“What’s going to be difficult for me to hear?”
She laced her fingers. “Mrs Lee asked that you not be permitted to access her records or visit her until you ‘stop antagonising’ her – her words. Specifically, she said she’d be happy for ‘her daughter’ to see her, but no one else.” Lisa’s face softened, and her eyes dipped to my body for a second. “I take that to mean that she won’t see you unless you present as a woman to her.”
I already knew exactly what she meant before she clarified, and I was clenching my jaw so tightly my teeth ached. I shouldn’t have been surprised, should I?
Lisa looked appropriately apologetic. “I’m sorry, I know this must be hard for you. We have counsellors on call here, if you need to speak to someone. I’m also happy to listen.”
I elected to not pour out my soul to a complete stranger, so she released me back into the waiting room and I stood there for a second amongst the sea of sick and injured people, lost.
I surveyed the waiting room for Rob’s high viz jumper—I should at least tell him I had no news for him about how Mum was—but I couldn’t see the bright orange sleeves anywhere. He’d disappeared. I waited for him for a few minutes just in case he’d gone to the toilet or something, but when he didn’t return, I ignored the ‘no mobiles’ rule and tried calling his phone. He’d turned his off, too; clearly he was actually following the rules this time. I’d just have to wait for him to call me.
Because I couldn’t think of what else to do while I waited, I wandered outside into a little courtyard to get away from all the commotion so I could hear myself think.
It was a little linear garden between two old buildings, filled with bronze sculptures that had a medical theme; a mother holding a tiny baby, angels lifting a frail and skeletal man from his hospital bed. It seemed like a strangely artistic series to have in a hospital, and I was wondering about that when I came to an entrance to the building opposite, and a sign above it read ‘University of Sydney’.
My school, I thought, looking up at it. Or, at least, a campus of the school I was supposed to go to. I had no idea if that was still even happening.
I had no idea what to do about anything, actually. Not just about Mum, but in general. About Bree, about my debts, about everything. I’d completely fucked it all up. I’d mishandled the stuff with Mum and the stuff with Bree through some really fucking stupid, impulsive decisions—seriously, what had I been thinking?—and it was too late to try and undo the damage I’d done.
Maybe if I hadn’t lied to her, I thought about Mum. Maybe if I’d sat her down and faced her like an adult about what’s going on for me. Maybe I wouldn’t have given her a fucking heart attack and neither of us would be here. God, why did I always fucking do this?
But I’d done it, and any structure or direction I’d had about my life was shot to hell as a result. I literally couldn’t imagine what was going to happen to me tomorrow, let alone next week, next year, or further in the future.
That bright future, all my hopes, my dreams, everything that I wanted for my life and the people I cared about, they were all slipping through my fingers like grains of sand.
I just felt so lost. So fucking lost. A lump formed in my throat. What was going to happen to me?
I didn’t want to cry in public, so I walked further away from the ER, eyes downcast so no one could see.
What was going to happen if Mum wasn’t okay, and the last time I ever saw her was as she was loaded into an ambulance after we’d had an enormous fight? What if she was lying in her room dying now, alone, by herself, refusing to see me because I wouldn’t put on a dress? Would the staff let me see her if she was dying? Like, after she was unconscious so I could at least say my last goodbyes to—
—deep in thought, I nearly crashed into someone who’d stopped abruptly in front of me, stunned. I glanced up and mumbled an apology, but when I saw who it was, recognition slammed me like a tonne of bricks.
It was Henry.
THIRTY-THREE
He still looked the same, everything about him was the same; his stiff pressed shirt, his awful paisley tie. And even though Sarah had been right in her assessment of him—he seemed sad, somehow—everything about him was warm and familiar, and my life was such total shit right now that I just wanted to hug him.
I didn’t, though. Of course I didn’t. He’d made his feelings about me clear when he’d left me in the men’s at the restaurant and then changed his phone number. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, and with all my resolve and all my strength, I turned to walk away and leave him alone.
Unexpectedly, he stopped me. “Min.” When I looked back at him, I saw his eyes travel between mine; it was clear I’d been crying. He must have guessed why that was. “Oh no,” he said gravely. “Oh no, is she okay?”
How did he—? Had Mum found some way of calling him? She must have, that must have been why he was here. Fuck. “I don’t know, she won’t talk to me. She didn’t tell you?”
He seemed a bit guarded. “She was very brief with me, very brief. I’m surprised she told me anything at all.”
I wasn’t as surprised. “She completely loves you, of course she would.” I sighed at length. “I’m sorry she got you involved again. You don’t have to stay here, you can just go and—”
He put a hand on my arm to silence me, looking really confused for a moment. “We’re not talking about Sarah, are we?”
What? I blinked at him. “Sarah? No, Mum’s here, and I—” Hang on. “—Wait, why would we be talking about Sarah?”
Henry had a very deep frown. “Because I thought—I don’t—your mum is here?”
We stood staring at each other with our jaws open. I had no idea what was going on.
He broke first with nervous chuckle. “Perhaps we should start this conversation again.”
I was way too stunned for that. “Did you say Sarah’s here?” He nodded. “What! Is she okay? Is it the baby, or—?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Min. She needed a manager to authorise a taxi all the way from Clifftops. I asked her why, and she told me she needed to come here immediately. That’s all I know.”
I didn’t believe him at all about not knowing more; I thought he was doing his Mr HR Manager Confidentiality thing again. “And yet you came here to see her,” I pointed out, giving him a suspicious look.
He sighed at me. “I’m here because Alice had her twins last night.”
I opened my mouth. Oh. Suddenly things started to slot into place, and I grimaced. “Sorry. I’m just…” I shook my head. “I’m a fucking mess. Ignore me. God.” I looked back up at the main RPA building. “Sarah would be in Maternity, right? Would they let me visit her this late, do you think?”
I’d taken a step back towards the entrance of the hospital, but he frantically stopped me by taking my arm. “Min, please don’t. I shouldn’t have told you.”
I gave him a look. “Of course you should have told me. Sarah’s a close friend. If she’s miscarrying or there’s something wrong with—”
He cut me off. “Look, Sarah told me as an HR manager because she needed my assistance as an HR manager. She obviously didn’t want to tell anyone else, it’s a terrible breach of confidentiality that I did,” he said, and then dropped his arm. “Please, I’m in enough trouble at work as it is.”
I was in a difficult position. I almost wanted to go looking for Sarah anyway—I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have some sort of pregnancy-related emergency and need to go through it alone—except then I remembered Rob was missing, too. That must be where he went, I thought. I should probably give them some privacy. Besides, it would be really bad form on top of cheating on and leaving Henry to also do something that might get him fired.
“Okay,” I said, sighing. Rob would probably do a better job of taking care of her anyway.
Henry visibly relaxed. “Thank you,” he said with gravity. “Not that I think Sarah would have complained, but these things have a habit of getti
ng out, and the fact you’re involved would have made it look so much worse.”
The fact that I was involved? While I was trying to figure out why that would matter, it occurred to me that I’d never found out what the fallout was over that pretend directions interview—whatever it actually was—or any more at all about why Sean had set us up. I wanted to ask Henry what happened and if he was okay, especially if he was okay. The words were on the tip of my tongue; I wasn’t sure he’d want to hear them, though, or even if it was my place to say them.
We stood facing each other for a few seconds, both of us holding our breath, on the cusp of speaking.
In the end, I did first. I didn’t want to add ‘hurting Henry some more’ to my list of ways I’d fucked up today. “You can go, if you want. You cut contact with me for a reason.”
He exhaled. “Well, I didn’t do so well the last few times we talked…” he said candidly, but his sentence sounded unfinished.
“You should go,” I told him firmly, before I could get my hopes up. “Honestly, you should run as fast as you can. My life is a fucking train wreck at the moment and I’m about five seconds from a nervous breakdown.”
He smiled slightly. “Well,” he said simply. “That makes two of us.”
I looked up at him. There was something so fragile and hollow about his polite smile. “That’s my fault, isn’t it?”
He tilted his head. “It’s a combination of factors,” he said dismissively, adding, “and none of them are that my mother is in hospital…” I think he meant for me to elaborate.
I didn’t. “You’re deflecting.”
He chuckled at the fact I’d caught him; it didn’t last long. “I am,” he admitted. “Because if I talk about what life is really like for me at the moment, I’m going to have that breakdown you mentioned right here outside the hospital. I’d rather hold onto the last shred of my dignity instead.”
God, I knew that feeling. “Well, on the bright side,” I said wryly, “if we do have our matching breakdowns out here, there’s a ward inside especially for us with lots of drugs to make all our problems just disappear.”
“Fantastic. I’ve been wondering if I can take a pill that will kill my boss.”
I laughed, because I hadn’t been expecting him to fire back so quickly given how miserable he seemed. He looked delighted by the fact that I did, and for a couple of seconds we smiled at each other.
His open smile faded quickly to something more private, and he spent some time considering me again before he spoke. “Things have been difficult for me recently,” he said soberly, stumbling over the words. “Really difficult. This is a nice surprise.” He half-turned his body towards the street, gesturing behind him. “Look, I’ve rented a serviced apartment just a short walk up the road from here—close enough that you can be back here in a flash if you get any news. Since visiting hours are almost over anyway, you’re welcome to come back with me.”
I held my breath; this was the olive branch I’d been desperately hoping for over the last four months. Say yes, Min, I willed myself, but just as I was on the brink of making up with him, I remembered just how deeply I’d involved him in my lie to Mum. I wished I could just push all of that aside and not worry about it—he would have let me, I was sure of it—but it wasn’t the right thing to do. I’d got myself into enough trouble recently by not saying what I needed to.
“Henry,” I began tentatively. “There’s a couple of things I should probably tell you before you invite me over.” He gave me his full attention. Bracing for him to retract the invitation, I forced out, “I lied to Mum and told her you’d proposed to me to stop her from constantly nagging me to marry you. I took a photo of your ring on my finger and sent it to her.”
He nodded slowly, but he didn’t look disappointed or angry. Just sympathetic. “Well, it probably wasn’t the best thing to do,” he conceded, “but knowing your mum, I can’t say I don’t understand why you did it.”
I grimaced. “…and then I pawned the ring.”
His eyebrows jumped, but he looked more surprised than hurt. “Okay...” was all he said.
…That was it? It was disorienting. “You’re not angry with me?”
“About what?” he asked. “About the ring? I told you that you could sell it, remember?” When I looked sceptical, he put a hand on my arm for a moment. “Four months ago, I found out the woman I was head over heels for never really existed. You honestly think I care about a ring?”
Well, when he put it like that… “I was worried I’d upset you even more.”
He just smiled, and when it was clear I’d run out of things to confess, he put his hands in his pockets and took a step backwards towards the road. “Come on.” He inclined his head in the direction he’d indicated he was staying.
I still felt uneasy. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
In answer, he took another step backwards, trying to coax me to follow him. He eventually succeeded, and then we were walking side by side, our footsteps matching, just like we always used to.
It was so nostalgic, walking along a city street with him. The buildings weren’t exactly skyscrapers like they’d been when we walked back to my apartment in the CBD, but the shine on the wet road and smell of damp as the cars tore past us was so familiar. I almost expected to be clutching a handbag under an arm.
I was busy glancing over my shoulder back at the hospital and wondering whether I’d be close enough if something happened to Mum or Sarah, when Henry looked thoughtfully across at me. “Why did you pawn it, anyway?” he wondered aloud. “Wouldn’t it have been better to sell it outright?”
God. “A lot of things would have been better than what I did,” I admitted. He remained silent, prompting me to continue. I sighed. “How much do you want to hear?”
“Whatever you feel comfortable telling me,” he said warmly. “Go on, distract me from my own woes.”
I took a deep breath and launched into the saga about Mum hassling me to marry him, and about Bree’s school fees, and about all the stupid shit I’d done to make everything a hundred times worse. I’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to him. He was such an attentive listener. Before long we’d ended up in a little park near the hospital, sitting on the steps of a gazebo to wait out the rain as I finished telling him everything. “…And so that’s it. She knows. I probably gave my own mother a heart attack, and she won’t tell me anything unless I pretend to be a woman again.”
“Well, I very much doubt you’re the sole cause of her heart attack if she had one,” he reassured me, “and I don’t think she’d be immediately cured if you put on a dress, either. You’re not doing her a disservice if you refuse to.”
“I don’t want to do it anyway,” I confessed. “And it’s not so much a want, really. I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t even tell you what it does to me, having to look like that and act like that. I hate it, it makes me fucking miserable, and I told her. I told her that. Why would she want her own kid to be miserable?”
He shook his head slightly. “I’m sure she thinks she’s doing the right thing.”
He was probably right, but I didn’t understand it. Not one bit. “How could making your kid miserable ever be the right thing? How can she look me in the eye while I’m saying, ‘Mum, that makes me unhappy’ and go, ‘fuck it, I don’t care, I know what’s good for you and you’re going to do what I want’?” I looked across at him, swallowing. “You know what she said to me when I told her I’m finally happy like this? That I can finally look in the mirror without hating myself? She called me disgusting, and depraved, and sick, and she said she was ashamed of me.”
His expression softened. “Oh, Min…” he said gently. Only Henry could layer so much tenderness and care into just two syllables. “You’re none of those things, and it’s such a pity she’s refusing to see the person you really are.” He paused. “Would you like to hear something Sarah said to me about you instead?”
I frowned. “Sarah?” He nodded. “Okay�
�?”
“We haven’t spoken much since you left me, but I had a few words to her at Clifftops, and she said she admires you, and thinks that anyone who can go through what you’ve been through and still have passion and hope for the future is incredible.” That cut close to the bone, and I swallowed against my tight throat. He didn’t stop there, either. “And personally, I think you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”
I looked at him, sceptical. “Me?” I scoffed. “Brave? Are you serious? I’m the most anxious person I know.”
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “But it takes courage to leave ‘safe’ and ‘familiar’ and to walk away from situations that are bad for you. I can’t imagine the sort of courage it took to admit to yourself that you needed to change every single thing about your life to be happy. And you did it, you made those changes. You’re living your truth. I think it’s a shame your mum can’t see that, because if she could, she would be so proud of her strong, resilient, incredible son.”
I bit back tears. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
He nodded. “I am, but it’s also true. And I know it’s easy for me to say, but don’t take your mum’s words about you to heart. She lives in a tiny, safe little world. Maybe eventually she’ll open her eyes and finally see the Min the rest of us do.”
Somehow, I doubted that was going to happen. Especially now. “If she’s around long enough to, that is…”
He watched me for a moment, thinking. Eventually, he said, “If you’d like me to help, just ask. You know she’d talk to me; perhaps it would make you feel better if I was able to find out what her medical situation is for you.”
I did consider it for a moment—it would be such a relief if I could just find out that she was going to be okay—but then I remembered his strained ‘thank you’ when I’d finally managed to get Mum to stop calling him in June. I did not want to push him back into her web. “No, that’s okay,” I told him with a sigh. “You’ve helped me enough with Mum over the past four years. Thanks, though.”
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