The Ties That Bind

by Lexi Landsman

  It filled David’s heart with a happiness he hadn’t felt for so long. Such a simple thing – his son laughing as he played a game with his friend – now felt like a privilege. Something to savour.

  David tried to push away negative thoughts, but he couldn’t escape the reality that this celebration was tinged with sadness because they knew that the chance of Matthew relapsing was still high. A bone-marrow transplant from a matched donor was still his best chance of long-term survival.

  They ate, spoke and laughed that night as if they were any normal family in America, sitting around a dining table enjoying a meal. David took in the happy faces of Frank and his parents, his wife’s radiant smile and the sound of his son’s laughter. He desperately wanted to believe that tonight was the start of Matthew’s return to full health. But David knew now that all it took for your world to crumble was a phone call.

  60

  JADE couldn’t sleep. Instead, she watched the rise and fall of Adam’s bare chest as he slept, the way his head made a groove in the pillow, the shape the moonlight made against the stubble on his cheeks. Sometimes she didn’t believe that he was hers. That they lived by the ocean in Sydney in a place so far from the only home she’d ever known.

  Jade gave up trying to sleep and crept quietly out of the apartment, barefoot, careful not to bang the front door behind her. Adam would be angry if he knew about her late-night walks on Bondi Beach. He didn’t think it was safe to walk around on her own along the sand at night, but Jade wasn’t afraid of anything, least of all the night.

  She sat on the grassy hill on the northern end of the beach and watched the three-quarter moon catch on the sea, like light on broken glass. It was high tide and the waves lapped gently over the edges of the rock pool. She looked up at the stars blinking like lanterns and thought about the freedom she felt now that she was no longer governed by her mother’s voice.

  Feelings of guilt still gnawed at her for leaving her father and grandmother. But she couldn’t stay and be like her mother – tied to the land. And yet, she’d left just like her mother. Except Jade’s departure wasn’t transient. She wasn’t searching for a balm to soothe a lifetime of regret. She was making her own choices on her own terms.

  Jade walked onto the sand and dipped her toes into the icy edge of the water. The lights of the old Bondi Pavilion reflected and glistened on the wet sand. She could see a couple in the distance lying underneath the lifeguard watchtower and a group of people huddled in a circle beyond them. But from where she stood, it was quiet save for the sound of the waves lapping, the movement of water. She took in the familiarity of solitude, the comfort of silence and thought of her life now.

  She still wasn’t used to the smell of salt in the air or the sound of the waves breaking on the shore. The closeness of everything, the tight spaces, and the constant traffic had taken some adjusting to. There was a faster pace in the city. It had a rhythm that was new to her, a sense of motion, of change. It was so unlike the slowness of her days in the olive groves where only the shifting shadows cast by the sun gave any indication of time. There she could have gone a whole day without seeing another soul, but here people swarmed – mothers and children, tourists, couples, surfers and business people – all drawn by the gravitational pull of the sea.

  Jade had felt uneasy at first that she didn’t have a patch of grass to call her own, a place to grow vegetables and herbs. But Adam told her that the beach was her backyard. And when Jade first saw the long stretch of white sand and the turquoise ocean, she felt herself exhale and she knew she could find her space there. She loved the way the sand felt beneath her toes, the way she could sit for hours on the rocks simply watching the movement of the waves, its saline lips falling back and forward against the shore.

  There was an alluring energy about Bondi; it was always bustling with people exercising or strolling with prams and their dogs, no matter the season. The scent of coconut oil and seaweed often permeated the air, and surfers were in the ocean from dawn to dusk.

  Jade savoured her early mornings with Adam before he went to work at the local fire station, their walks from the beachfront around the coastline to Bronte beach and buying fresh vegetables every Saturday at the farmers’ markets.

  It might not have felt like home yet to Jade, but there was something enchanting about their tiny studio apartment – the rattling of the wooden panes, the smell of Adam filling the room when she woke, the sounds of children laughing in the street below, the comfort of the blooms she left in a vase on the windowsill. The sense that this was their place. That he was her place. Her home. And that was all she needed.

  Jade lay back in bed with Adam, who was still sleeping. He mumbled and rolled over, tucking her body against his as if she were a pillow. Beneath his warm skin, she finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  When she woke, Adam was dressed and looking at her curiously. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, holding an envelope in his hand. She squinted at first, adjusting her eyes to the sunlight. She pulled the sheets above her bare breasts.

  ‘My mother left it on my satchel the night I fell. She must have known I would never speak to her again so I assumed it was some sort of apology,’ Jade said. ‘But I haven’t looked at it.’

  ‘It didn’t have a name on the envelope, so I opened it,’ Adam admitted, his face as white as the bedsheets. ‘So, you haven’t read it since we left?’

  Jade shook her head, studying his expression and wondering what it could contain to make him look so filled with worry. He handed it to her and she held it between her fingers, not wanting to read the words it enclosed.

  ‘Adam, I don’t care what my mother has to say. She’s had her chances. It’s too late for her apologies. I should have thrown it out.’

  He took a breath and softened his tone. ‘It’s not from your mother,’ he said. ‘It’s from your sister to your mother.’

  Jade felt her pulse quicken. She was struck with images from that night of the woman she now knew was her sister. The expression of deflation and desperation melded together, visible in her crimson cheeks, her drawn face and glassy eyes. Jade pulled out the paper to reveal a single hand-written paragraph.

  My son is dying from leukaemia. I know that I mean nothing to you or you wouldn’t have given me up so easily. But my child means everything to me. If there is only one thing I ask you in my whole life, it’s this: please have yourself and Jade tested to see if you could be a stem-cell match.

  Jade’s fingers trembled so much she could barely keep the letter still in her hands. There was money in the envelope, along with contact details for Courtney and for the hospital. Jade thought back to Courtney’s sadness and she knew now that it wasn’t only caused by their mother’s confession. It was the raw pain she was already in the grips of. She looked up at Adam.

  ‘So, that was why she was in Victoria. She wasn’t just looking for my mother. She was there to save her son all along.’ Jade held the paper up. How did you even quantify that kind of heartache? ‘It’s been five weeks, Adam. What if I’ve read this too late? What if my mother has disappeared again and hasn’t even contacted her?’

  He shrugged, and she read the words again. ‘Her son has cancer,’ she said aloud with disbelief. Jade knew that second chances were hard to come by. Here Courtney was offering her mother an olive branch. And Jade felt like even though it wasn’t hers to take, she could make up for her mother’s mistakes.

  Jade cast her mind back to a moment that night when her eyes had met with Courtney’s, and in them Jade had imagined an alternate existence where their mother had made different choices. They would have grown up together, rode bikes around the mountain, braided each other’s hair, baked cookies and made up their own secret language. They would have done the things sisters do, loving and hating each other in equal measure. In those seconds looking into her sister’s eyes, they seemed to have shared the knowledge of the invisible ties between them. They might have been severed but they weren’t broken. Those ties w
ere binding.

  Jade turned to Adam with conviction. ‘I have to go.’

  61

  IT WAS the sound of choking that woke David. It was pitch black outside. He sat upright and listened again to be sure he hadn’t imagined it. Courtney was fast asleep. He heard it again and raced to Matthew’s room, his heart pounding.

  He found Matthew hunched over the edge of his bed, vomiting. ‘It’s okay, Matty,’ David said, panicked. He felt his son’s head; it was boiling. David went to the bathroom and ran the tap over a washcloth, then squeezed out the water. He patted Matthew’s head with the damp cloth as his son continued to vomit onto the floor.

  The retching seemed relentless and, in the brief moment before the next spasm shook his whole body forward, Matthew looked up at his father. His face was ghostly white and his eyes full of pain. David saw the question on his face: Why can’t you make it stop?

  ‘Matty, remember the doctor told you how to measure your pain out of ten. Is this a five?’

  Matthew just looked at him and didn’t move. David wiped the vomit from his son’s mouth. ‘Is it a seven?’

  Still Matthew did nothing. ‘A nine?’

  Matthew nodded, limply. He vomited again.

  ‘Courtney!’ David yelled, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.

  Courtney was there in a second. She glanced at Matthew and the mess on the floor and instantly flew into action. ‘I’ll get the car ready,’ she said.

  She kissed Matthew’s head. ‘You’ll be fine, my baby,’ her words painfully, deceitfully calm as she raced out the door.

  ‘Buddy,’ David said, ‘we’re going to take you to the hospital so they can give you medicine to make you feel better.’

  ‘I can’t get in the car, Daddy,’ Matthew whimpered.

  ‘I’ll carry you,’ he said as he lifted Matthew from the bed. ‘Mom will drive fast.’

  He was too weak to protest. David grabbed a bucket and a gown for Matthew and picked him up. As he carried him delicately to the car, his son’s light body began to tremble in his arms.

  The trip to the hospital took an eternity. As Courtney drove frantically and called the hospital, David sat on the back seat with Matthew, patting his head with a wet towel and feeling every bump, turn and movement that made his son wince in agony.

  Courtney came to a screeching stop at the Emergency department entrance and David rushed out, carrying his son’s delicate body in his arms. The patients in the waiting area looked up at them as Courtney ran ahead and banged on the glass partitions of the reception desk. In an instant, nurses appeared and took Matthew. David and Courtney were pushed aside and left to stand there numbly. David felt removed from himself, like he was watching everything from the side. He overheard fragments as the nurses and doctors spoke: intractable vomiting, low blood pressure, tachycardia, signs of septic shock, febrile neutropaenia.

  Courtney reached for David’s hand and he felt her palm tremble, but when she drew it back he realised he was the one shaking.

  Matthew’s skin was a pinkish colour and his hands were warm. Purple rings framed his eyes. His lips were chapped and his scalp was coated in a film of sweat.

  ‘He’s going to be transferred to intensive care,’ one of the nurses informed them. ‘After things are stabilised and we’ve done our initial investigations, we’ll come and get you.’

  The heavy metal doors shut behind them, leaving David and Courtney standing helplessly together, listening to the haunting sounds of the wheels on the sterile floors, the beeping monitors and raised voices echoing through the corridor, through David’s bones, through his veins and settling in his heart.

  62

  WAITING was torture. Courtney and David stared blankly at the television in the waiting room. Finally the intensive care physician found them and took them to the family discussion room. Courtney squeezed David’s hand tight.

  ‘I can see it’s been a long night,’ she said sympathetically, gesturing for them to sit down. ‘I’m glad you brought Matthew straight to emergency. Your son has a serious condition called febrile neutropaenia. Basically that means the chemotherapy has temporarily killed off some of his good cells, including immune cells called neutrophils, and therefore his immune system is too weak to fight what would normally be a very simple infection.’

  It was a strange irony: the treatment to save Matthew’s life killed his body’s only defence system for survival.

  ‘As a result of all of this he is in septic shock, a serious condition that occurs when widespread infection in the blood leads to dangerously low blood pressure, the heart having to work harder and, sometimes, the organs failing.’ The physician’s tone was firm but warm. ‘We will continue to give him plenty of fluids and strong broad-spectrum IV antibiotics to combat the infection. It can be a life-threatening condition and we were very concerned about Matthew at one point. But he has shown some promising improvement even in this short time.’

  ‘So, he’ll be fine, right?’ Courtney said, hiding the question she really wanted to ask.

  The doctor scanned Courtney’s face. She was obviously used to dealing with frazzled family members in emergency situations. ‘He’s in a critical state, however, I’ve seen patients like him make a full recovery. It all depends on his response to the antibiotics. He’s getting the best treatment we can give him and he’s in the best place he can be.’

  ‘But I don’t understand why this is happening. He’s in remission,’ Courtney said.

  ‘Unfortunately his body is so weakened from the treatment that he has nothing left to fight the infection. I’ve spoken to his oncologist and Doctor Anderson has informed me that you are still waiting to find a stem-cell donor for Matthew. So, right now, you just need to focus on him fighting this infection. And if he does,’ she said, choosing her words carefully, ‘then you can only hope a match will be found in time.’

  David let go of Courtney’s hand and anxiously lifted the collar of his shirt as if his body were burning up.

  ‘And if he doesn’t beat this infection, how much time does he –’ David couldn’t finish his sentence. Saying it aloud would make the words real.

  ‘Let’s focus on the positives,’ the doctor said. ‘Matthew is young and, so far, there has been a small improvement in his condition since he was admitted and he is having the best treatment possible. In these kinds of cases, there are no percentages. I can’t give you numbers; I can’t give you time frames. We have to be guided by what we can see and go a day at a time.’

  David and Courtney said little to each other after the intensive care physician left the room. They were afraid of verbalising the implication that Matthew could die from the infection. The silence between them was unnerving. It crept up constantly, rearing its dark head, pushing thoughts into her mind. She didn’t like that she could hear it, that silence now had a sound. It hissed at her like a snake ready to fire its venom. But most of all, she hated that silence spoke the truth. It left too many spaces to reveal the things they were afraid to say.

  63

  MATTHEW was a fighter. He recovered from the infection and moved back to children’s cancer and blood disorders centre. They wheeled his bed through and positioned him in a room next door to Ella, a sweet girl of five who had just started treatment for acute myeloid leukaemia.

  Matthew was back in the ward just in time to celebrate his eleventh birthday. Courtney was in a good mood that morning, the first in longer than she could remember, because she was excited to give Matthew his presents. She walked into his room, carrying balloons and cards, while David put his large present against the windowsill. ‘Happy birthday, my little man,’ she said, handing him the balloons and kissing his forehead.

  ‘The nurses gave me balloons too,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘Do you want to sit up a bit, buddy?’ David asked. Matthew nodded and his father raised the back of the hospital bed and propped up some cushions.

  ‘We hear you’re going to have an extra special birthday because s
ome actors are coming to give a performance at lunch,’ Frank said. ‘And Granny Mandy and Grandpa Barry are coming past soon. Even Dean is allowed to visit today.’

  Remarkably, Frank was functioning at his best – it was as if being a carer instead of the patient had bolstered his health. Or maybe it was the freedom that came with finally unburdening himself from the secrets of his past.

  ‘Really, Dean’s coming? That’s the best ever.’

  ‘It sure is,’ Courtney said, and smiled. ‘And you know what else? When he comes, you can show him your present.’

  ‘What present?’

  ‘That one there,’ David said, pointing. ‘Can I help you into the chair and you can open it?’

  Matthew’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes please.’ David moved a chair by the window and lifted Matthew onto it, while Courtney dragged his IV pole and put a blanket over him. She’d wrapped the gift in astronaut paper. ‘Well, are you going to open it?’

  Matthew looked at the tall shape in front of him and smiled. ‘Thanks, Mom.’ He struggled to sit upright and then pulled at the wrapping paper. Every movement seemed to exhaust him. He barely had any strength to rip the paper. His face was ghostly pale. His eyes looked sunken, framed by dark shadows. She still couldn’t get used to the tube in his nose that was taped to his cheek, or his perfectly white scalp.

  ‘A telescope!’ he said, running his hand over the shiny brass surface. ‘I’ve always wanted one.’

  David sat the telescope down so it faced out the hospital window and pointed up to the early-morning sky. He pulled Matthew’s chair forward, adjusting the scope so it reached his eye level.