(‘School Bus’ with the ‘S’ and the ‘H’ scraped off) containing his mini-golf business and backpack of worldly possessions; Aunty Tammy’s tarot card readings and special effects make-up artistry; the nephews and nieces…They called to see how I was going and to inform me they were cooking dinner and having it fl own over. I told them things were fi ne, okay, good as could be expected, and that my dinner debts already far exceeded my capacity to repay.
Knowing Tammy had rung the hospital every night since admission (usually around eight, just after my departure for home), I asked if she’d noticed the change in Mum, too…
*
“Can’t say I have. Mad seems calm and, from what she says, everything’s under control.”
“What about her voice. Anything funny there?”
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“Funny ha-ha?”
“Strange. Unusual.”
“Oh, ‘Satan is my master!’ kind of thing, eh?”
“Pretty much.”
“No, none of that. The Dark Lord is happy to stick with Nick Cave and me.” Tamara paused. “Is she wiggin’ out over there?”
“Hey?”
“Is she twisting her head around and barfi ng up pea soup at the hospital?”
“No, no. She’s just very…focused.”
“Focused?”
“It’s no major drama. I’m just…you know, making sure she’s okay with you guys, too. Covering both ends.”
There was the sound of a drawer opening, then the
‘phwit-phwit’ of a deck of cards being shuffl ed.
“I’ve done some readings about Maddy, eh,” Tamara said with gravity. “You needn’t worry. Titania’s cards keep coming up with ‘Flowers’ beside the fi rst drawn which is, like, healing and happiness after a long period of sorrow.”
“Ti-tania?”
“And the ‘Sun’ keeps falling beside the ‘Road’, which is a good sign for the rest of the pregnancy.”
“Is it? That’s great. Tam, look, I’d better get going. Gotta be up early. Final day of school before the Easter holidays.
Dedicated professional that I am.”
“Your cards were interesting, Adam.”
“Mine?”
“Oh yeah. Big mix of stuff. ‘Whip’, ‘Star’, ‘Book’, ‘Snake’,
‘Coffi n’, ‘Clover’…ups, downs. A real rollercoaster. And right now, it’s hard to tell how it will all fi nish up. Go fi gure, eh?”“Tam, you’ll be the fi rst to know if I come fl ying off the loop-de-loop.”
*
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From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…Aunty Tammy has predicted McDonald’s will go belly-up by Christmas 2010 and swears blind the next Pope will be a Swede. So let’s hope her observed change of fortune for Mum is an aberration.
I wasn’t lying to Aunt Tammy—school is out for the Easter holidays tomorrow. Ten days of parole awaits. No more health inquiries and background probes and personal guarantees and fi rst hand, second hand, third hand stories of pregnancy near misses with happy endings. And, yes, I’m talking about the students as well as my colleagues. What is it with these kids? Why are my family goings-on a topic of discussion in the playground? Don’t they have hormones?
Everyone means well, B, but give me the writer’s lot. If you disappear suddenly, nobody has to see. If you encounter hardship, nobody has to know. No serious faces leaning over your desk or waiting for you at the water cooler or bailing you up on the basketball court. No earnest voices asking if I’m okay and if I’m taking my mind off things and if I’m keeping cool in the crunch.
It’s just you and your creation’s assurances that things are never as bad as they seem.
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13
M addy’s assessment of her voluntary shift to a spare bed in the Intensive Care Ward:
It was the second best thing that could have happened.
The staff at 4C had been most agreeable to washing their hands of ‘The Scary O’Doherty Woman’. The Scary Woman herself couldn’t have cared less and had jumped at the chance of a move. A second longer with the all too familiar fallout of those denied a child and the offensive ambivalence of those denying the possibility of any more was a second too long.
And the further she distanced herself from the room—the one she’d had in ’99, the one post-‘procedure’—the better.
That faulty buzzer, those faded fl oral curtains, the view of the Brisbane River that suggested the world could be a sunny and hospitable host when clearly it was nothing of the sort.
Yes, the shift was a positive. It may have paled in comparison with the best of all outcomes—a wave goodbye and a fi nger gesture to this godforsaken hospital—but it did mean dossing down in a History-free zone.
That was an intensive care of sorts.
*
“Adam’s Aunty Dolores just got a tattoo of the family crest on her shoulder…”
“Our Rock ‘N Roll dance teacher reckons we’ve lost weight…”
“Woody had a go at the postie again…”
Adam studied Maddy’s demeanour with his parents. She
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nodded and shook her head on cue. She delivered responses in less than ten words. Her eyeline barely shifted from the plastic patient’s bracelet on her right wrist.
No worse.
No better either.
For all intents and purposes, his folks hadn’t clued in to Maddy’s altered persona, or if they had they weren’t mentioning it. Indeed, they seemed unwilling to admit their very presence in a hospital. Reg’s comment that
‘Intensive Care rooms had more space than Neil Armstrong and more plugs than Elton John’ was the extent of their acknowledgement. The foursome could just as easily have been sitting around the barbecue table or kicking back with a quiet few out on the deck. Adam scratched his stubbled chin. Perhaps they were in denial?
They weren’t:
“We’ve been praying every day, son,” confi ded Reg, as Adam escorted them to the elevator. “We’ll be going to an extra mass this Easter as well.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“The grandparents have been getting a workout, too.”
Adam laughed. The ‘grandparents’—the Blessed Virgin Mary and Joseph, her Most Chaste Spouse—occupied a pair of faded portrait prints, either side of the O’Doherty family photo in the folks’ lounge room.
“Perhaps you should say a little prayer, Adam,” suggested Eileen. “It wouldn’t hurt to have a chat with the Almighty.
Mention that a wonderful girl named Maddy is in need of a bit of extra TLC.”
Adam pressed the ‘Down’ button and the elevator doors slid open. He gave his mother a kiss on the cheek as she stepped forward.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
*
There was a single message on the answering machine at home:
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“Hi Ad—it’s Shell here. I’m looking to dropping by Galbraith tomorrow if it’s okay. Mum and Dad said Maddy was taking visitors. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? She must be feeling a little bit better about everything. The doctor she’s got must be excellent. Quite a job to turn Maddy around after what you guys have experienced. Good thing, too—I don’t want Magic Mad hating me when I get out of uni! Okay, I’ll see you around six.”
*
From: “Tin Lid”
I still can’t chill over Mum.
She hasn’t said a word to me for days. When she talks to other people, the hollow heartbeat pounds every sentence. You reckon she is being extra protective, but I don’t feel any safer. I feel buried.
Do you and Aunty Shelley feel that way
, too? There was so much dark energy during her visit. Not even Sam could lighten things up.
In fact, her being there seemed to be a big part of the problem.
Dad, you’ve already come through with a lesson in trust, so I will fi ght hard to nix the fear that Mum may never be the same again.
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
Yes, Doctor Pole was central to the quite considerable tension of this evening. No fault of hers, though. The concerns stemmed from the message that Dawn Marks was unable to attend her check-in appointment…
*
“What’s the hassle?” asked Shell. “Doctor Pole’s here. She’s your patient, isn’t she, Doctor Pole?”
“Yes, she is.”
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“It’s a little bit complicated, Shell,” said Adam, knowing full well it wasn’t complicated in the least.
Maddy raised her head. For the previous fi ve minutes, she’d stared at her lap, picking at the double-stitch in her hospital issue blanket.
“I have not had a doctor examine me in the three weeks I’ve been here,” she said evenly. “I’m not going to change that now. Not for anything or anyone. The hospital can kick me out if they want to, but they better be quick ‘cause I’m ready to walk out on my own.”
Silence reigned, save an announcement over the PA for an Orderly’s required attendance in 7B. Adam rubbed the back of his neck before kneeling bedside on one knee. Sam fi ngered the small gold cross hanging from a chain around her neck. Michelle, eyebrows cocked and hands open, stared at each person in turn before settling on her brother.
“What do you want, bro? This is your child, too.”
Adam looked toward Maddy, who had resumed her stitch-picking.
“I won’t lie,” he said. “I’d like Doctor Pole to do a check-up. She deserves our trust with the expertise she’s demonstrated…and I’m not talking about the medical side of it. I think there’s an opportunity here for us to learn trust.”
Michelle advanced several steps. “It is an opportunity, Maddy! I know what you’ve been through now and I can defi nitely see how you might be…reluctant to have anything to do with doctors, particularly after that last arsehole took a piece of you and sent you on your way. But you must realise this is different. It’s not unreasonable in this situation---”
“Sis?”
“What?”
“Shut up…please.”
Adam claimed Maddy’s hand. There was resistance at fi rst—the limb seeking to join its companion in the customary shared position across the abdomen—then compliance.
“Yes, I’d like Doctor Pole to do a check-up,” he said, “but I’m not the one receiving it, am I? I’m not the one laying in this
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bed. I’m not the one who’s had to lie in beds like this before.
I’m not the one having to fend off History whilst providing the life cord to our child. No, I’m not the one burdened with all that. God willing Shell, you and Doctor Pole will never be burdened with that either.”
He got down on both knees.
“I have faith in you, babe. I believe in you. So does your child.”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…At this time Doctor Pole touched my shoulder, drawing me to standing. She retrieved the remote control from the tray and offered it to me, her face suggesting I understood what was required. I stabbed the ‘On’ button. The ‘Neighbours’ theme wafted out of the tube and hung in the hospital-issue air.
She then proposed a brief meeting with Shell and I in the hallway…
*
Samantha Pole extended a hand.
“Thank you for taking good care of my patient in there.”
Adam hesitated, then accepted. Sam adjusted the hairclip holding her frizzy, burgundy tresses in place.
“I fell pregnant to my partner last year,” she began.
“We weren’t trying at the time, so it was a bit of a shock, especially for a gynaecologist who’s supposed to have some knowledge of these matters! But we were pleased. We took the attitude that we never really would be fully prepared to become parents anyway, so now was as good a time as ever.”
Hospital traffi c bustled all around the trio. A nurse corralled an old man wearing a dressing gown and using a Zimmer frame. A cleaner in a purple tunic whizzed by, his trolley of implements and supplies rattling like a 1950s train.
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A solemn young man asked reception for the room number of his uncle. Adam and Michelle remained transfi xed by the doctor’s recount.
“It wasn’t long before I knew something was wrong. I didn’t realise the ‘something’ was an ectopic pregnancy until it was too late. It ruptured my fallopian tube at around 9pm on June 12th. We went straight to Emergency here at Galbraith and I was in surgery within the hour. They found close to a litre of blood in my abdomen. They also discovered that, for some unknown reason, the rupture had clotted so that the blood loss wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
That unlikely little clot saved my life. I consider it my own personal miracle to this day.”
Sam tucked her gold cross back under the collar of her shirt and dabbed her eyes with a tissue from her coat pocket.
She cleared her throat then continued:
“Of course the tube was irreparable. Which means I’ve now only got half my original fertility. It also means we’re living with the ‘ectopic one-third rule’: one-third chance of miscarriage, one-third chance of another ectopic, one-third chance of a normal pregnancy. These days, we are trying to get pregnant. I try to remember that even though we are in more diffi cult circumstances than we ever imagined there are others who’ve done it tougher.” She glanced in the direction of the closed door to Maddy’s room. “Others who’ve been burdened with more than what we’re carrying. And in the end I fi gure, well, if I was good enough for one miracle, then maybe I’m good enough for two.”
Her attention diverted to Michelle.
“Maddy has told me that you’ve been accepted into Medicine and you want to specialise in obstetrics.”
Shell nodded. Sam smiled and narrowed her blue-eyed gaze.
“You’re going to go okay. Keep in mind that not all the answers are in the textbooks.”
She shifted her attention to the younger brother. Her voice took on the considered, clinical tone Adam recognised.
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“Maddy informed me that the spotting has not appeared now for four days. She’s experiencing no pain or discomfort and Dawn Marks’ exam two days ago indicated the baby’s vitals were fi ne. Provided she takes things nice and gentle, I think she can go home tomorrow.” She handed over a business card. “That has my e-mail address on it. Stay in touch.”
Adam held the card between the palms of his joined hands.
“Thank you. We will.”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…Mum can now see the end of this ordeal, B. That fact, and the small surprise I’m preparing for her return home, will mark the beginning of her journey back to the person we know and love.
Trust me.
*
The Intensive Care ward was calm; the usual buzz beyond her closed door, occasionally punctuated by a ‘code blue’
crescendo, had taken a rare breather. Tepid moonlight from the eastern window bathed the room in the palest of washes.
The cavernous spaces reserved for life-saving machines contained a single packed, ready-to-go overnight suitcase and a single packed, ready-to-go rucksack.
Maddy rolled onto her side. Slee
p was elusive, in part because of her imminent---
(victory)
---departure, the remainder due to the evening’s episode.
A particular statement from Michelle had left a sting she was fi nding diffi cult to shake off:
“What do you want bro? This is your child, too.”
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From the time she’d arrived at the hospital, everything had been about her, about what she wanted. Was that unreasonable? Throughout the three weeks, she had remained steadfast in those wants and the result was, for the fi rst time in six years, she was walking out of the hospital still pregnant. Did such a result justify the fl agrant disregard of her husband’s wishes?
“I guess we’ll fi nd out in the morning, Kiddo,” she whispered.
*
Adam unlocked the front door to 150 James Street and led a blindfolded Maddy across the threshold.
“Kiddo, tell me what’s going on!” she cried.
Adam raised an index fi nger to his lips. “Don’t say a word.”
He manouevred Maddy in behind the couch and placed her hands on the backrest.
“What’s this stuff?”
“Take off the blindfold and have a look.”
Maddy removed the bandana and observed a living room quite unlike the one she’d been whisked away from twenty-three days before. Streamers and balloons hung from the ceiling, the furniture, and the gently rotating fan above. A laminated banner on the wall above the TV read: “OUT OF
BED…FULL STEAM AHEAD!!!”. Gifts jostled for space on the coffee table. Adam pressed the remote for the stereo. As the funky upper cuts of John Butler Trio’s ‘Zebra’ weighed in, a bemused Maddy stroked a section of the Mintie and Mars bar wrappers adorning the couch.
“The pressies are from our friends,” said Adam. “The framed photo of you standing next to the Big Pineapple is from the folks and Chris. The baby sling is from Jay-Jay and Boyd—apparently there were two of them in that Expo hamper. Ah, the book is from Kelly and Sandy.”
Maddy examined the cover. “Secrets of the Baby
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Whisperer?”
“Comes highly recommended. They also provided the muffi ns. The stuffed cow is from Dilip Shastrani at school.
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