All the Ways to Here

by Emily O'Beirne

  “Oh, right,” Rosie mutters.

  “Awesome!” Nona does a little fist pump. “Zero budget. This is getting easier all the time.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kayah says. “I think we’d be faced with the same problems if we made a book: how would we get the media to cover it?”

  “Chain ourselves to the centre?” Nona suggests.

  “That would definitely get their attention,” Finn says. “But possibly on the extreme side.”

  “Just a touch,” Andy agrees.

  Rosie flops her head down on her arms. “This is hard!”

  “No, it’s not,” Kayah says. “We just have to come up with something that demands attention.”

  “Like she said,” Nona mutters, “hard.” She shuts her eyes again.

  CHAPTER 15

  Willa

  It’s Riley who finds Nan.

  One minute she’s screeching about getting a form signed for a school excursion, and the next she’s just screeching. It’s shrill and terrified enough for Willa to instantly know that it’s not just the usual intruding spider or rodent melodrama.

  She bolts down the stairs, her socks slipping against the wooden floor. Riley’s in the yard, standing over Nan, screaming.

  Nan’s sprawled sideways on the patch of concrete. There’s no movement, apart from the slow, reassuring up-and-down drift of her ribs. There’s blood too, pooled stickily on the paving, a cut on her head, already on its way to drying. It takes Willa only a stomach-clenched moment to put the scene together. The hanging plant basket lying on its side, potting mix scattered all over the ground. A broken plant, splayed on its side. The stepladder akimbo on the ground, one leg at rest against Nan’s foot.

  “Don’t touch her!” Willa pushes past Jack, who’s now white-faced and silent in the doorway, and sprints for the phone.

  ~ ~ ~

  The nurses make the businesslike scurry of examinations and X-rays and doctor-waiting seem almost mundane. It’s a forceful calm, and Willa’s grateful, because it forces her to be the same. Outwardly, anyway.

  Inside her, there’s still the panicked residue of the frantic calls to Kelly and Maida, searching for someone to take care of Jack and Riley, and then the torturous wait for a taxi to the hospital after the ambulance took Nan away.

  When she left, Riley and Jack were both in tears. Kelly, still in her netball uniform, stood at the door, her arms around both of them, telling her not to worry.

  Willa pulls out her phone and punches out a message to her.

  Are they okay?

  They’re fine. They’re watching TV with us. Maida’s calling for pizza.

  Willa doesn’t know why that makes her want to cry, but it does.

  How’s Nan?

  They say she’s got a broken hip, bruised ribs, a sprained wrist, and a concussion. But she’ll be okay. Can you tell the kids?

  Of course. Maida’s asking if you want her to come down and sit with you?

  No, I’m fine.

  Willa doesn’t want anyone. Not even gentle Maida, colonising with her kindness. She just wants to stay here, frozen, and wait for her grandmother to be her grandmother again. She slips her phone into her pocket and sits rigid in the corner, watching the nurses do their thing around Nan’s unconscious form.

  Why didn’t she go to the kitchen first instead of going upstairs to change out of her uniform? Why did she eat that leftover muesli bar on the way home? Otherwise she’d have gone for the pantry like Riley did. Then it would have been Willa that found Nan, not her little sister.

  A grey-haired nurse places a water jug on a table by the bed and turns to Willa. “Are your parents coming soon?”

  Willa shakes her head. “We live with Nan.”

  “We?” She spreads a blanket across Nan’s legs.

  “My brother and sister and I.”

  “Older or younger?”

  “Younger.”

  “And your grandfather too?”

  “No. Just with Nan.” Her grandfather died when Willa was two, the first to go in the incredible shrinking family.

  The nurse wipes her hands on her slacks and sighs. “I’ll grab the social worker.”

  Willa’s eyes widen, and the icy sludge of panic creeps back in.

  ~ ~ ~

  When they’ve covered the stitches on Nan’s head with a white bandage, finally Willa drags her eyes to her phone buzzing in her hand.

  It’s Finn, her voice all low and concerned. “Hey, I got your message. How’s Nan?”

  “Okay.” Willa recites the injury list again.

  “Are you still at the hospital?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who’s with you?”

  “No one.”

  “The kids?”

  “With Kelly and Maida.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  Numb still, Willa shakes her head.

  “Will? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I’m fine.”

  The nurse tidies bloodied bandages from the table and leaves, giving Willa a reassuring smile as she passes.

  “Do you want me to come down? I could—”

  “No, it’s okay. Don’t.” She can’t say yes. If she sees Finn, she will want the world to stop. And Willa can’t afford the softening that comes with Finn. Not now that she has to get through a meeting with a social worker. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?” She hangs up before Finn can say anything else.

  ~ ~ ~

  They sit in the hallway on some plastic chairs as people pace and scurry by them.

  The social worker is young, with an undercut and a tattoo of a flower peeking out from under her blouse sleeve. Willa stares at it for a moment and then pulls her eyes away.

  “Call me Eleni,” she says, with a thick accent.

  Will nods, her fingers pressed to the edges of the plastic seat.

  Eleni smiles gently as she flips a notepad open. “You’re okay, Willa. Maggie just wanted me to check in with you because she says you’re home alone with a younger brother and sister. How old are they?”

  Willa considers lying, saying they’re older, but can’t bring herself to. “Nine and eleven.”

  “And where are they now?”

  “My friends are looking after them.”

  “Okay.” She nods and writes something down. “Who else looks after them when your grandmother can’t?”

  “Usually me.”

  “That’s good. But you’re in school, yes? What year?” She looks Willa up and down. “Ten? Eleven?”

  “Ten.”

  “So you’re sixteen?”

  She nods.

  “Is there anyone who could come and help you?”

  “I don’t know.” Willa chews at her lip as she mentally lists the handful of people she could call. There’s Nan’s old student who came while Willa was on camp, but she’s looking after her sick daughter. There are her church friends, but they’re too old and doddery. It would be unfair to ask them. Maida’s house is full to brimming, and Kelly’s flat is a no-go zone for Riley and Jack. “Not really,” she admits finally.

  Eleni nods and writes something else down.

  Willa notices she’s wearing the same deep-purple nail polish as Finn’s and immediately thinks what a dumb thing it is to notice right now. She swallows hard. “What’s going to happen?”

  The social worker’s hand is a sudden warm weight on her arm. “Willa, this is not a movie. I’m not here to throw you in a foster home or split you up or anything drastic like that. But I am here to see you have the support you need.”

  The relief flooding Willa is embarrassing. Because that’s exactly what she’s been imagining.

  “But what worries me,” Eleni continues, “is that even if you could find someone to check in on you and offer a little support while Nan’s here in hospital, usually people of her age who get hip surgery need time in rehab afterwards. And with her anaemia delaying surgery, and the wrist injury complicating her use of physical support, she certainly will.
It will be more than a month, I think.” She squeezes Willa’s arm and lets it go. “So we need to figure out some kind of solution. Because it’s too long for someone your age to take on this kind of responsibility. And I don’t think your grandmother would like it much, would she?”

  Even though she shrugs, Willa knows there’s no way Nan would like it. She purses her lips and finally gives in to the only other option. “There’s my dad. He’s in Queensland.”

  “Do you think he’d be able to come down for a while?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Call him, okay?” Her hand is on Willa’s arm again.

  Willa fights the urge to shake it off. “Okay.”

  “Good girl.” Eleni gathers up her papers and gives her a warm smile. “I will pop back in half an hour and see how you went.” With that, Eleni strides down the hall.

  Willa feels oddly bereft now that she’s gone. She sits there, phone clutched, staring at a poster warning people about diabetes. When was the last time she even spoke to her dad? Maybe it was Nan’s birthday, back in March, or Jack’s in February. Why would she remember something like that? The conversation would have been like all the others, brief and stilted and full of yes/no answers, because they both have no idea what to say or how to talk on the phone. They barely know how to speak to each other in person.

  She reads the poster over and over again, stalling. There are over four thousand amputations performed per year due to type 2 diabetes in Australia, the poster warns. Get tested. Willa’s pretty sure Nan’s hippie diet puts her out of risk, but it also puts this phone call in perspective on the scale of sucky experiences. She grits her teeth and dials his number.

  “Willa?” He sounds like he’s outside, all echo and distance. It makes sense to her. He’s not made for indoors.

  “Hey…Dad.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “No.” Why else would she be calling? Just to chat? “Nan’s in hospital.”

  There’s a short silence, and when his voice returns, it’s clearer, sharper, like he’s moved under shelter. “What happened? Is she okay? Are you guys okay?”

  Willa tells him the things she has learned but still can’t quite compute. “They said she’ll be fine but that I need to call you because she’ll be in hospital a while.”

  There’s another short silence. “Okay, I’ll talk to my boss and get on a flight.”

  She grips the phone hard, learning that it’s possible to feel relief and dread at the same time. “Thanks.” Why is she thanking him? This is what he’s supposed to do, isn’t it?

  “I might not get there until the day after tomorrow, though, by the time I get into town. Will you be okay until then?”

  “Yes.” The longer the better. Then she can get used to the idea.

  “Okay, I’ll see you soon.” And he’s gone.

  Back in the room, the doctor’s with Nan, tapping and testing with efficient touch. Nan was awake for a minute, she tells Willa, but slid back under. It’s the painkillers, the doctor assured her, not the head injury, as if that’s what Willa was thinking. But she speaks so fast Willa didn’t even have time to think it.

  Her throat aches at the thought of a missed moment with Nan.

  “She was very groggy. But she said to tell you to go home and have your dinner. That she’ll see you tomorrow. After school.” The doctor smiles. “It sounded like an order to me.”

  She guides Willa outside and sits with her on the same plastic chairs Willa sat on with Eleni and talks even faster. Her gaze flicks down the hall every few seconds, as if she’s expecting something to happen somewhere else any moment. She tells Willa the same stuff the nurses did. Fracture, concussion, a replacement surgery when her head is better and the anaemia they just discovered improves. “And your grandmother is right to tell you to go home. She probably won’t wake again tonight, and she needs the rest so she can get strong for surgery. You go and get some rest too.”

  Willa can’t help flinching as the doctor pats her knee. Why do these people think strangers touching her will be somehow comforting?

  Outside the hospital, the dusky, peak-hour world is an assault. Willa pulls her school blazer around her and edges her way onto a crowded tram. When she reaches her stop, she strides through the park, back to her brother and sister.

  CHAPTER 16

  Finn

  Finn paces, retracing the journey from her bedroom to the kitchen and back again. It doesn’t help, though. Neither does the painfully brief “yes” from Willa when Finn messages to ask if she’s home yet. Brevity is never a good sign from Willa. Not when Finn knows how easily she can slip inside of herself when something’s wrong.

  “Mum?”

  “Mm?” Anita’s at the kitchen counter, frowning at her laptop.

  “Can I go over to Willa’s? Just for a minute? I’ll come straight back.”

  Her answer is automatic. “It’s a weeknight, and it’s too dark to be walking around.”

  “I could ride my bike?”

  “I don’t think so, hon. It’s too late. Call her.”

  “But…” Finn stops and sighs. Willa will just say she’s fine, no matter what. Finn doesn’t have the time to explain Willa-level reticence to her mother right now. “Please, Mum. She’s on her own.”

  That wrenches the vice principal out. Anita looks up, still frowning. “What do you mean she’s alone?”

  “Remember? They live with Nan.”

  “So there’s no adult with them now?”

  “I don’t think there is anyone.”

  Anita taps her fingernails against the counter. “No one?”

  “Well, I don’t know for sure, but her dad’s in Queensland, and there’s no other family. Her friends were looking after her brother and sister while she was at hospital.”

  Anita shuts her computer and lets out a brisk sigh. “Grab my car keys. I’ll drive you over.”

  When they’re stopped at a traffic light by the park, Anita says, “Remember, we’re just dropping by to check in. Then you have to come home and do your homework.”

  “Got it.” Finn doesn’t care. She just needs to see Willa for a second.

  The girl who opens the door is solid and striking, with dark eyes and broad features. She frowns as she holds the door half-open.

  Finn gives her an uneasy smile. “Um, hi. Is Willa there?”

  The girl’s stare lingers. “Hey Will!” she finally calls down the hall. Then it’s back to staring. This girl could compete with Willa in the scrutiny stakes. “You’re Finn, right?” she finally says.

  “I am. And this is my mum, Anita.” Finn gestures behind her.

  The girl nods, her mouth edging towards a smile but never quite getting there. She doesn’t introduce herself, but she opens the door wider. “Willa’s okay,” she says. “We’ve got her.”

  Even though Finn can’t tell if she’s being reassured or told to go away, she smiles and nods, because all she knows is that she can see Willa coming down the hall towards her.

  Willa’s eyes widen when she gets close enough to see Finn. And they widen even more when she sees Anita there too.

  Before Finn can stop herself, she darts forward and folds her into a tight hug. “Hey. You okay?” she whispers.

  Close up, Willa looks taut and tired. She just nods, her hands still at her sides, like the hug and the words have barely touched her.

  Finn retreats, blushing, wondering if she’s done the wrong thing coming here.

  “Willa.” Anita moves closer. “Finn told me about your grandmother’s accident. I’m so sorry to hear that. We just wanted to check in and see if you need anything?”

  Willa gives Anita a polite smile, but before she can say anything, her name is called from inside. It’s Riley, in a ratty nightie, peering down the dark hall.

  “Finn!” She dashes towards them, darting between the girl and Willa to stand next to Finn.

  “Hey.” Finn smooths a hand over Riley’s hair. “You doing okay?”

  Ril
ey nods, her mouth pursed into a frown. She looks just like her sister when she does that. “I found Nan,” she says in a small voice, leaning against Finn.

  “That must have been scary.” Finn wraps an arm around her shoulders, saddened by the sight of uppity Riley collapsed back into little girl.

  “It was.”

  They all stand there a moment, saying nothing. Finally, Anita shakes her keys. “So, Willa, are you going to be okay here by yourselves tonight? Because you’d be quite welcome to—”

  “We’re okay,” Willa says, adding quickly, “but thank you.”

  “All right.” Anita nods slowly and smiles at the girl standing guard behind Willa. “Well, it looks like you have your friends helping you.”

  The girl nods.

  “Thank you for coming,” Willa says in her best polite, talking-to-adults voice.

  “You’re welcome.” Anita runs a hand along Willa’s arm. “Don’t hesitate to call if you do find you need anything? Even if it’s just a lift to the hospital. We can help.”

  “Thank you.” Willa stares at her feet, pressing her lips into a thin line. She looks like she can’t wait for them to leave.

  Finn tries not to feel the hurt. Tries to tell herself it’s just because Willa’s not good at being looked after. She gives Riley another squeeze. “Bye, sweetie.” She looks up at Willa. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  Willa nods, holding the edge of the door next to her body like she can’t wait to close it. Her smile seems to come from a continent away. “Bye.”

  The minute Finn’s off the steps, she hears the door shut quietly behind her. Tears prick at her eyes. Why does she feel like she just did something completely wrong?

  CHAPTER 17

  Willa

  At first when she wakes, Willa isn’t sure what to do. Is she supposed to go to school? Or to the hospital? Then she remembers Nan’s instructions. Come after school. And because she has no idea what else to do, Willa just does as she’s told.

  The morning is the usual scurry to get everything done. She pours cereal and checks schoolbags and gives yawning Jack and Riley money for lunch from Nan’s purse. But while the scramble is the same, the feeling is different. There’s no smell of Nan’s morning coffee. No talkback radio or commentary on what’s happened in the garden overnight. No ever-present voice, chivvying them through their routine. It’s weird. Lonely, somehow, even with the three of them there.