by Sue Wallman
I push my remaining risotto to one side of my plate; my appetite has definitely gone down since I started taking the vitamins again. “She’s actually quite disorganized, isn’t she, Zach? She’s always losing her glasses,” I say. It suddenly seems important that Karl doesn’t know how good or enthusiastic Ms Ray is.
Zach laughs. “She can hardly work that CD player of hers. Greta, have you seen it? It’s like something you’d see in an old movie.”
“Fruit kebabs next!” sing-songs Everleigh. She collects my plate first. “As you’re our guest, Mae, I won’t insist you finish your meal.”
I don’t understand why she’d bring it to Karl’s attention like that. Nobody else clears up. They leave it all to Everleigh. When I stand up to help, Karl pats the air, meaning for me to stay seated.
I’d rather help than listen to Zach go through his personal best times and scores in every single sport, followed by Ben’s scores, which are naturally lower than his, as Zach is so much bigger. As I look out of the window at the plastic plant, there’s a scream.
Karl is on his feet. “What now, Everleigh?”
“There’s a beetle in the hall.” Everleigh runs into the living room. “Karl, there’s a beetle.” She’s trembling and breathing heavily.
“For heaven’s sake. We’ve worked on this,” snaps Karl. “Ignore the damn beetle.”
Greta and Zach look uncomfortable. The relationship between Everleigh and Karl doesn’t seem so different to the one between my own parents.
“Please,” says Everleigh.
Karl sighs so loudly I can picture his lungs flattening to the width of a wholewheat pancake. “Oh, for God’s sake,” he says. He pushes down on the dining table with his soft white hands as he stands, then strides out of the room towards the trolley. A few seconds later I hear the sound of his polished shoe coming down heavily on the beetle.
TWENTY-FIVE
Some of the weeds have flowered on the rooftop. Their tiny yellow flowers are startling against the mottled grey of the concrete. I tell Noah my idea before he tests me on some equations.
“Risky,” he says, “but genius. Count me in.”
“You can help with the first bit,” I say, “and tell Thet about it when you have the chance, so she doesn’t wonder what’s up when it happens.”
On Saturday afternoon, three hours before the barbecue, I pierce the lid of a plastic tub from our kitchen with a sharp knife and take it in a small backpack to the woodland gardens where Noah’s already waiting.
“I used to love bug collecting when I was little,” says Noah. He kicks over a stone. The ground is teaming with huge ants. I lift up a few with a leaf. The bigger bugs are harder to find. We peer in the undergrowth, and lift up fallen branches. Scuff up the dry leaves. Each time we spot a decent-sized one, it scuttles away from our clumsy scooping method and we don’t have anything to trap it with.
Noah walks further into the wooded area and lies on his stomach.
“Aren’t you worried they’ll climb on to you?” I ask.
“Shush,” he says. “I’m trying to blend in. Get the box ready.”
So I position myself next to him, as if I’m waiting to start a race, and with a quick movement he cups something in his hands, then pushes himself up to a kneeling position.
I lift the lid of the box and he opens his hands into it. Our faces are close, just a couple of inches apart. I’ve never been this close to a patient before. I imagine closing the gap, my lips on his, pushing him back down into the soft earth, lying on top of him so that I fit against his body like a curved jigsaw. I blink away the image.
“Look,” says Noah, pointing.
Two beetles with iridescent armour.
“You want a turn while I hold the box?” he asks. He follows me to one of the big tree trunks and waits next to me as I hover, scanning the ground, super-aware of him next to me. My neck feels sensitive, as if it’s about to get the pins and needles sensation, but I don’t touch it. I stay motionless. I want this moment to stretch.
Coloured lights hang outside the juice bar and in the trees opposite. It’s not quite dark yet, but it still looks pretty. Tonight we’re allowed to stay outside for an hour after the shutters come down. Staff have set up extra tables on the patio with pale blue tablecloths and linen napkins. The smell of the barbecue curls around us as the chefs grill, sauté and flambé the meat and vegetarian alternatives. Two long tables hold platters of salads and artisan breads. A string quartet, brought in from Pattonville, is playing on the temporary stage. Earl is walking round the area with his radio, checking arrangements with the security staff and the grad students.
Five extra cameras have been attached to the lighting stands borrowed from the drama studio. The lighting is soft in an attempt to create a relaxed ambience. I have to be careful not to show the anxiety that’s squirming in my stomach. We staff kids have drinks on the juice-bar patio, and are keeping our distance from the patients there. Greta is wearing a sequinned dress and shoes that remind me of iridescent beetles.
“Interesting outfit choice,” she says to me.
I look down at my short, stretchy Calvin Klein dress and patterned running shoes, chosen so I can move quickly later. There are scratches on my bare legs from kneeling in the woodland garden earlier. “Urban casual,” I say. I saw the term in a magazine.
“We’re as out of town as it’s possible to be,” says Greta. She frowns as Will comes towards us. He’s lost weight and his eyes are sunken.
“Hello, Mae,” he says, ignoring Greta. “Do you know any more about what happened to Austin?”
I shake my head. Does he really think I’d know more than him?
“Austin had a complicated medical history,” butts in Greta. It’s the official line, the explanation that Will must have heard a thousand times.
“I want to go to his funeral, but your dads are being asses.”
Greta’s face tightens. “I’d like to inform you that I’m now a member of staff,” she says. “That sort of language is unacceptable. Our dads are doing pioneering work in the field of holistic medicine and it’s an honour to be treated by them.” She turns away, and I look at Will and mouth, Sorry.
“Nobody knew Austin like me,” says Will. “The staff had him down as aggressive and angry, but he wasn’t. Really. He was just unhappy.”
Is Will right? I wish I could say something useful.
He looks down at the patio. “I should have done more for him. Pushed them to get him proper medication. All they cared about was their bullshit vitamin therapy.”
I want to ask more. I’d particularly like to know if he was taking the same multivitamins as me and how many, but there are cameras and Greta’s still here, even though she has her back to us, sipping her Paradise cocktail.
Will looks up, expecting me to continue the conversation, but I drop my eyes to my elderflower cordial. I want to say I know how precious Austin was to him, and I understand his anger, but I don’t. I daren’t.
“It’s not just me,” mutters Will. “Other patients are starting to ask questions. People are getting angry.” He walks away, shoulders hunched, as a supervisor calls for hush and announces that the barbecue is ready.
At the staff kids’ table the boys discuss a computer game while Greta talks me through proposed changes to her apartment. All her kitchen appliances are being upgraded to the latest models, and she’s having new curtains for the living room. Silk with star shapes woven into it, imported from Thailand. I’m not required to participate, only listen. At one point she grimaces and clutches her upper arm. “Growing pains,” she says.
And then the eating part is over, and we move to the seats that have been set out for us to watch a concert, put on by some of the patients. A grad student is ready to film it, to send each segment back to the appropriate parents to show how well their child is doing and how much the Creek is broadening their horizons.
The floodlights have been switched on. Everyone is ooo-ing. I make sure that I si
t on the end of the back row with Noah and Thet. Greta and Zach gravitate towards the front as usual, where they think they belong.
Thet says, “Good luck, my brave.”
“Abort the mission if anything feels off,” says Noah. “See you on the rooftop tomorrow morning for a debrief.”
The first person comes on to the small stage and everyone claps. We decided I’d leave during the second song, but I’m itching to be on my feet, and walking briskly across the grass to Hibiscus.
As soon as the second song begins my leg muscles tense, and I wait for Noah to indicate when the camera is rotating the other way.
As he tugs on his ear, I stand and walk away, avoiding the sweep of the camera.
I’m almost at the parking lot when a stern-looking grad student steps out from a shadow and says, “Where are you going?”
Zach once told me how little animals can die of fright. I never believed him until now, as my heart simultaneously squeezes and catapults against my ribcage.
“Home,” I say. “I don’t feel well.” I touch my forehead with shaky hands. The shaking’s for real.
“Did you tell a supervisor at the barbecue?”
I shake my head. “I just want to get home,” I say. “My dad’s there,” I add. I feel like Greta, using my dad like that to make the grad student back off.
The grad student nods. He’s inexperienced enough not to know that my dad would be furious that I hadn’t told a supervisor I was leaving.
I run.
Dinner will be over for Mom, Dad and Everleigh in the two separate apartments. If this plan’s going to work, Everleigh has to notice the bugs I’m about to drop into her hallway, and Dad has to be working on his laptop. Greta and Zach have to still be at the concert.
I don’t want to draw attention to myself when I’m supposed to be at the concert, so I tap in the entry code and push open the door at the right moment in the camera’s rotation. The bug box is where I left it. I pull out the leaves and discard them in the trash can, then I go up to the Jesmond floor, pressing flat against the wall on the stairs in two places to avoid being picked up by the cameras while I’m holding the box.
I visualize the plan in my head one last time before I do it: remove the lid, open the door slowly, hold on to the box tightly and fling the bugs into the hallway. If Everleigh sees me, I have a story about how the bugs are for Zach’s spray-paint art project. I feel bad for the bugs, but I can’t think of any other way to do this.
I open the door. I hear the TV. Everleigh’s watching the soap that Mom likes. With an underarm bowling action, I hurl the insects forward, scattering them across the marble floor.
I close the door and run upstairs to our apartment, slowing myself down as I walk through the hallway, and call, “Hi. I’m back,” as I open the door to my room and throw the box on my bed.
“But the concert’s still going,” calls Mom. She’s on the roof terrace with her plants, listening before the shutters come down. Did she see me cross the lawn and notice that I was longer than usual coming up the stairs?
“What’s up?” calls Dad from the study. “Why are you back early?”
“Stomach ache,” I say. I walk to the study doorway and place my hand on my stomach. Yes! He’s on his laptop. “Too much meat. I’ll watch TV until it passes.”
Dad grunts. He believes me because who would give up the treat of being in the grounds after the shutters come down?
Everleigh’s screams bounce through our apartment as I flip through the movie selection. Mom rushes in from the terrace. “Hunter! That’s Everleigh!”
Dad runs for the door, and Mom follows.
I scoot to the study. Don’t think about this. Do it. It takes several agonizing moments to find my way round Dad’s computer, to minimize the document he’s working on – something to do with payments – and to locate what I need: the Detailed Medical Records drive on the network.
Quick. Quick. The network is mind-alteringly slow. Downstairs Everleigh is still screaming; I imagine Dad speaking to her in his deep, calming professional voice.
I click on Detailed Medical Records and … I’m stuck: I need a password. I slump back on Dad’s chair. Defeated. But then a row of xs appear in the box. Dad’s set the password to be saved. I hit enter and I’m in.
Scrambling down the list, I find my name. I double-click it and skim past my date of birth, blood group, percentile chart for height and weight and my vaccination records. I skip to information about illnesses.
I had bronchitis as a baby, gastro-enteritis twice and I’ve had my appendix removed. But I knew all that.
Medication: it says that for most of my life I’ve been on something called HB. That must be an abbreviation, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about HB. My dose was doubled recently and, according to my records, I’ve had very few side effects, though at my last check Dr Jesmond was concerned about something called “breakthrough symptoms”. Was that when I stopped taking the vitamins?
There’s no sound from downstairs. How long have I got before Mom and Dad come back? Minutes? Seconds? My eyes hurt. I fight the urge to lose time by rubbing them.
I flick my eyes up to the top of the document again. Mother: Louelle Ballard. Father: Unknown.
I stare at the screen, hardly able to process what I’ve just read. But then I hear noises outside the apartment, on the stairs. There’s no time to look at anything else. I log out of the network, find the payment document and maximize it. My hands are quick, steady. They only tremble as I step away from the desk, sprint out of the study, and lie on the sofa and say it inside my head: Father: Unknown.
Dr Hunter Ballard isn’t my dad.
TWENTY-SIX
Dad – or rather, the person pretending to be my dad – walks into the living room. I stare at him, which he interprets as me wanting to know what happened downstairs. “It’s OK. Just Everleigh taking fright at some insects.”
How come my father is unknown? If I asked Mom for the truth, would she tell me? There are photos of Dad – Hunter Ballard – with me on the day I was born, so Mom must have been with him then.
I remember how she reacted when I asked about Frank, and her mom. I can’t risk her reacting to this.
“I feel for Everleigh,” says Mom.
If I’d had more time on the laptop I’d have read Mom’s medical notes next. More than ever, I want to understand who she is, where she’s from.
I hold my breath as Dad – no, not Dad, Hunter – goes back into the study. Will he notice I’ve been on his laptop? After a few excruciating moments, I hear him start typing again, and I think I’m in the clear. As I sink against the sofa cushions, I feel nauseous.
I dream that Dr Jesmond is my real father, but that he didn’t want me because he preferred Greta and Zach.
I wake up disoriented for a moment. It’s Sunday. No morning exercise. The basement cafeteria is closed. Most members of staff have the morning off. Patients eat breakfast in Larkspur and staff kids eat in their apartments, which means I’m free until eight a.m.
I pull on my favourite zebra-print sportswear, then I grab one of my calligraphy pens and write a pleasing-looking note to say I’ve gone running, which I leave on the dining table. As if I could be anywhere other than within the grounds of the Creek.
It’s humid outside. Greyness overlays feeble blue sky. Rain’s likely. I run on the track next to the perimeter fence. As I pick up the pace, one thought pounds in my head: Will I ever know who my real dad was?
I stop at the gates. Resting my forehead against the bumpy metal that looks so smooth from a distance, I imagine myself running on that long flat road to Pattonville, and far beyond.
A red car appears on the horizon. The sound of its engine takes longer to reach me. It’s Abigail’s car. She’s the only member of staff who has a button she can press to open the gates without having to wait for security to do it.
I hear the lock click, and I know she’s activated the gates. If I carry on standing here, this side
of the gate will push me back as it opens inwards. It’s thick, metal and strong. But if Abigail wasn’t paying attention and if security staff weren’t watching the monitor that the gate cameras feed into, I could slip out unnoticed. I wonder how far along the road I’d get before the alarm was raised. Two miles? I’d still be alongside fields.
I run on, to the sensory garden where I make sure I’m picked up on camera doing stretches in the drizzle, then I sneak back to the security building, tapping my nails on the rail as I sprint up the ladder.
Noah’s already on the roof, wearing an enormous khaki-coloured rain jacket, and I love how his face brightens when he sees me. He holds his hand up as if my just being there is a minor miracle.
“Thank God you’re OK,” he says. “Sit down and tell me what happened.”
The towel is gritty. The wind must have blown bits all over it. I take a deep breath and say out loud that Hunter isn’t my father. I have a sense of spinning away while still being attached, like a yo-yo.
“Whoa. Seriously? That’s got to be messing with your head,” says Noah. “You’re living with someone pretending to be your father and he’s been giving you some nameless drug for years.” He takes a packet of sugar-free chewing gum from the pocket of his oversized jacket, and hands me a tab. “Want to talk about it?”
I shake my head. “Not yet.” I crunch down on the outer shell of the chewing gum pellet and chew for a moment. “The drug I’m on does have a name. It’s called HB. I didn’t get a chance to see anyone else’s records, but it must be the vitamins.”
“What’s HB?”
“No clue.” I look up at the sky. The drizzle is turning into proper rain.
Noah shakes his arms out of his hoodless jacket and lifts it over his head. “Come under here until the rain stops. There’s clear sky over there. It shouldn’t last long.” He holds up the side of his jacket.
I wish I’d studied myself longer in the mirror before leaving, to check my waterproof mascara and lip gloss were as good as they could be. It’s gloomy and damp-smelling inside the jacket-tent, but cosy. Weirdly intimate. The rain patters down hard on my trainers and ankles, but I don’t care.