seems an awful waste for her not to finish high school.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Jamie sighed. ‘I’m devastated. But I guess if she decides she wants to get her VCE maybe next year or down the track, she could try again. There are other university pathways too these days.’

  ‘Oh well, that’s good, at least there are options.’ Jess rested her hand on Jamie’s thigh. ‘And what about you? When are you planning to go back to work?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘I’m terrified of leaving her home alone, to be honest. Even though she’s come so far this past week, I still feel like it’s too soon to leave her by herself and go back to work. Maybe I should take the rest of the term off? Use up more of my long-service leave.’

  Jess stretched and her back cracked in two places. She was sore everywhere. This falling asleep while sitting up business had to end, Jamie was right. ‘Why don’t you ask her father to move in and keep her company during the day? You can go back to work that way, knowing there would be someone with her at least.’

  Jamie’s eyes widened. ‘You mean Scott? Move in? Please tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘I’m dead serious. It’s the perfect solution. He’s coming back all this way for no other reason than to be with his daughter. He’ll need somewhere to stay when he gets here, won’t he? He can move into the spare room, temporarily of course. I don’t see the problem. It takes care of everything.’

  ‘You really have lost your mind,’ Jamie muttered. ‘As if, after not laying eyes on him for eighteen years, I’d invite him to move in! He’ll think I’ve gone completely bonkers.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask CJ and see what she says about it?’ Jess patted her on the thigh. ‘It’s not like you’re inviting him back to your bed, now, is it? You’d just be giving them some time together when you’re at work. I’m sure by now the school would be falling apart without you. And I think it would be really good for you to have something else to think about by going back to work.’

  ‘The school falling apart? You forget who my deputy is. Andrew has the place running like clockwork. I bet they’ve barely noticed I’m missing.’

  ‘Speaking of Andrew, have you told him about Scott?’

  Jamie shot her a look. ‘I have, yes. Though I’m not sure why you’re even asking.’

  ‘I’m just wondering what he’ll think when Scott arrives back here and is part of your life again.’

  ‘Mum, Andrew and I are workmates, nothing more. Why would he care whether my ex was coming back to town?’ Jamie rolled her eyes and stood up.

  Jess flipped the covers back and climbed out of bed, clutching at her lower back. ‘For such an intelligent woman, you really are thick sometimes, Nirvana.’

  ***

  After she’d had a quick shower and eaten half a muesli bar, Jess printed off the information she’d collected in the previous night’s research.

  Jamie was wrong, the specialist was wrong, everyone was wrong. Where there was a will, there was a way. And she certainly had the will.

  There were three whole new treatment methods she’d never heard of before last night and the possibility of them being successful filled her heart with hope.

  They’d start earthing today. Earthing was simple. All that was required was to sit with bare feet on the grass for a few hours a day. Theoretically, earthing was supposed to be done on sand, soil or dirt, but none of those were accessible in a wheelchair at Sunrise Glades, so grass would have to do. Jess figured it was all the same anyway. Nature between the toes was meant to relax the nervous system. It was so obvious and logical, she wondered how she hadn’t thought of it before.

  And the Ayurvedic herbs she’d ordered online from India also brought new promise. The information she’d read about them in the early hours of the morning had her convinced that the herbal tablets could be just as effective, if not more so than the marijuana. They cost a fortune, but she was Malcolm James’s daughter, for goodness sake! They’d never lived a flashy lifestyle; they were minimalists before minimalism was even a word. The majority of her inherited money was still in the bank. So if spending five hundred dollars a month was what it took to make her husband feel well again, then five hundred dollars a month was what she would spend a hundred times over.

  And then there was rolfing. Jess had already found a local rolfing clinic and their website said they offered a mobile service. She’d arrange for regular ‘sleeve sessions’ with a rolf practitioner who would release the tension in the connective tissue through a special kind of hands-on therapy that was much more effective than regular massage, the website said.

  There was a very real chance this could be a whole new start!

  The sun shone brightly on her as she walked into Sunrise Glades with
a new spring in her step. She scooped up her skirt in one hand and held a basket filled with the papers and a large posy of fresh daisies in the other.

  She came down with a thud when she reached the room and saw her husband so hunched over in the chair that his head faced his knees. Was it just her imagination or had his hair thinned out this week too? His hands shook by his sides. He had mismatching socks on and his striped blue pyjamas hung off him.

  It was wrong. All of it.

  ‘Hey you!’ she called out.

  He didn’t respond.

  Another bout of dizziness hit her along with a sudden headache. ‘Hey you,’ she said again.

  He stared at her expressionless for a few seconds then shut his eyes. Usually he at least tried to smile, but today he made no attempt.

  Her gut tightened. ‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’

  He kept his eyes shut and clenched his trembling fists.

  She took a big breath. He was having a bad day. She was hours late. He was bored, in pain, fed up. The possibilities to explain his mood were endless.

  ‘All right, no need to explain. Let me tell you instead what I discovered last night. Are you ready to hear?’ She pulled out the printed notes.

  No response.

  ‘Right.’ It was a big effort to keep her tone chirpy when her heart ached and her head pounded. ‘I found out about a gloriously simple treatment called earthing. All you have to do is sit with your feet on the grass. Apparently it has all kinds of terrific healing properties for muscle relaxation. How fabulous is that, darling? We could start today!’

  Silence. His eyes remained tightly shut while his head bounced rhythmically.

  She swallowed. ‘But it’s not just earthing that I discovered. There are some fantastic herbs that I just ordered online from India and the evidence about them is amazing. They’re supposed to —’ She jumped in her seat when he lifted his arm in one big swing and sent the pages in her hands flying all over the room.

  Then he shut his eyes again. She blinked the tears away as she crawled around the cold floor picking up the rejected hours of research.

  ‘Maybe today’s not the day you want to hear about the new treatments,’ she said quietly as she folded the pages and put them back in her basket. ‘I picked you some daisies that have just come into bloom again in the front garden. Look, aren’t they divine?’ She held the flowers up for him to see.

  He turned his head the other away.

  When she returned from the bathroom with the vase full of water, he was snoring. She pulled out her knitting and tried to calm the torrent of grief inside her.

  ***

  Jess’s heart missed a beat when her phone rang after she got home that evening — the caller was Sunrise Glades.

  ‘Please don’t worry,’ Shreya reassured her. ‘Nothing’s happened to Mr Stone. He just asked me to call you. I’m in his room with him at the moment.’

  ‘Oh? What’s going on?’ Jess had been at the home all day, leaving only after Shreya cleared away his dinner plate, still full of roast turkey and vegetables, all mushed together in one big unappetising glob. For the entire time she was there he hadn’t spoken or interacted with her in any way except to give a sharp, loud ‘No!’ when she tried to take his socks off in the garden.

  ‘I hope I’ve got this right. Mr Stone’s asked me to pass a message to you, but it’s a bit . . .’ Shreya hesitated. ‘It’s been a bit, ah, tricky, to understand some of the words he said. I wrote it all down and read it back to him just now and, from what I can tell anyway, I think I got most of it.’

  ‘Oh-kay.’ Jess didn’t like the sound of notes being dictated to the nurse. It had an ominous feel to it. ‘Go ahead.’

  Shreya coughed. ‘So what Mr Stone said to tell you was that you’re researching the wrong thing. Um . . . he said you know what he wants you to research. And he said it’s time.’

  Jess dropped her head in her hands.

  ‘Mrs Stone? Hello?’

  ‘Thank you, Shreya. Please say goodnight to my husband for me.’

  14 MARCH 2018

  Jamie unlocked her car and climbed in. She’d just left CJ tucked up in bed, laptop out, about to binge on the latest season of Riverdale.

  For the first time in months, CJ was behaving like herself again. The counselling sessions, coupled with reconnecting with her father, seemed to have lifted a huge weight off her. While Jamie was hopeful that her daughter was getting better, she also felt terror. What if CJ wasn’t improving at all? What if she was faking it and would try to kill herself again?

  Sitting in her car in the dark outside the psych clinic, something inside Jamie flipped.

  Just two weeks ago, she was harbouring fears about CJ, but really she had no idea how bad things actually were. She had no idea about the drugs, about the self-harm, about the video and the manipulation and the blackmail. Two weeks ago, she had no idea that her mother was about to face prosecution. And just two weeks ago she had no idea that Scott was about to come back into her life in the most dramatic of circumstances.

  But now it crashed down on her and she was swamped with fear, grief, disbelief and, most of all, anger. She scrambled for a tissue in her handbag and pulled three out, blowing her nose loudly.

  She was due back at work next week. How was she supposed to do that? How could she slip back into her role of running a school, of having fifteen hundred students and a hundred and seventy staff relying on her? She had none of herself left to give them.

  She’d thought nothing could have felt worse than finding CJ unconscious in a pool of her own blood, but the counselling sessions they had together, and the dark places her mind took her to, were even worse. The full extent of CJ’s secret trauma, all that she’d suffered through alone for months, was almost too much to bear. It was all she could think about.

  She tortured herself every night and had barely slept. She’d closed her eyes for a few minutes here and there in a chair at CJ’s bedside at the hospital. Once CJ had been transferred to the clinic, Jamie had started coming home at night. But even then she hadn’t managed more than a couple of hours sleep at a time. When she had slept, she’d dreamed only about Finn and what he’d done.

  Finn had all but destroyed her beautiful daughter. How dare he! How dare he take an innocent, trusting girl and prey on her like that! And he had no remorse. None. He had behaved like a revenge-fuelled sociopath — punishing her for being brave enough to stand up to him and leave him. He’d used scare tactics and manipulation to get what he wanted out of her. And so far he’d got away scot-free.

  Her only concern up until now had been for CJ and she’d done nothing about Finn. But enough was enough. She knew what she had to. She picked up her phone.

  ‘Hello, Jamie,’ Detective Nguyen answered. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Sorry to call you after hours. Can you talk?’ She hoped to God she’d say yes.

  ‘Sure. What’s up?’

  Jamie told her. And she held nothing back. ‘I want him charged.’ Her voice broke. ‘He needs to be arrested for sexual assault.’

  ‘Jamie, I’m really sorry to hear what CJ has been through. That must have been so hard for both of you. It’s just awful.’

  ‘Thank you.’ It felt good to have someone say that, but sympathy wasn’t what she was after. She wanted action. ‘So what are you going to do about Finn?’

  Detective Nguyen sighed before she responded. ‘The thing is, Jamie, as crap as what Finn did is, and it really is horrible, it doesn’t count as a sexual assault. From what you’ve told me, it sounds like CJ consented to it. He didn’t make her do it by force.’

  ‘But he recorded her without her knowledge!’ Jamie raised her voice. ‘That’s not consent!’

  ‘Unfortunately if she consented to the act, then him taping her doing it for his own pleasure is legal. If he never actually made the video public then he didn’t break any laws, believe it or not.’

  ‘No, I actually don’t believe it.’ Jamie rested her he
ad back against the headrest. ‘That’s just not okay.’

  ‘I know,’ Detective Nguyen agreed.

  ‘And what about how he sold drugs on campus? How he threatened to leak the video of her online? Are you going to tell me all of that’s legal too?’

  ‘No. No, that stuff is most definitely illegal. That we can do something about. We need evidence of him selling the marijuana to charge him. You say he ran out of it and that’s why he messaged CJ asking for more. We can get a search warrant out but I think it’d be safe to assume we won’t find any at his house. What we need are the kids he sold it to, to provide evidence that they bought dope from him. We can hold an investigation and see what we come up with. I should warn you, though, we’re rarely successful in these cases. I think you can appreciate that getting kids to come forward with information that incriminates themselves is just about impossible.’

  ‘So, what? He just gets away with everything?’ Jamie shook her head. How could that even be possible?

  Detective Nguyen was quiet for a while and then she said, ‘Not necessarily. There is a way he could be charged. We could get him on the grounds of manipulation for the text message he sent threatening to leak the video of CJ.’

  ‘Good! How do we do that?’

  ‘Well, the first thing we’d need is proof of the message. And then we’d need CJ to come down to the station to make a victim statement. Being the one who received the message, Mia would need to do the same. The thing is, though, that they could both be subpoenaed to give further evidence in court after they lodge their statements.’