Not For Sale

by Rebecca Williams

  Opening her stance slightly in order to attack, his foot connected with the base of her breastplate. The rigid plastic shoved back hard against her stomach just beneath her ribs. Stepping back in an effort to maintain balance, she tripped on the ankle of the other blue belt. She landed face up and cramping on the floor. From her back she rolled to her knees and then up to her feet. An arm protectively braced near the source of the cramp gripping her midriff, she continued with the bout. God, the pain was excruciating, gripping her abdomen spasmodically. Taking her shots when each cramp ended, she began to fight back.

  Olivia stopped counting points and only knew of her success when applause rang in her ears, her sensei shouting and hooting above the din. With the bout closed, she bowed respectfully to her adversary and completed the final formalities of the grading. Unpadded, with her gi straightened and water in her belly, she felt pride fill her chest at the sound of her name when she rose to receive her new belt.

  * * * *

  Meeting Felicity outside the change rooms, Olivia was engulfed by squealing, hugging congratulations. Understatement was not something with which Felicity was gifted, Olivia noted from a distance while the pain and nausea in her abdomen continued unmercifully.

  "I think we should get a taxi home,” she told her still bouncing friend as another stab pierced the pit of her stomach. Sweat had begun beading on her forehead and she gritted against the sickness threatening to overwhelm her senses.

  Less than two minutes into the trip home Olivia felt her stomach rebel completely.

  "Pull over, pull over!” she pleaded with the cabbie. The cab had barely stopped rolling when she flung the door open to retch violently in the gutter. Shaking and perspiring, she fell back against the cloth seat cover. Closing her eyes, she evaded Felicity's close inspection. “Okay, we can go again.” Her voice was barely there.

  "Take us to the hospital,” Felicity overrode.

  "Honestly, Felicity, I'm..."

  "You're what? I just watched you cop a flogging, and now you're vomiting. Maybe you're haemorrhaging or you've burst a kidney or something. You're going to the hospital."

  "I fought back. It wasn't a flogging.” Her protest would have sounded more forceful if she hadn't had to gulp against another rising tide of bile. They wouldn't have promoted her if she hadn't fought back, she reassured her failing self-esteem. There was no more space in her throat for talking. At least the cramps had eased.

  * * * *

  Unsurprisingly, Felicity won and they arrived at the hospital with her insisting Olivia take a wheelchair from the orderly in the emergency ward. Olivia was pretty sure the insistence was only because the man was cute and appeared to have a nice body beneath his green uniform.

  The doctor assigned to the emergency ward smiled down at her. She felt shaky and nervous in the backless hospital gown, waiting for him to tell her they'd overreacted. There was probably little more than bruising, overtiredness, and poor diet to blame for her current state. Now that the doctor had arrived, Felicity waited on the other side of the drawn curtain. Previously, she'd sat beside her, clucking and forcing water into an unwilling recipient. Olivia was glad of the privacy. She really didn't want people to witness what was sure to be a derogatory summation of her unnecessary hospital visit.

  "Well, Ms. Maigret, it would seem that there is more than one reason for your illness."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, they're commonly called twins."

  Olivia's world dropped away from her.

  The doctor eased her back onto the bed, waiting for her to recover from the wooziness that threatened to take away consciousness faster than a snap kick to the head. From outside the curtain, she heard Felicity's giggle. She could just imagine the woman, her face split in a jack-o-lantern smile, her hands waiting to snap open her phone and ring the others. Being the youngest, apparently she was not often the first with juicy gossip, never mind news as important as this. At least Olivia's predicament was met with joy by one person.

  Blackness receded from her peripheral vision and she began taking stock of her situation. Trying not to panic in a crisis, she focused on overcoming one barrier at a time. “The cramps ... what are they from? Am I going to miscarry? Is it my fault for doing a grading today? Oh, my God, what about the wine I drank? How far along am I?” Where is my cool in this crisis?

  "Slow down!” The white-haired man smiled happily at her consternation and gave her the “time out” signal. “The cramps are your muscles and ligaments stretching to accommodate a swelling uterus. The vomiting is morning sickness, and we estimate you're about eight weeks, which is why taking a kicking doesn't seem to have done any damage. I'd say the wine was harmless also, although you must know we promote abstinence from alcohol while pregnant."

  "Eight weeks,” the repetition was bemused and thoughtless. Oh, God, it had to have been the second night. It was the only time they hadn't used a condom. They both had been too wrapped up in helping her forget her past to give precautions any real thought.

  When her wishes came true, they really did it with style! Two! Twins! What was she going to do with twins? She'd have to move to a house, maybe out of the city.

  "We'd like to keep you here over night, Ms. Maigret. Just to ensure there's nothing untoward about these cramps you're experiencing."

  "Of course.” She nodded without looking at the doctor. She couldn't seem to focus. Her thoughts muddled and fogged their way through her head while her vision blurred and she turned inward.

  "Do you have anyone who can go home to bring some things back for you?"

  "Yes!” Felicity came bounding through the curtain, her delighted enthusiasm causing Olivia to giggle in the midst of her recalibration process.

  "I'll leave you to it while I go fill out the paperwork.” The doctor left and Olivia handed her keys and knapsack to Felicity, who was still grinning like a maniac. There was no point in asking her to keep it quiet. There were few, if any, secrets between the sisters, and she wasn't going to be the cause of a rift.

  With Felicity out of the way, she fell asleep. She couldn't remember ever having been so tired. It had been a big day. And it looked like there was more of them waiting on her horizon.

  * * * *

  In the morning it was Cain's sister Moira beside her bed. Moira who smiled, kissed her forehead in congratulations, and Moira on whom she cried.

  "I'm sorry...” the sniffles refused to abate, “it's just ... I don't know how to be a mother. I'm not good with commitment, you know. Twins, Moira. Two ... what will I do with two when I don't know how to care for one?"

  "So I presume you're keeping them?” The ever-practical mother of three and a half broached the obvious question with less than a flutter of her eyelashes.

  Olivia's snuffling stopped dead and she stared blankly at the older woman. “Well, yes. I'm twenty-eight; if not now, when?"

  "Seems to me you've got the hardest part sorted through. Everything else will come."

  Not Cain. Cain wouldn't come. Olivia felt her forehead crumple and struggled not to break down completely. “Cain didn't ... I wasn't ... he's not...” Biting her lip, she gave up on explanations altogether. She wasn't ready to talk yet.

  A candy striper slapped The Tribune onto her tray table before Olivia could finish putting her thoughts into a coherent sentence. There, in the right hand corner beneath a small column, was Cain. The picture was blown up, the article continued in the business section. Olivia froze. His hand was on a woman's elbow as he led her toward the door of a hotel. The woman was smiling brightly into his face. They looked happy. Shock deepening, she stared at the insignia on the door of the hotel in the photograph. It took ten seconds before the niggling relevance of it struck her. This photo was not taken in Turkey. Cain was back in Melbourne. The doors were in the foyer of the Grand Hyatt.

  "He's not interested in me ... us.” She motioned toward the paper, watching Moira's scowl worsen as she too registered the import of the black-and-white image laid out
on the table.

  "Let's not worry about him. Let's worry about you. Is there anything you need? Anyone you want to talk to?"

  The words struck a chord. “Have you got time? I need a favour."

  "Sure. I'll just ring my hubby and get him to pick Jack up from daycare this afternoon."

  * * * *

  Within half an hour they were on the road. Another forty-five minutes and they were entering the tiny town of Moe, spelled like the stooge but sounding like the champagne. There was nothing to do and not often anyone to see in Moe, but Olivia directed Moira with absolute certainty.

  "S'ter Marie took care of me in the orphanage when I was a child. Every time a foster family found me too difficult S'ter Marie would clean me up. Always there was time to lick my wounds, then she would say to me ‘Olivia Therese, you stand up on those two feet and you prove them all wrong!’ She always started sounding like she was angry. Then her voice would soften and she would hold me close and pat my hair when I cried. ‘You will be wonderful, cheri.’ Always she sounded like she meant it. ‘You will make your parents proud of you.’ She made me look her in the eye and repeat it every time ‘I will make my parents proud of me,’ until I actually believed. I want her to tell me again.” Her voice was clogged by now, but there were no tears, only the dry burning that comes with having cried too long.

  "So you believe in God then, being raised by a nun and all?"

  Olivia chuckled. “I think for S'ter Marie, I am the one who got away. The only person she could not convert. She spent many years in African missions before I met her, tending to sick, dying children and their poor parents. By the time she came home, she believed God was in the heart more than in the church. She didn't mind so much that I didn't believe because she said my actions spoke more loudly than my words.” Reminiscence clouded her eyes, softening her heart, making her feel more optimistic already.

  "You didn't answer me. Are you a God botherer?"

  The typical Australianism dragged more quiet laughter from her. “No. I think you would call me an agnostic. I like to believe there is some thing who creates order in the universe. A weaver of patterns, a maker of meaning, but I do not believe it is God in the traditional sense."

  "Well, thank Christ for that. I thought I was going to have to steal your babies and raise them myself in true heathen fashion!” At the casual mention of her pregnancy, silence struck again.

  Some time later, Moira pulled her station wagon into the parking lot behind the church. A tiny white-haired nun met them at the gate to the convent garden. The smallest person God had ever created soon clung happily to Olivia's shoulders, then held her hand while she introduced the bubbling little woman to the cynic at the gate.

  "S'ter Marie, this is my friend, Moira Carpenter. She drove me to see you so I wouldn't have to get the bus.” From the time she had spent time here as a child, whenever Olivia said sister it came out sounding like “stair.” Always had, probably always would.

  "Good to meet you, Sister. You have a wonderful garden here. Do you mind if I take a look around?” Moira enquired, managing to sound both polite and respectful, a tone Olivia was sure the strong, super-confident woman was unused to employing.

  "Make yourself at home, Moira. I think I will sit with my Olivia on the veranda a little. She looks like she has things to tell me.” The knowing old nun eyed her over with a look saying she'd seen more things in her life than Olivia could possibly use to shock her.

  On the old white swing hanging on the convent porch, Olivia poured out her heart for her mentor and saviour. “I'm so sorry, S'ter. I don't know where all these tears keep coming from. I can't seem to stop crying."

  "My darling girl. You bring me reasons to live longer with tears in your eyes? Do you love me so little?"

  She laughed at the old woman's ever-present ability for twisting a person's words to suit her purpose. All these people lately, making her laugh in the face of her fears. S'ter Marie had a talent for word twisting and laughter, honed with years of practice in the presence of a million cynical leftover children. “You know I adore you, old woman. Let us not fall into flattery. I've come for your advice."

  "As we're not doing flattery, Olivia, I'll tell you exactly what I think. I think you cry so much because you carry everything with you. You have your parents with you always, your mistakes with foster families, your unsuccessful relationships, and now this. If it were one thing at a time, it would not seem so big, but you insist on keeping them all. My advice, Olivia: let them go. Forgive them and let them go."

  "Forgive them, S'ter?” She'd understood all the old woman's advice until then. What was to forgive? They were dead. When alive they'd been a wonderful family. There was nothing to forgive.

  "Forgive them for dying, Olivia. Forgive them for leaving you alone to cope. Forgive them for affecting every other relationship you ever created—except ours, of course.” The dry chuckle that comes with age was tinged with prideful satisfaction.

  "Vanity is a sin, S'ter.” She cheeked the nun who had so precisely found her target. Perhaps it was time.

  "Don't preach to the converted, girl. Go light a candle for your parents and let me talk to your friend. She looks like a lot less effort. Oh, and, Olivia, next time you come ... bring your young man."

  "I don't think he'll be back, S'ter.” The hiccough at the end of her sentence made her smile wryly, even as her throat hurt.

  "He'll be back, and if you've any brain at all, you'll have him. You always knew you wanted a man strong enough to hold you to him. Someone who would keep you safe in his heart. He behaved exactly the way you wanted, and you ran like a frightened rabbit. You're not a runner, Olivia, you're a fighter. You've proven it all your life, prove it just once more. Now, go light your candles!"

  Entering the modest church, Olivia could still smell incense from the morning's mass. Churches always made her feel as though she could sense all the souls who'd existed inside the consecrated building. All the old ladies who'd set the flowers. All the souls of the dead who had taken their last blessings here. All the pleadings of the young priests questioning their faith. All the prayers whispered to an unresponsive god. All of them banged on the ceiling waiting to be let out, waiting for a chance to fly into freedom, to find the ears for which they were meant.

  Complying with tradition, she placed an offering in the box beside the squat red candles before setting a taper to three of them. One for each member of her family. One for each of her forgiving intentions. Despite her previous assertion of agnosticism, she whispered prayers for them, too. What were a few more words to cling at the rafters? Who knew, if they were lucky maybe the roof would need mending one day. Smoke wound up from the wicks of the candles, rising with her whispers to the roof.

  Against her better judgment, Olivia stood, walked to the altar, and knelt there. Looking into the sorrowful eyes gazing benevolently down on her, she could almost believe He understood. That He knew. Even such a small belief would be a good beginning.

  "Oh, Olivia, I am so sorry.” The words came in the gentle French she remembered so well. Her mother was from Marseille, her French had an inflection all its own. “My little girl, I am sorry. I never meant this for you."

  "Mere?” Unable to believe her ears, she sent her other senses to the rescue. They proved her hearing correct. Long artistic fingers on soft hands stroked the hair from her forehead. The scent of gardenias hung captured in the still atmosphere of the church. Then came the face, blurred a little, but definitely the face. The gentle blue eyes of her mother cried for her.

  "Of all the things to leave for you, Olivia, never would fear have been one of them. I never would have bequeathed you fear."

  "What would you have given me, ma mere?"

  Musical laughter tinkled against the marble floor of the church. “Adventures, my Olivia. Adventures and love."

  Some of the laughter must have landed on her, because Olivia had never felt herself so ... happy. “I will have adventures, mere, I promise.”
Her voice sounded childlike and far away. Her mother's face was receding but her voice persisted.

  "You must take risks for both, Olivia. You must dare."

  And then she was gone.

  She left contentment in her stead.

  * * * *

  "Jesus Christ! Olivia! Sorry, Sister."

  Olivia awoke on the steps of the altar, the smell of incense and gardenias strong in her nose as she inhaled. Moira's angry concern rang in her ears.

  "Are you all right, Olivia?” S'ter Marie looked less concerned. In fact, her milky blue eyes sparkled a little, as though she knew exactly what had taken place. Indeed, she appeared smug with satisfaction.

  Smiling up at them from her position on the floor, Olivia fought back the urge to giggle. A pregnant Moira might stand on her if she did. “I'm fine. I was just very tired. I must have fallen asleep."

  "Passed out more like. Are you sure you don't have any bruises, no cracked skull? Don't want me to crack it for you?"

  "Moira stop...” She fumbled for the words to describe what Moira was doing? It wasn't worry—no worried person threatened to crack your skull. “Stop fussing,” she finished lamely.

  "I think you should go home and have a rest, my Olivia. Come back when you have more to tell me. Perhaps an adventure, eh?” S'ter Marie teased quietly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Olivia scuffed her feet while leaving the church. Forsaking fear had been an easy proposition while surrounded by the whispering prayers and wishes of a thousand ghosts. But here, in the harsh light of day, where the sunshine made her squint against its brightness, reality threatened more easily. Cold air from the church still on her back, she closed her eyes, breathing deeply, inhaling the mingled smells of earth, dust and gardenias. She'd never forget the gardenias, or her promise to dare. The weight lifted from her shoulders and she felt herself glowing with happiness. Her old self sat up and smiled for the first time in years.