Devil's Choice

by Graham Wilson

  She looked up and asked, “Where is Amelie?”

  He answered. “I asked your Grandmother to take her home and mind her. They had to take you back to theatre a second time to stop the bleeding. So it is hours since you came here. Amelie and your Gran both stayed with you and me until about an hour ago, but it was getting very late and Amelie was tired and cranky. So, once the surgeon had finished and they brought you into recovery and we all knew you would be OK, I asked Patsy if she would take Amelie home and care for her this evening and I would ring later once you woke up properly.

  Catherine nodded, she felt drained now that she knew the story; she felt sad and too tired to think. She kept hold of Mathew’s hand saying, “Thank you for telling me. I am so tired I don’t think I can stay awake much longer. But please stay with me. I don’t want to be by myself tonight.”

  He nodded, “Of course, I had never dreamed of leaving until you were better, so tonight I will mind you, just the same as you once minded me.”

  She smiled a little smile and fell into a deep sleep. He sat holding her hand as the clock’s hands moved slowly through the night. A couple times she half woke. Each time when she looked up and saw him sitting there she smiled and drifted back to sleep.

  Mathew was tired but did not care; he knew he had almost lost her today. He was going nowhere without her and was determined to mind her better from here on.

  Beginning Again

  In the morning when Catherine woke up she saw Mathew sleeping. His body was sitting on the bedside chair bed with his head slumped on the bed and touching her side. She fondly ran her fingers through his hair. She felt weak and tired but mostly glad to see him, to know he was still here and sleeping beside her. She could not wait to see her daughter again as well, her bright smile and her bubbling chatter. There was a hole inside her from her loss, but she knew it was a small thing besides what she had, her husband and daughter who loved her as much as she loved them, and a solid family as well, all of whom she loved and loved her in equal measure.

  In this place she saw clearly now that the life she still had was a gift that must never be wasted. It was no great insight, just an everyday appreciation, but she knew it was something she must never lose sight of.

  As she idly stroked Mathew’s hair she saw his eyes begin to flicker and then he was awake, looking at her dreamily. “I just had the most beautiful dream,” he said, “It was about you and how much I loved you and how lucky I am.”

  “I was thinking just the same. “Thank you for staying all night with me, in that uncomfortable chair.”

  It was four days until she was able to get up and walk around and another day until they let her out of hospital. Her tummy was still tender where they had cut her and stitched her back up but it was healing well, and she was still pasty and weak on her feet from the blood loss. But she was recovering well. For the next week after she was home she was under strict doctors instructions to rest up, no sudden jerks of movements which might tear her stitches. It made her be patient which was hard once she felt better, but it gave her time to think.

  She realised she had started to let the business of her life consume her, trying to do so much to make a success of the work that some of the good things in her life were in danger of slipping away. But it was her warning she would heed it and slow down a bit, make sure there was more time for Mathew and Amelie, not be in such a desperate hurry to both get the business making lots of money and try and have another baby at the same time, just fully enjoy what she had.

  She remembered the story Lizzie had told her of how her own Mum had been desperate to have another baby and had started to forget about the child and husband she had already and what a high price had been paid for that. Not that this person that Lizzie had told her about seemed at all like her Gran now, she was so wise and patient, but then it had of course come at a huge cost.

  She was determined to try and learn her lesson without causing more harm. So she forced herself to slow down, they organised picnics at the weekend, often just the three of time at the beach or the park, sometimes with her Gran of others they knew, particularly those with their own small children. She finished painting their rooms, she bought furnishings that she and Mathew chose to make it nice, she tried to make sure they ate dinner at a regular hour and there was always nice food on hand, she pampered her husband in lots of little ways.

  But as time went by it was hard to maintain their slow and relaxed life, now Ella’s own hotel was getting busier and busier and there was so much to do at this one. And Mathew had insisted that she not abandon her studies, he said she was way too bright to waste her brain on just being a hotel manager or his wife. So, even though she had dropped the studies for the rest of this year once she had lost her baby, from next year she would continue her part time course at University.

  Now Amelie was almost two and Christmas was coming. All her family was flying to Sydney for the Christmas holidays and she was so looking forward to seeing them all, her brother and sister were starting to sound so grown up when they talked on the phone, her brother Michael was now fourteen and her sister Emily was twelve. Soon they would be sent off to school too, though now her parents were talking of moving to a big city to live while the other children finished school, perhaps Perth, or even Sydney or Melbourne. She did not want that as it would break the link with her desert home, but it was not really up to her.

  Christmas came round and it was wonderful, the first year Amelie really knew what presents were and everyone had spoilt her rotten. Her father had bought her a red car with pedals, a strange present for a girl, Catherine thought. Mathew said he had always wanted a car just like that when he was really little, because one of his friends had one and he would only let him drive it sometimes. So now the red car had been hidden away in the cupboard until Christmas morning, well almost.

  Three nights before Christmas, after Amelie was supposed to be asleep in her bed, with Cathy’s mother, father, brother and sister all sitting round in their apartment. Mathew had brought out the car to show everyone, he could not help it because he loved it so much himself, shiny red with flashing headlights.

  As they were all sitting round and admiring it a little voice came from behind. “Car, Red Car.” There was Amelie, standing in the door, eyes wide open and looking rapturously at the car. She toddled over and, without a second glance at anyone, climbed in and started to pedal, whooping with delight. Mathew covered his face with pretend horror that he had not closed her bedroom door properly. But there was no undoing, she loved her car.

  Once she was back in bed the car had gone back into the cupboard, hidden out of sight. Amelie came running out first thing in the morning looking, “Car, Car, Red Car, Car Gone. Where Car Gone?”

  Mathew and Cathy pretended not to notice and after a while of her walking around and looking everywhere Amelie finally gave an exaggerated shrug and said. “Car Gone.”

  On Christmas morning there was a huge object, wrapped in paper, sitting under the tree. At first Amelie did not want to go near it as if scared it would bite her. Instead she just opened and played with her other presents, “Santy brought me dolly, Santy brought me dress.”

  Mathew brought her over to the car. He asked “Who is this present for?

  She shook her head, not knowing.

  He found the card on it with her name, “It says Amelie, I wonder who Amelie is?

  She pointed to herself, still looked uncertain.

  “What do you think it is?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  He asked, “Do you want to open it.”

  She shook her head again.

  He lifted her right next to it and put her hand on it.

  She looked nervous as if she wanted to pull her hand back. But then something curious must have tripped in her brain. She started to feel it intently. “Car,” she said. Now she was tearing off the paper. Then, “Red Car, Santy bring back Red Car.”

  Beaming with delight Amelie tore it free of
its wrappings and climbed inside.

  Now she would not get out, it was so precious and she was scared it might disappear again. She ate her breakfast sitting in it and when it came time to get dressed and go to church, she had to be pried, crying and grizzling, out of it.

  When she came home, after church, she was so delighted that the car was still there. After that it became like the new house she lived in, though now she came and went secure in the knowledge it would not vanish again.

  As Catherine thought back on it on New Year’s Eve, she knew that this was one of the most wonderful times in her life which she must never forget. She now had a photo of Amelie sitting proudly in her red car. It sat in pride of place on their mantel piece. She made herself a promise that she would try to make the next year the best year of all their lives.

  The Birthday Girl

  January 14th was Amelie’s birthday and all the family had stayed on in Sydney for the occasion when their daughter turned two.

  It was still hard to separate her from her car, so, as a present Mathew and Robbie, with help from Michael, had built her a house, like an oversize dolls house, which was big enough for her to drive the car into and park inside. It had a front door that looked like a real house door but was six inches taller than she was. So she could walk through it without banging her head, and it was wide enough to drive the car in and out with a few inches to spare. The top level was like a regular dolls house with places for dolls furniture and with doll sized doors and windows which opened and shut and which she could reach from her bed.

  The three of them had worked for many hours over the last week to create all the pieces, then assemble them to test that they fitted together and after that to pull them all apart again and paint them in bright colours. During the night, as Amelie lay sleeping, they had carefully assembled it in the lounge room, and carried it into the bedroom; it had only just fit through the door.

  The had part covered it in wrapping paper, so it was clear it was a present and put the car inside the underneath, but left the door open enough so that when she woke up she could see it was inside. They had all come over for early breakfast, no one wanting to miss the moment of discovery, They sat quietly in the kitchen, drinking cups of tea and waiting for Amelie to wake.

  She normally woke about seven in the morning so they were there in good time and just starting on a second cup when the patter of little feet was heard. Silence, then the sound of paper tearing, then “House, Car House, Santy Bring House for Car, Mummy and Daddy, Santy Bring House for Car.”

  They all trooped in and watched her drive the car in and out of the house beaming with delight.

  At 3 pm there was a party with four of her friends in the local park down at East Balmain with a view out to the Harbour Bridge. Michael and Emily were the stars of the party, given the job of entertaining two other little girls and two little boys all around Amelie’s age that she knew from playgroup. They set up a splash pool and a bouncing castle full of air for the children to play on. After that there were lots of lollies and drinks and a birthday cake with two big candles which Amelie blew out, one at a time. The adults, including the other parents and a few close friends, stood around sipping champagne and beer and enjoying the view on a perfect summer’s day as boats in the harbour drifted past the view and the ferries came and went.

  When they carried Amelie home in the dusk she was so tired she could barely walk but said, “Mummy and Daddy, thank you for best, best bird day party.”

  Lumps

  Next day Amelie was really tired and slept in until mid-morning. Cathy was not surprised after the huge day she had had yesterday. Most of the family had arranged a boat and gone fishing in the harbour, it had become something of an annual event as they had done it last year too when they had gone on a holiday to Broome.

  Robbie and Mathew had both loved to fish as kids and so today they had taken Emily and Michael out in a fishing boat, trying various spots around the harbour where Mathew had fished with his own father when little. Patsy had gone along too as she loved going out and about and also having time alone with her other grandchildren. So it was just Lizzie and herself at home.

  Catherine was secretly pleased. She had been so close to her Mum when she was little, she the only child of a single parent and, while it was lovely to have everyone else around, sometimes she just wanted time alone with her Mum. So far these holidays there had not been much of that.

  They sat around the kitchen table eating slices of toast and honey and drinking endless cups of tea as they chatted and the morning drifted by. By about ten o’clock, with Amelie still sleeping, Catherine decided it was time to wake her, as the two of them wanted to walk down town and do some shopping and then have lunch together in an outdoor café.

  She went in to look at her daughter, she was still sleeping soundly. She stroked her tousled hair, strangely reluctant to disturb her beautiful sleep. She saw Amelie had little discoloured blotches on the skin of her cheeks, she looked at them more closely, she supposed they were just from the inevitable summer stings and mossie bites that were inflicted on them all, particularly Amelie where all the bites still came up in lumps. She smoothed her hair back to lock better, they were a funny colour for bites, she pushed back her lip and looked at the baby gums; they were a funny colour too and had bruised looking places, like bloodspots, on them here and there. It did not seem right.

  She called in her Mum and showed her.

  Lizzie looked closely, uncertain too.

  Now Amelie was stirring, she sat up and rubbed her eyes sleepily. “Mummy I feel a bit sick,” she said.

  Catherine picked her up, she noticed there were little lumps under her arms, she could not remember them being there yesterday, but come to think of it for the last couple days she had barely held her little girl, there were so many helpers.

  Perhaps she was coming down with one of those common children’s complaints, like chicken pox or mumps, she recalled that mumps caused lumps under the chin and arms and seemed to recall that other kids sicknesses did the same, it was something about lymph glands there reacting and getting enlarged. Perhaps that was it; she was coming down with something like that.

  She did seem a bit flushed this morning, she cuddled Amelie to her, she did not feel like she was running a temperature but she was hard to tell, she was still warm from her bed.

  Catherine said to her Mum, Will you have a look at this, she seems to have lumps under her arms, perhaps she is coming down with something, like chicken pox or mumps.

  Her Mum took Amelie and felt under her arms then around her neck, nodding, “Yes definitely she seems to have enlarged glands, probably as you say a virus. I think they vaccinate for mumps these days so probably not that, but there are lots of other things they get when they are little.

  “Anyway let’s give her breakfast and see how she is, perhaps a quiet day for her is in order. If she does not spark up we should take her to the doctor.”

  Amelie did not eat much breakfast then she said she was tired again so Catherine put her back to bed and suggested her Mum go for a walk down the street and bring back something for lunch.

  An hour later Lizzie was back, carrying a couple containers of delicious smelling Chinese food for them to share. The aroma wafted through the apartment and woke Amelie who sat up on a stool and joined them in the meal. At first she seemed to eat well but about half way through she said. “Mummy, I feel sick again.”

  Lizzie looked up, “Time for a doctor’s visit I think.”

  Catherine nodded and went and picked up the phone. She got an appointment in an hour’s time. It was only a hundred yards walk down the street so the two of them went together, Lizzie carrying a shopping basket to buy some food for dinner while Catherine carried Amelie. After a few minutes wait the doctor, a pleasant young man, invited them in.

  They gave him a brief history, saying maybe she had caught a kid’s bug.

  He asked a few questions, how long she had been showing signs and
any other symptoms? Then he lifted Amelie onto the table to examine her. As he carefully looked over Amelie his demeanour changed from casual to worried looking. He was very thorough and checked everything over and then he went over her a second time, looking particularly carefully in her mouth, as well as palpating the glands all over her body. This time he was writing notes as he went, keeping his face fixed on the page until he was finished before he looked up.

  He tried to smile, but there was no hiding the anxiety in his demeanour.

  Catherine could feel her heart pounding, What could it be? Amelie had seemed so well yesterday. But of course the excitement of a birthday for a two year old made that hardly surprising. Come to think of it though, she had not eaten much, though she had just put that down to the excitement of the day.

  The doctor seemed to be gathering his thoughts and his words. I am concerned about your daughter; it could be, as you say, a virus like chicken pox or mumps, though she has had her shots. But there are other symptoms like the blotches on her gums and she has enlarged white tonsils which do not really fit. So, I would like to take some blood and do some tests before we go any further, if that is OK. I particularly want to see what her white blood cell count is. That will help me know what to do next.

  Catherine could feel the panic rising, she did not like the ominous way he was speaking. It was his manner more than his words that set the alarm bells ringing. She tried to ask what it could be.

  But the doctor, while not exactly refusing to answer, said. “I would really like to get the results of the blood test before we discuss what could be the problem.”

  So he arranged for a nurse to come in and take a blood sample. The nurse gave Amelie a lolly to suck and asked Catherine hold her tight while she did her job. Lizzie pulled funny faces to make her laugh and that helped. Amelie cried a little from the needle, but then she was very proud when they put a band-aid on her arm and told her how brave she was.