Tai
The static pain that’s been there for months now, an annoying throb just distracting from everything else, is worse. It’s become the sole focus of my thoughts, with small bits of conversations passing through. A nurse begins visiting more often, a few times a day, injecting painkillers straight into the syringe driver in my stomach. They help, but not enough.
At least they were only right about some of the side effects. My lips get so cracked they bleed, my mouth is constantly dry, and all of my senses feel dulled. I can barely remember what it felt like to be able to sit up without the walls starting to spin. What it was like to swim and be surrounded by cold, salty water. What it felt like to grab Juliet and really hold her, breathe her in. I know when she’s kissing me, but because of the morphine, I can barely feel it, and we never kiss like we used to, anyway.
But my broken brain still manages to function just enough that I still know who everyone around me is, and I’m grateful for that. Everyone else is, too.
‘Mum?’
She’s in the doorway instantly.
‘My head . . . it really hurts today.’
She nods grimly and fetches some painkillers. ‘Until the nurse gets here, Tai.’ Not even five minutes later, I vomit them back up. Mum takes my shirt off, wipes my face with a cloth as tears explode out of me.
‘Tai? What’s wrong?’
‘I need to piss,’ I choke out, ‘but I don’t think I can get out of bed.’
‘Oh, Tai,’ she says. ‘It’s okay.’ She grabs me in a hug, rubs my back soothingly. ‘It’s okay, Tai, it’s okay.’
She sends Dad in with a measuring jug from the kitchen, and I pee in that.
‘Sorry,’ I whisper. ‘Sorry.’
‘You peed in my mouth when I changed your nappy once,’ Dad says gently. ‘This is nothing, Tai.’
Later, I can hear Mum and Dad talking to the nurse in the hallway outside my room.
‘Should we call the hospital?’ Mum whispers.
‘There’s no need,’ the nurse says, ‘not unless you’re really concerned. Just be with him. Reassure him and let him know it’s okay. Ask him if there’s anything you can do.’
The nurse comes in, injects the painkillers, makes a note of it. ‘I’m going to stay nearby today, Tai,’ she says. ‘You’re my only patient for the rest of the week.’
Is that because I’m the only one dying this week?
‘So you just sing out if this doesn’t take the edge off the pain, and I can be around in a jiffy.’
Who even says jiffy? I’m thinking, but the painkillers have kicked in . . .
Mum sits on the bed for a long time, even though I keep falling asleep. When I open my eyes, she looks at me anxiously. ‘Do you need anything, Tai?’
Sometimes I ask for a drink of water, but mostly I don’t. I’m just . . . tired, even my breathing is slower.
When I wake up the next time it’s getting dark, and I can hear Mum in the kitchen making dinner. Texy is sleeping on my chest, purring, and I pat him slowly.
Juliet comes to visit later, like always.
‘You’re beautiful,’ I whisper, and she smiles. I shiver, despite the blankets, despite the summer.
Juliet pulls off her jeans, climbs under the blankets. ‘You’re so cold, Tai.’
I reach up, stroke her hair, and she rests her head on my chest, drumming her fingers against my collarbone in time with my heartbeat. Tap. Tap. Tap. ‘Your heartbeat . . . it’s so slow tonight,’ she whispers.
‘You’ve been drinking too much caffeine again,’ I whisper back, followed by, ‘I wish you could stay.’ Tonight, I mean. Wish you could stay tonight.
I fall asleep again, and wake up to her gently shaking me. She’s dressed. ‘Tai? I’ve got to go.’
‘I wish you could stay.’
‘I wish I could, too.’
‘I love you, Juliet.’
‘I love you, too. Tomorrow?’
Juliet
The next afternoon I’m in the bathroom doing my hair, getting ready to go to Gen’s place for a bit before going to visit Tai, when the phone rings.
A few minutes later, Mum is standing in the doorway to the bathroom, a tissue clenched in her hands, crying. A ball forms in my stomach, a lump in my throat, and I know immediately that Something Bad Has Happened. And I think, even though I don’t want to, I think that I know exactly what that something bad is.
Mum says, ‘Juliet, honey, I just got off the phone with Mia. Tai went to sleep last night after you left, and he didn’t wake up this morning. I’m so sorry, honey.’
No. I was only there last night, and he seemed okay, we listened to music and he kissed me goodnight and . . . no.
There are no words though, just tears, the kind so forceful my knees give in and I sit on the floor. I can’t stop crying. Tai is dead.
He’s dead. Tai. I loved him so much, and he’s dead. Oh god. He loved me like no-one else. And now he’s dead. And I wasn’t there. He died alone and I wasn’t there.
I sit there on the tiles for what feels like hours. The sky turns dark, Mum offers me something to eat, a coffee, and somewhere in the background my phone rings. I don’t care. Tai’s gone and nothing else matters anymore.
Eventually, Mum comes back, takes my hand and leads me to bed, tucking me in like when I was small. I press my face into the pillow and cry. Oh, Tai. I’m sorry, Tai, I’m so sorry that you were alone. I’m sorry, Tai, and now you’re dead and I’m alone.
That night, I try to picture Tai the way I want to. The way he wanted me to, the way he asked me to. That mad laugh, those midnight cuddles. The way he held me when he told me he loved me that first time. Holding hands in the waves at schoolies. But all I can see is Tai sick, with hands like claws, so thin and bony, reaching out to grasp mine. How they’d shaved his hair and how his eyes were so shadowed, so sad. Let me remember him the way he wanted, I beg the universe. Don’t haunt me like this.
• • •
The next morning I feel cold and numb. I walk to Tai’s place, barely able to see through the tears that are still choking me. I never knew I could hurt this much, this badly. I read somewhere once that a lot of the grieving was already done when you knew the person was going to die, but it doesn’t feel true. It’s impossible to feel this broken and have already grieved; it’s happening now and it hurts now.
Stanley and Mia want my help to plan the funeral, and I wouldn’t be strong enough, wouldn’t be able to, wouldn’t even want to if I hadn’t promised Tai. When I open the door I’m engulfed in fierce hugs. I cannot stop shaking, stop shivering, despite the heat. Mia sends me to Tai’s room to get a jumper and I sit there for a minute at his desk. His room still smells of him. There are dirty socks on the floor, his mobile on the bedside table . . . his stuff is everywhere and yet he’s gone. There’s a photo of us from schoolies blu-tacked to the wall. Tai had stretched his arm out to take it as we grinned straight into the lens of the camera. I look at it for a while, then pull it from the wall and shove it into the pocket of my jeans. I wonder if Tai left it there for me on purpose. I hope he did. I’m hoping he’d understand why I need something he touched and held, something of his.
Texy’s there, winding around my legs and purring, and as I reach out to pat him River runs in, eyes red-rimmed.
‘Don’t, Juliet. Tai said we get to keep him, me and Hendrix. Don’t try to take him away from me.’ He scoops up Texy and runs out of the room.
When I finally go back out to the kitchen the funeral director is there, a woman who looks like she’s spent years mastering the art of watching complete strangers fall apart in front of her. She smiles at me kindly and tells me she’s sorry. Then she asks softly if I have any ideas for the funeral. I nod, pulling the sleeves of Tai’s hoodie over my hands.
Mia goes to Tai’s room to get some of his clothes for the funeral director, and a minute later calls, ‘Juliet? I need a hand.’
When I join her I see she has been pulling Tai’s clothes from the w
ardrobe and dropping them on the floor. ‘They’re not right, Juliet. I can’t find anything right. Everything I pick out just seems wrong.’
It all seems wrong because how do you pick out something right for your son to wear at his own funeral? I don’t say.
‘How about his suit?’ Mia asks.
‘No. Definitely not the suit.’
She sits on the bed, defeated. ‘Can you pick something out? I can’t do it.’
‘You want me to . . . ?’
‘Please.’ She watches in silence as I pick out his favourite jeans, find his favourite shirt in the pile. Oh god, I’m choosing the clothes they’re burying Tai in. I hold them out to Mia, but she doesn’t take them. Eventually I walk down the hallway and hand them to the funeral director before going back to Mia, who still hasn’t moved.
‘Mia? They need you out there for some more stuff.’
‘This is so hard,’ she whispers.
‘I know,’ I whisper back.
• • •
Mum must’ve rung Gen, because the girls arrive not long after I get home, climbing onto the bed with me, piling flowers onto my desk. They’re crying, too.
Gen stays on after the other girls have left, and it’s then the tears really come again. Gen hugs me as I’m racked with sobs.
‘He’s gone, Gen. He’s gone and I want him back. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.’
Juliet
The morning of Tai’s funeral I dress slowly, waiting to wake up, waiting for the realisation that this has all been a horrible dream, but it doesn’t come. Tai made me promise that his funeral would celebrate his whole life and not focus on the one second that he died, and I want to honour that, I really do, want to do this how Tai wanted. But I want to cry, to mourn, to have the entire world stop from the weight of this pain.
I finish dressing. All in white, like I’d promised. Mum drives me to the funeral home, crying the whole way. She keeps patting me on the leg, reaching over to touch my arm, and I know she thinks it’s helping, but it’s not. Brookston Funeral Home has immaculate gardens bursting with flowers, and their car park is so full people have started parking along the edge of the road. There’s a hearse in the driveway, and I look away as we walk around it. As we enter the doorway, a woman in a black suit smiles at us and offers a program. I take it, but I can’t bring myself to smile back.
• • •
People keep coming up to ask me how I’m feeling. I don’t know what to tell them. I overhear Hendrix telling someone, ‘I feel like my brother is dead, that’s how.’ River is scared by all of the fussing, and comes to cling to my hand while Grandma Eve hovers around Mia.
River points to the coffin at the front of the room. ‘Juliet, is Tai really in there?’
I nod.
‘He’s not ever coming back, is he?’
I bite my lip, trying not to lose it already. ‘No, River. He’s not ever coming back.’
‘Juliet, I forgot to tell Tai thank you for letting me sleep in his room the other night when I had a nightmare. Do you think I can tell him now?’
We walk hand in hand up to Tai’s coffin. River taps on the side of it then leans in and whispers something to his big brother. Then he looks at me. ‘Juliet, do you want to tell him anything?’
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak.
A hand tugs at me – it’s Sam. He opens his arms and we hug tightly. I leave damp patches on his shirt, while his tears drip onto my shoulder. ‘I’m really sorry, Juliet,’ he manages to say, and all I can do is nod. He goes to pull away after a minute, and I can’t let him go, holding on tighter. You smell like him, I don’t say. You’re wearing the same deodorant that he used to and if I close my eyes and pretend for long enough I might just be able to wake up from all of this.
Eventually, Mum comes up. ‘Juliet? It’s time to sit down.’
During the service, people get up and speak about Tai. Mia says how he was born early, how the doctors thought he wouldn’t survive. How he fought. How he fought the tumour with grace and dignity. She fingers the macaroni necklace around her neck, telling us how he used to make them for her at preschool. Mia talks about the man, the good and gracious man that he was becoming.
Hendrix talks about fishing trips, about pillow fights and sleeping in Tai’s room. He tells us about football games and backyard cricket until tears trickle down his cheeks and he sits down again, looking embarrassed and small.
I tell everyone about the time Tai cut off Mr Bunny’s head, and he cried more than me when I found out. About the time we held hands and jumped off the roof, holding umbrellas like Mary Poppins. How he landed face first and needed stitches, and I broke my arm. I talk about our beach walks, about jumping in the waves at schoolies, and there are a thousand other memories leaping out at me, but there’s a lump in my throat and I need to stop.
Grandma Eve talks about making Christmas pudding with him, and his footy team-mates talk about That Game, while I soak it all in, try to memorise their words. This is the Tai that I want to remember. They show photos of him and play music while I look upwards. Good song, Tai.
Then they take the coffin away. Stanley is one of the pallbearers, and River stands beside him, clutching the leg of Stanley’s pants. Sam is one of the pallbearers, too, along with a couple of Tai’s uncles. They’re all crying. They put the coffin into the hearse and it drives away.
Mum squeezes my hand as we walk out of the building.
‘Are you holding up okay, Juliet?’
The lump in my throat is huge. I nod, even though I’m really not okay. I miss you, Tai, so much that it aches, and I want you back.
• • •
At the cemetery we each hold a balloon. Mine is purple. I promised Tai I wouldn’t cry, but I’m weeping. One day, I promise. One day I’ll think about you and smile instead of cry. Just not today, okay? They lower the coffin into the ground and we release our balloons, sending a rainbow of colours into the sky. I watch mine until I can’t see it anymore. The sky is blue and cloudless, one of those perfect summer days – it just seems wrong. In another life we’d be at the beach, but instead I’m standing in the dirt at the cemetery and he’s gone. Goodbye, Tai.
• • •
Not that night but the next, Gen comes over. She tells me she’s going to stay the night.
‘I’m not very good company,’ I say. ‘I just cry and think about Tai.’
She shrugs. ‘I can handle that.’ While she pours Sneaky Vodka into cans of Diet Coke I light some candles because it’s easier to cry when it’s darker. When we’re sitting on the floor side by side I look at her and say, ‘I really loved him.’
She slings an arm around me. ‘I know. He really loved you back.’
‘He told me right before he died about how I was going to go to uni and move out and do all this stuff, and find another guy – and I don’t want to do that, Gen. I don’t want any of that. I just want him back.’ I sniff. ‘And he died alone. I wasn’t even there. He died after I left for the night – after he’d said he wished I could stay, and I said I couldn’t. Why didn’t I stay? Why didn’t I say Oh, fuck the rules that night and just stay like he wanted me to?’ The confession brings on a fresh flood of tears. ‘Sorry. Told you I wouldn’t exactly be fun to be around.’
She shrugs. So what? ‘You know my best memory of Tai? Seeing the look on his face as he watched you get your tongue pierced. He looked totally horrified to be watching that huge needle go through his girlfriend.’
‘Yeah, he couldn’t believe I got it done,’ I say. A small giggle bursts out of me, and it feels foreign and strange. Like a betrayal, almost.
‘Or what about that time in class when he said, “Sorry I haven’t handed in my homework – the tumour ate it,” and you laughed and got a detention?’
We spend the night like that, sitting on the floor trading stories. When the sun comes up I crawl into bed, and Gen says kindly, ‘You’ll be okay, Juliet. You just miss him, that’s all.’
How are you holding up?
Feel like I’ve lost my best friend. You?
Feel like I’ve lost my best friend, too.
• • •
A week after the funeral, I visit the cemetery. The earth is still mounded over his grave, still raw. The flowers everyone left are starting to wilt, and now they’ve withered down a little one of River’s plastic army men peeks through the petals, saluting me. There’s a marble there too, one of Hendrix’s.
I sit beside the grave for a long time, trying to feel Tai’s presence, but there’s nothing. He really is gone, even though I don’t want to believe it, even though it aches to admit it. He was born, he lived and then he died. Even so, I find myself talking to him in my mind.
I miss, you, Tai. It still hurts just as much as it did the second I found out. It’s like there’s a silence, a space that you left, and nothing else can fill it. I hope I made you happy. I think I did. Hope you know how much I loved you. I was so crazy about you. Remember when you convinced me to jump off your roof, said that if I held an umbrella I could fly? And I thought I’d break something but you believed it, so I did too. And right now I’ve just got to hang on to the fact that you said I’d be okay, because at the moment I don’t feel like I will be. Because all I know right now is that I miss you, and that I loved you so much.
All I know is that you were the first boy who ever loved me. You understood me like no-one else could. You were my best friend, and the best boyfriend. I miss everything about you. Your smile. The smell of your deodorant. The way your arms felt around me. It’s lonely without you, Tai. It’s so lonely. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you died. I wish I’d stayed. I wish you could’ve stayed.
After a long time I get up, brush the dirt from my jeans and walk out of the cemetery. This time, when I say goodbye, I really mean it.
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