The Ties That Bind

by Lexi Landsman

  When Courtney opened her eyes as the plane levelled above the clouds, she realised she had changed in the week she’d been in a country so far from home. She’d discovered horrible truths about who she really was and they’d embedded themselves in her mind and pushed all her certainties out of place. Except for these, which remained fixed: she was the mother of a beautiful boy and the wife of a man she couldn’t live without. She was loved and she gave love in droves. And that was all she needed.

  Even though Courtney was exhausted, her mind was filled with too many unanswered questions to allow her to sleep. She had left her birth mother with the chance to save a life instead of let one go. And she had asked Asha to take Jade with her to be tested too. She hoped that Asha would see that this act could offer her some sort of redemption. She had given Asha an envelope, which contained her phone number, their address, the hospital’s details, a phone card with credit, and enough money for a return trip to Miami. Her mind turned to her father and she wondered how she would face him. How could she even begin to understand why he had chosen to lie to her about who he really was?

  To distract her thoughts, Courtney flicked through a magazine, but she couldn’t concentrate. She read the same sentences over and over again and then gave up. She was about to tuck it away when she saw an article on baby names with a series of sidebars that featured lists of popular baby names, outlandish celebrity baby names and ones inspired by different languages. Courtney scanned through them and drew her breath when she read the name Asha, which in the ancient language of Sanskrit meant hope.

  David refused his parents’ offer to pick Courtney up from the airport, knowing he was the one who should be waiting for her at the end of what had been a long journey for both of them. The overwhelming guilt about what happened with Bronwyn still played on his mind. He couldn’t believe he had let himself reach such a low point that he nearly destroyed his marriage.

  David left the hospital an hour earlier than he needed to so he could go past his father-in-law’s house on his way to the airport. It was unusual for Frank not to return his numerous phone calls over the past two days, so David had a strange sense of unease. What if something had happened to him? The closer he was to Frank’s house, the faster he drove, feeling a sudden urgency.

  When he arrived, the lights were off and the curtains were drawn. ‘Frank?’ David said as he knocked heavily on the front door. ‘You there?’

  There was no response. David had Courtney’s key, so he unlocked the door and rushed inside. The house smelled damp, as if a window hadn’t been opened in days. Groceries sat in plastic bags on the kitchen bench.

  David flushed with a pulse of panic and was overcome with thoughts of finding his father-in-law slumped over, dead, a heart attack, a quick exit from the world like his wife.

  ‘Frank!’ he yelled, madly looking through every room of the house. He pushed Frank’s bedroom door open, letting a shaft of light into the darkness, which illuminated a shape on the bed. ‘Frank,’ David cried.

  He flicked the lights on. ‘Are you okay?’ he said, rushing to his bedside. Frank murmured in response and David was overcome with relief and concern.

  ‘What’s happened, Frank?’

  When he didn’t answer, David quickly dialled an ambulance. As he hung up, Frank stirred and opened his glassy eyes.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Frank whispered.

  David smelled liquor on his breath. ‘Have you been drinking?’ David asked, but Frank wasn’t listening, his mind was somewhere else.

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Frank mumbled again. ‘He’s sick because of me. For all my lies. I knew they would catch up with me.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Matthew, my grandson. My boy,’ he said, crying. ‘It should be me, not him. I should be punished.’

  David kneeled down so he was eye level with him and kept his voice calm and reassuring. ‘Frank, it’s no one’s fault that he’s sick. I’ve woken up every morning wishing it were me, not him. This isn’t easy for any of us.’

  Frank gazed at David with an expression of resignation. His eyelids looked heavy and sagging, his eyebrows creased in a frown of deep sadness. His confused ramblings and drawn face made David suddenly question whether Frank wasn’t drunk but had suffered a stroke.

  David examined his face but saw no obvious signs of a stroke. ‘Frank, can you lift both your arms? Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I should have told Courtney,’ Frank mumbled, ignoring David’s questions. ‘Her whole life I tried to but I never could. If I were a match, then she wouldn’t have gone. If I could have saved my grandson – but I couldn’t.’

  David had never seen his father-in-law like this, reduced to tears and incoherent mumbling. ‘You wouldn’t have done a thing like I did,’ Frank whispered, staring numbly at the dust falling through a blade of light.

  ‘Frank, what are you talking about?’

  ‘I should have told her now, but damn it,’ he banged his fist hard against the bedside table, startling David, ‘I can’t remember. I can’t goddamn remember. I should have gone there, not my daughter. I should have been able to find her myself but I can’t even remember where she lived.’

  Frank put his palms over his eyes and then drew them down his face. David stared at his father-in-law, completely perplexed. ‘Find who, Frank?’

  Frank lowered his eyes and sighed. ‘Her mother.’

  Frank heard the sirens wailing down his street and suddenly there were two paramedics in his room. The next thing he remembered was lying in the back of an ambulance while they put a needle in his hand and machines beeped all around him. He could feel each bump on the road as the bed lifted up and down with them.

  He closed his eyes and let a memory take hold.

  They were going for a picnic in his rundown car. The windows had jammed open, so the wind blew into the car lifting the blonde strands of her hair that were wrapped in a watercolour-print scarf. With every bump on the dirt road, the seats lifted slightly in the air. ‘So, this is how you travel in the countryside,’ he laughed, reaching for her hand. ‘I feel like the next pot-hole could send us flying out of the car.’

  She smiled faintly but kept her eyes fixed beyond the car at the moving trees. She seemed pensive, more subdued, and Frank wished he could read her better. She gave so little away.

  They stopped to picnic in a secluded spot beside a lake, where tall mountain ash trees rose high into the sky. The spring air was warm as it moved through the leaves, carrying the scent of daffodils.

  ‘The azaleas and camellias are in full bloom.’ She smiled as she ran her hand over a blaze of hot-pink flowers. She picked a handful and then took off her scarf, using it to tie them into a bouquet.

  He laid a towel down on the embankment and spread out the ciabatta bread, wine, grapes and cheese. He poured her a glass of shiraz but she ignored it. Instead she stood up and wandered towards a large eucalyptus tree. She ran her fingers down its white bark. The sun caught on her face through the branches, illuminating her porcelain skin and catching on her high cheekbones. He was taken again by her beauty. The wheat shades of her straight blonde hair, the pool blues of her eyes, the sharpness of her nose. He’d never seen a woman so beautiful and he couldn’t quite believe that she was his.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he said as he picked up his camera. ‘Smile,’ he said as he raised it up to his eyes and snapped. She stood easily, her hands resting by her waist, the soft wind lifting the edges of her hair. She came to sit back down on the towel and Frank kissed her cheek, thinking how lucky he was to have met her that day in the vineyards.

  She picked at the grapes. ‘There’s something I want you to have,’ Frank said, pulling out the small silk bag and handing it to her. Intrigued, she took it from him. ‘It’s something I found at the bottom of the ocean. It’s perfectly formed. No two are ever alike. Just like I know there’s no one else in this world like you.’

  She held the necklace in her hand
, running her finger over the pearl’s smooth surface. She seemed transfixed. She touched it the way he often saw her reach for grapes, softly, delicately as if it needed to be nurtured. ‘It’s perfect,’ she smiled.

  He put it around her neck and tied the leather string. She rested her palm over it and closed her eyes for a moment as if lost in thought. ‘Pearl is the birthstone for June,’ she said when she opened her eyes again.

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘That’s my due date,’ she said, more to herself than him.

  Frank looked at her, confused.

  ‘Frank,’ she said softly. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  56

  DAVID was uncharacteristically nervous as he stood at the airport arrivals gate and he wondered if it was from the shock of how he had found Frank or whether it was the thought of seeing his wife after a week in which so much had happened. David was sure it was a mix of the two: Frank’s solemn state as he made an incoherent, guilt-ridden confession combined with David’s own guilt at nearly betraying his wife. He’d left Frank in the care of the ambulance crew, and he dreaded telling Courtney that both her father and son were now in the same hospital. Wasn’t it enough that they had Matthew to worry about?

  It had only been ten days since he saw Courtney last but it felt like their lives had shifted irreversibly. Looking around the airport arrivals hall at people waiting for their loved ones with flowers and balloons, David felt like a university student again, struck with an anxious longing like hunger that only seeing her could satiate. He walked over to the airport gift store and purchased a single red rose.

  Passengers started to come through. David stood closer to the gate, his hands trembling ever so slightly as he held the rose to his chest. It was her hair he saw first: auburn, streaked with copper, buoyant and thick, and then her sea-blue eyes locking on his as she turned to see him. He noticed she looked tired, thinner. They both smiled warmly and, for the first time since the diagnosis, David felt a grain of happiness.

  She stepped away from her suitcase and David kissed her softly on the lips and then took her in his arms, holding her tight. He breathed in her scent: vanilla and coffee. They could have been any other husband and wife, reunited after a brief holiday.

  ‘I missed you,’ Courtney said, smiling at her husband. ‘And I missed Matthew so much. I missed being here, with our family.’

  ‘It’s good to have you home,’ David said. He handed her the rose.

  ‘Rose,’ she whispered. ‘My real name.’

  David took her suitcase and rested his hand on his wife’s back. He knew without a shadow of doubt that he loved her, as Courtney or as Rose – by any name.

  She ran her hand over the spikes of his bald head, taking in his new appearance.

  ‘I shaved Matthew’s hair,’ David said. ‘So he shaved mine.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He never complains, so it’s hard to know how he’s really feeling. I sometimes think he’s worried he’ll let us down if he’s honest. He’ll be so happy to have you here. He needs you.’

  ‘Has my father been to see him?’

  David tried to hide the unease in his voice. ‘I was going to wait until after you’d seen Matthew to tell you …’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Courtney’s back stiffened.

  David spoke quickly, explaining how he had found Frank, drunk and incoherent, mumbling about how he should have gone to Australia instead of Courtney. ‘He went to hospital an hour ago,’ David finished, ‘just as a precaution. It’s probably just part of the Alzheimer’s.’

  They reached the car and Courtney leaned against it to steady herself. ‘David, it’s not just the Alzheimer’s. My father has hidden a lot from me. He’s not the person I always thought he was. He’s someone else entirely.’

  David put her suitcase in the boot and they got in the car. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Frank is my dad,’ Courtney said softly.

  David peered at her quizzically. ‘I know,’ he said, confused.

  Her eyes were watery. ‘No, I mean, he’s my real dad. David, Frank’s my father, my real, blood father.’

  For the hour-long trip from the airport to the hospital, Courtney told David everything she had discovered in Australia.

  ‘God, Courtney,’ David said, struggling to find the words. ‘I can’t believe what you’re telling me. Frank is your real father?’ His face was white with shock. He seemed barely able to comprehend the revelation. ‘I mean, now that I think about it, you and Frank do have the same mannerisms, the same full smile, the same kind nature and way with people. I had always thought it was the product of nurture, not nature.’

  Courtney shook her head. She looked out the car window as David drove, feeling relieved to be back in the only city she had ever called home. ‘And I have a sister. She’s beautiful. She’s got long, light-brown hair that she wears plaited, and tanned skin. And she’s slender and strong. But I barely had the chance to say anything to her. She ran into the woods after Asha’s confession and I didn’t see her again. With a mother like that,’ she said, pausing, ‘it’s no wonder she seems so lost. I was lucky, you know. My mother, the only mother I’ve ever known, was everything I could have asked for.’

  ‘So, your birth mother had an affair with Frank and he left with you to come here, to Miami?’ David asked, still incredulous. ‘Then, when did he meet Emma?’

  Courtney rubbed her temples. ‘That’s what I don’t know. He has no idea that I’ve discovered the truth. I need to see him. But right now, I just want to be with my son and then I will face my father.’

  When they pulled up to the hospital, Courtney felt her whole body go rigid. Matthew would never know how much she had changed in the days they’d been apart. He would never know that she might have had another name. That she might have grown up with a sister. That she could have spent her life on the vast green plains and rugged landscapes of Australia.

  And if she had, she would never have studied and spent her evenings sprawled on the library lawn at the University of Miami, where she met his father, David. They would not have married and spent years struggling to conceive only to have the most precious child.

  Matthew would never understand the unwavering love she felt for him. But he would know this: that his mother had travelled across the world and left him when he was sick. Maybe he would come to resent her for it. But that was the sacrifice Courtney had made. If there had been a chance, no matter how small, that a blood relative could save her son, she would risk losing his love in return.

  When they got to Matthew’s room, David stayed outside and let Courtney go in alone.

  Matthew was facing the window, away from her, staring out at the clear blue sky. Courtney felt a lump in her throat seeing her son lying on the hospital bed, with a drip attached to his arm, and his small body buried beneath the sheets. He wasn’t wearing his bandana and she was shocked to see his now fully bald head.

  He should have been outside, carefree, fixing his bicycle, playing soccer or finishing his solar system. He should have had colour in his cheeks, more freckles on his nose, dirt on his knees. Not here. Not this pale shade of himself.

  ‘Honey,’ she said softly. He turned to face her and she took in his ashen skin, his sunken, purple-ringed eyes, the slowness in his movements.

  ‘Mommy!’ He smiled.

  She ran towards him and hugged him. ‘I missed you so much, my little man. I’m so happy to be back with you.’

  ‘I missed you too. Did you see kangaroos and koalas in Australia?’

  ‘I saw kangaroos,’ she said, smiling. ‘But no koalas. I didn’t get to see too much.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was looking for someone there.’ His eyes were large and blue as he listened. ‘And I found her and she has eyes just like yours. The colour of the sea in Key West.’

  ‘You always say no one has eyes like mine,’ he said softly.

  She couldn’t understand her sudden impulse to tell him about her b
irth mother, a woman who could have been his grandmother.

  ‘You’re looking at me differently,’ her son said, and she was surprised by the acuteness of his observation.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your eyes look sad,’ he said, looking at her as though he were to blame for her drawn expression.

  ‘I just don’t like to see you unwell. But I know you’ll get better.’

  Matthew sat up and ran his hand over his bald head, then drew it back as if he was still surprised to discover he had no hair. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Asha,’ Courtney said.

  Matthew reached for his soccer ball and spun it around with two hands. ‘Asha,’ he repeated. ‘That’s a weird name. Like ash. After a fire?’

  Courtney thought for a moment. Her mother was like fire, a force of nature that left burned embers and devastation in her wake. The name suited her. But she didn’t tell her son that it also meant hope. Something they desperately needed.

  ‘Yes, like ash,’ Courtney said, ‘like the end of a cigarette.’

  But Matthew had already lost interest as he lifted the ball up and swivelled it on one finger. ‘Why hasn’t Grandpa come to see me?’

  Courtney tried to keep the concern out of her voice. ‘Because he’s been sick too.’

  Matthew looked worried.

  ‘But he’ll be fine,’ Courtney quickly added. ‘Just a bad cold,’ she lied. ‘He’s here in the hospital. I’m going to go see him soon.’

  ‘Can I come too?’ Matthew begged.

  ‘No, honey. There are too many germs that you can catch. You have to stay here until you’re better.’

  Matthew flopped back down on the bed and threw the ball on the floor. It bounced up and hit the edge of his uneaten tray of food. ‘I can’t do anything but lie here. I don’t care if I never get better. I just want to leave this hospital.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Courtney said, sitting beside him and rubbing his forehead, ‘you will get better. And you will leave this hospital. And you will be able to do everything you did before you got sick. You just have to wait.’ She knew she shouldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep, but she was his mother and if she didn’t believe it, how would he?