The Ties That Bind

by Lexi Landsman

  58

  DAVID knew that if he didn’t take a break from his practice, it would fall apart. He’d started to go in for a few hours at a time to see patients needing urgent attention, but his mind was occupied with thoughts of his son and his usual sharp eye had weakened. He’d begun to miss things he should have seen and his patients were suffering for it. They could sense it in the way he tapped his desk softly with a pen when they listed their symptoms and in the way he kept his eyes lowered, not meeting their own.

  So, he’d hired a locum, who reminded him of his younger self when he was cocky and driven to be the best at any cost.

  David had also decided to defer his university position indefinitely. He could have pushed himself to continue the lectures – it was only three hours a week plus marking the end-of-semester exam – but he couldn’t stomach it.

  He’d had an email from Bronwyn to say she’d heard the news and wished his son well. It was clipped and short and David was grateful she hadn’t mentioned anything about that night; proof of it in writing could easily end his marriage and his career. He thought back to how desperately he had wanted to let go for the night, to be impulsive and forget about the sadness that had consumed his life. To pretend to be a man in charge of his own destiny who could run away from responsibility at any time. But he was so grateful he found the sense in his drunken state to pull away. He didn’t think he would ever have been able to forgive himself had he followed through. He’d made up his mind that he would never tell Courtney about that night. It wouldn’t do their relationship any good and it would be hard for her to believe that he had walked away before it went any further.

  As David wiped the sweat off the back of Matthew’s neck, he wondered if guilt was cumulative, if it built up and up until it weighed you down completely. Right now, David was riddled with it, thinking about what had happened with Bronwyn, combined with the fact that there was nothing he could do to help his son.

  Matthew vomited into a bucket, crying silently, his small body shivering through nausea.

  ‘Daddy,’ Matthew whimpered, his lip trembled. ‘Please make it stop. I don’t want to be sick anymore.’

  David would do anything to be the one in pain. ‘Buddy, you’re doing so well. You don’t have long to go in this cycle.’

  In the two weeks since Courtney had returned from Australia, Matthew had started another cycle of chemotherapy and his condition had rapidly declined. He’d had a blood transfusion and his central line had blocked. He’d developed painful ulcers in his mouth. His face had swollen and there was a rash on his neck. It seemed that as soon as he overcame one side effect, another would appear. His stoicism had faded and now he begged them to stop giving him the drugs that made him so violently ill. It was impossibly hard to explain to a child that to get better, he first had to get worse.

  Courtney felt like throwing her phone out the window on the eighth floor of the damn hospital.

  With the rapid decline in Matthew’s health, she had been madly trying to get hold of Asha in Australia, to no avail. She didn’t even know if her birth mother and half-sister had been tested. And as the days went on, hope was beginning to fade, so, in desperation, Courtney repeatedly called the bone marrow and stem cell registry to make sure they hadn’t forgotten that her son was waiting for his second chance at life.

  The staff at the registry knew her voice by now and they softened even though she was fierce and impatient. Unfortunately, a match still hasn’t been found. Over and over again, the same answer no matter how she framed the question. So, Courtney clung to the remarkable cases of matches found in the eleventh hour, like the founder of donor registry Gift of Life, a then twenty-two-year-old college graduate called Jay, who had the most miraculous story of them all. He was diagnosed with leukaemia and told that his only hope of a cure was a bone-marrow transplant. So Jay and his family and friends set out on an international search to find him a matching donor and, in the process, enrolled tens of thousands of people onto the worldwide registry. They organised 250 drives, where they tested 60,000 potential donors. After an exhaustive four-year search, a final drive initiated by a young man whose best friend had found a match through the campaign, held one more for Jay in the hopes of returning the gift.

  The very last person tested at that last drive turned out to be his perfect match. He received the transplant shortly after and has been in remission for twenty years.

  Courtney held onto stories like Jay’s, telling herself that Matthew would have a miracle donor story that he would one day tell his children.

  Courtney’s cell battery went dead and she realised she’d been on the phone for close to three hours straight. She walked out of the hospital and didn’t stop when she reached her car. She continued until she came to a park with tall palm trees. She sat on a park bench and wept, not bothered by who might be watching.

  She couldn’t believe she still hadn’t heard from Asha. She had tried to give her birth mother the benefit of the doubt, and left it a week after she got back to Miami before she called her.

  A man had answered. His voice sounded tender, bruised, and she knew immediately that he was the man who thought he was her father, the man who had spent his life feeling guilty that he hadn’t been able to protect his child. She couldn’t bear to speak to him. She wondered how Asha could have let him suffer because of her lie for so long, and if she would ever tell him the truth.

  When Courtney called a second time, an old woman had answered.

  ‘I’m looking for Asha,’ Courtney had said.

  ‘Asha,’ the old woman repeated, with a European accent. ‘She’s in the olive groves. Who’s calling?’

  She left her details as ‘Courtney from Miami’ and a message to return her call urgently. But she had heard nothing since. Asha knew of Courtney’s desperation for her son and yet she still she couldn’t so much as pick up the phone to call her. For once in her birth mother’s life, she had the chance to change someone else’s life for the better, but she seemed wholly incapable of doing any good.

  Courtney wiped her face with a tissue and dusted fallen frangipanis from her dress. And then she closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle.

  59

  COURTNEY could taste the last bitter dregs of hope. A month had now passed since she left Australia, and there was still no word from Asha. She had come into Courtney’s life abruptly and although their encounter had been brief, it had left deep scars.

  More and more Courtney found herself thinking of the only mother she had ever known. Would it have been easier to cope with everything if Emma was still alive? She thought of her mother’s red-streaked hair, her 1980s-style round glasses. When she spoke, she always looked you in the eye, she always listened. She somehow always knew the right words to soothe Courtney in any situation.

  Courtney hoped she was the kind of mother to Matthew that Emma had been to her.

  Matthew’s second course of induction chemotherapy had finally come to an end. His neutrophil count had gone up, so he had been allowed to go home while they waited for the results of his bone-marrow aspiration to see if he had gone into remission. Courtney was pleased to have her boy back in their house, where she hoped he would feel more at ease. It was a relief to have him out of the sterile smell of the hospital walls, and off the plastic mattress that woke him every time he rolled over. But Matthew hadn’t run into their house like he had all his life. He had walked slowly, measured, close to the walls as if he might fall. He was a shadow of his former self, thin and fragile, quiet and contemplative. His once buoyant smile was sunken, he had rings around his eyes and the beautiful sound of his laughter seemed now like a distant memory.

  Matthew stared out his bedroom window often, and Courtney wondered if he was thinking about how it seemed like a lifetime had passed since he was the carefree boy playing soccer outdoors. He lay in bed ignoring the games and books, balloons and gifts friends had bought to keep him occupied.

  Courtney felt relieved that the chemo w
as done and that the endless month finally was over, but the dread of waiting for his results pressed on her mind. No matter how hard she tried to push it down, the fear would eventually rise to the surface.

  When the phone rang, Courtney was in Matthew’s room hanging up the red star he had finished at the hospital. Matthew was watching from the bed and guiding her to its ‘precise location’ on the mini galaxy he’d created on his ceiling. Courtney raced out of his room and stood in the doorway to her bedroom as David answered the phone.

  She knew immediately, from the way his face dropped, that this call carried bad news.

  Then, with no words, he passed the phone to her.

  Courtney held the receiver in her hand for a moment before she lifted it to her ear. She had a tingly feeling in her body, a shot of panic that knocked the breath out of her.

  ‘Hello?’ she said. She could hear static on the line and the caller take a breath. The silence that followed spoke volumes. Courtney knew immediately she’d been foolish to hope for good news.

  ‘Rose?’ the caller said, and the sound of her voice cut through Courtney’s chest as she realised who was on the line.

  ‘It’s Courtney,’ she said sharply.

  There was silence on the line again and Courtney felt a surge of anger. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks,’ she snapped, her tone biting. ‘You could have called me back sooner –’

  ‘Courtney,’ Asha said, cutting her off. ‘I’m not a match.’ She said it quickly as if she were trying to get it out of her system.

  Courtney felt her chest tighten.

  ‘I was tested straight after you left,’ Asha said, her voice delicate.

  ‘And you’ve waited all this time to tell me? Do you know what sort of agony we’ve had to endure watching our son suffer?’ Courtney wanted to slam down the phone and tell Asha never to contact her again.

  ‘I’ve waited because I’ve been trying to find Jade.’

  ‘Jade,’ Courtney repeated. ‘Was she tested?’

  ‘No,’ Asha said. ‘She had a fall that night you were here. I didn’t think she would speak to me again after everything that was said so I put your letter on her bag, hoping she’d read it …’ She paused and didn’t continue. Her voice was cracked and fragile. ‘She left that night. She’s gone. I’ve been searching for her but she’s vanished. She doesn’t want us to find her.’

  Courtney’s hands were trembling. Before this phone call, a part of her had still retained hope that maybe her blood family would be the cure they needed. And now that hope was gone. There was silence on the line until finally Asha spoke.

  ‘Just like me, Jade never thought she could leave, but I think she knew that if she stayed, she would turn into me. I let you go and then I left her to find you. And now I’ve found you, and she’s gone. I’ve lost you both again.’

  Courtney didn’t know what to say.

  Asha began to cry softly. ‘I know I’ve only made bad decisions in my life. If I could have my time again, I would make better choices. Regret is an unbearable shadow; it follows you everywhere and haunts you. Every time I went in search of you, I felt its presence. I feel it now as I hear the disappointment in your voice. Courtney, I know you want to hate me and I don’t blame you if you do, but please know that the only reason I didn’t call you straight after I got the results is because I really wanted to make things right. I guess I hoped I’d find Jade and have her tested before I came to you. I didn’t want to ring you only with bad news. I know I haven’t been a good mother, or any at all, but I couldn’t call you without knowing first if I could save you from the pain.’

  The phone was damp in Courtney’s palm.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Courtney. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I know you don’t want me in your life. But I hope one day you will. I wish I could have been the mother to you that I can tell you are to your son. How is he?’

  ‘He’s deteriorating. The stem-cell transplant was his best chance.’

  ‘I wish I could see him,’ Asha said gently. ‘I wish I could make up for the past thirty-six years.’

  Courtney tried to keep the hurt out of her voice and did her best to sound strong. ‘Do you have any idea where Jade might have gone?’

  ‘Far away from me, far away from the hurt I’ve caused.’

  ‘So, that’s it, then,’ Courtney said deflated, her voice vacant of emotion. ‘There’s no hope for my son.’

  ‘Hope is a funny thing, Courtney. I spent my life hoping I would find you. And when I finally stopped searching, you found me. Hold onto hope, because it has a strange way of revealing itself.’

  ‘I have to go,’ Courtney said, not knowing if she could keep her voice steady for a moment longer.

  ‘I’ll keep searching for her, Courtney,’ Asha said, but Courtney merely muttered a goodbye and ended the call.

  She looked up to see David standing at the door. He’d obviously heard everything and in his eyes, she saw a look of resignation. A look that told her she was foolish to believe that the threads of hope were anything more than a spider’s web.

  It was astounding how a phone call could change your life. David thought back to the very first one that had started this whole nightmare. He’d been giving a lecture to his students when he looked down at his blinking phone. Since then, they had spent almost every waking hour at the hospital. Their lives had veered off course. They’d gone from being the perfect family with successful careers, a happy marriage and a beautiful child, with their only worries being about where their next holiday would be, to worrying about whether their son would even live to have another holiday.

  Then this afternoon, the phone call from Courtney’s birth mother had left them completely shattered. They both had to accept that the only remaining chance their son had at life – an unrelated donor match – would also come in the form of a phone call.

  So, when the phone rang only two hours after Courtney hung up on Asha, David went to it numbly. It only ever seemed to bring bad news.

  ‘Hello,’ David said blankly.

  ‘Hi, David. It’s Doctor Anderson. I hope I’ve got you at a good time.’

  Good time. The two words now seemed like an oxymoron. ‘Hi, Doctor Anderson,’ David said. At the sound of the doctor’s name, Courtney stood and walked towards him.

  ‘The results of the bone-marrow biopsy have come back.’

  David braced himself for more bad news.

  ‘Matthew has less than five per cent blast cells. He’s gone into remission.’

  For the first time since the diagnosis, a phone call carried good news. Even the doctor sounded elated. After he’d hung up, Courtney and David hugged each other tightly. ‘I can’t believe it,’ Courtney whispered. He wiped her hair back and kissed her forehead. They went upstairs together to tell their son.

  ‘Hey, buddy,’ David said, knowing that Matthew needed some positive news. ‘Doctor Anderson called, and …’ David paused to make a bigger deal of the news so Matthew would recognise the gravity of it. ‘Your blood factory is better. You’re in remission.’

  Matthew smiled so subtly it looked more like a twitch.

  Courtney sat next to him and rubbed his back. ‘This is good news, honey. It’s great news. You’ve been so brave. You should be proud of yourself. The worst is over.’

  David knew that the worst could still lie ahead, but this was a victory and they had to focus on that. Staying positive was a huge part of recovery and they wanted to foster it as much as possible. David and Courtney felt hopeful that maybe, just maybe the doctors were wrong and this would truly be the end of their nightmare.

  ‘You say that,’ Matthew said, ‘but what happens now?’

  ‘It means you go into the next phase of your treatment. There will still be hospital visits but they won’t be as long and hopefully you will just go to the hospital as an out patient, which means you go for the treatment in the morning and then come home.’

  Matthew seemed anxious. ‘So, when will I
be able to practise soccer again?’

  David knew that it wasn’t just about the sport for him anymore. It was about his future. He’d always envisioned becoming a professional soccer player. Idealistic or not, he was a ten-year-old boy and that’s how he had come to define his existence.

  ‘You know what, buddy, as soon as you feel like you have the strength, you and I will get back in the garden and start practising.’

  Matthew tilted his bald head and smiled. ‘But I thought the doctors said I couldn’t play sport yet.’

  David looked at Courtney, waiting for her to shut him down, but instead she smiled too. ‘Well, what the doctors don’t know can’t hurt,’ David said, winking.

  ‘Once I grow my hair back, will I be able to practise with my old team?’

  ‘Of course, sweetie,’ Courtney said, hoping that by then enough time would have passed to restore his health.

  ‘Okay, Dad.’ Matthew smiled. ‘Tomorrow we start.’

  It was true that the doctors didn’t want him doing physical activity yet, but in David’s mind Matthew’s mental health was just as important in his recovery as his physical health. And if soccer made him happy, then David would do everything to get him well enough to play.

  ‘Dad,’ Matthew said, ‘do you think Dean could come over now?’

  ‘Of course he can. You can call him yourself and tell him your good news. Invite him for dinner. We’re going to celebrate with your grandparents.’

  Matthew smiled and Courtney kissed his forehead.

  In his son’s room, under his homemade galaxy, David had the sense that everything would be okay. Their lives would finally return to normal.

  They sat around the table that night with David’s parents, Frank, and Dean, and toasted to Matthew’s health. Matthew sat at the head of the table and had a smile on his face for the first time since he had come home from the hospital. Dean and Matthew disappeared into the playroom, and the adults could hear their laughter as they played his new FIFA game on the PlayStation.