Chapter Twenty-six
Before I knew it, Abel was gone again, mountaineering in New Zealand for ten days.
In his absence, I finally let go of any restraint I might have been harbouring in tending to the garden.
He didn’t seem to spend much time in the backyard, what with the very little time he was home, and the initial guilt I’d felt in overstepping any boundaries got swallowed by my compulsion to create something beautiful and see flowers blooming.
Most of my work was weeding anyway, which I told myself was only a small step past cleaning.
On my walks, I stopped and talked to Silvia if I saw her pottering in her garden, and as promised, one day she had a bag of freesia bulbs ready for me. ‘They’re just like the scent of heaven,’ she said, her eyes alight.
I hadn’t grown freesias in years and I couldn’t conjure the exact smell in my memory, but I knew she was right: they smelt like some form of heaven. When she handed me the dirt-stained paper bag, I experienced an overwhelming sense of warmth.
As my gloved fingers dug holes for the bulbs in the cold winter soil later that morning, the sun on my back seemed to seep right into my bones. I paused, closing my eyes just to feel the warmth on my back, the hard garden path under my knee, breathing that cold air in and out.
I thought a lot about what Abel had said about Mum and Ebony, and how much my life’s plans orbited around them. But right there, in the garden for those few minutes before I went back to study, with the hope of flowers in my fingertips, I was doing something for me, purely for me.
And it felt immeasurably good.
My shift on the day Abel was due to return was unusually quiet, though technically I wasn’t allowed to say that out loud because the vocalisation of the Q word was like the ultimate curse in the emergency department.
But I had never been a superstitious person, had little care for most petty social norms and it was four p.m. There had been two new patients walk into the department in the last hour, so I was calling a spade a spade.
‘It’s very quiet today.’
Cleo turned to me with a look of total shock. ‘How dare you utter such a thing!’
Doctors were in general such a conscientious bunch that everyone felt invariably guilty about being at work and not being stressed out of their minds.
When a new patient popped up on the screen any available doctor would rush to assign their name to the patient like they wanted to be the first to press the buzzer on a quiz show.
Except Cleo.
‘Do you think anyone will notice if I go home?’ she asked.
‘Probably not.’
‘Slay.’ She fist pumped. ‘I’m going to roll. I’ll text you. We’ll go to the pub. Tonight?’
‘I can’t tonight. But soon.’
She darted off and I felt a flicker of guilt. Abel had been away for a week and half and I’d missed him. So much, I’d just turned down a friend’s invitation so I could spend the evening with him. What did that mean?
‘Quiet. Quiet. Quiet,’ I muttered like a spell. Fuck the superstition. I hated quiet. Work never allowed me to reflect on my own life. That’s why I loved my work. That’s why quiet shifts were so disconcerting.
I was mustering enthusiasm to use the quiet time productively – study, revise – but it was always difficult to do so out of my usual study zone. So when my phone pinged in my pocket, I pulled it out and felt something flutter in my chest.
Abel: The house is so tidy it’s spooky.
I smiled.
Me: I clean a lot when I’m studying. Helps my brain.
Me: Welcome home.
Abel: I don’t think the fridge has ever looked so shiny.
Abel: And the cutlery drawer. Jesus. Amazing.
Me: What can I say? Subclinical OCD.
Abel: It’s working for me.
I went back to the computer, eyes glazing over the content. I didn’t usually text while I was at work and even on a day like this, it made me feel unprofessional.
Abel: Mary, did you put my books in alphabetical order?
I chuckled.
Me: Um … That would be weird wouldn’t it?
Abel: Extremely. But my books are most certainly in alphabetical order. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it.
Me: Maybe ask Kate Winslet?
Abel: She’s in a mood. Scowling at me.
Abel: And very shiny. Did you do something to her? She smells like roses.
Kate Winslet had loved being washed and brushed. And she was very shiny now. I wondered if she’d let him pet her yet.
Abel: Speaking of roses. The ones out front – they’re so tiny? Did you have a fight with them?
Me: It’s called pruning. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.
I put my phone away, resolving to stop texting. Updating my mandatory training modules occurred to me. We always had to have up-to-date online certificates on hand washing and, I don’t know, how to put on gloves and things.
When I was midway through a module on how many moments of hygiene there were in patient care (like, a thousand), my phone pinged again. I blamed the overwhelmingly boring module for my distractedness.
Abel: I’m doing my laundry.
I snorted. He was obviously as bored as me.
Abel: I’m needing to take down your laundry to hang up my own.
I felt a stab of panic as all my underwear on the clothes rack flashed into my brain. How had I forgotten to take them down?
Abel: Is it weird to feel kind of turned on by someone else’s laundry?
I was blushing. At work. I tried to focus on hand hygiene. Challenging.
Abel: Are you trying to work?
Me: Yes, Abel. I am.
Abel: So am I. This is all very distracting.
I snorted again.
Abel: Laundry is usually a mindless task, a grounding one, not an erotic one. I’m very thrown by the experience.
Me: Apologies?
Abel: I should probably stop staring at your underwear.
Me: Probably.
Abel: Do you really wear these things? Jesus. Who gets to see them?
Me: Just me. It’s called self-care, Abel. You should be proud of me.
Abel: Proud. I’m … hmmm. There’s so much I could say right now.
Abel: I’m going to leave them. I feel like a creep.
Abel: But some sensitivity please? The fridge job is great. Even the books are helpful. The underwear is just cruel.
Me: Okay. I understand. I’ll remove them when I get home. See you soon?
Abel: Excellent. See you soon.
‘The kids are mental with excitement for our visit,’ Ebony was saying.
I was walking home from work, ear buds in, and Ebony was trying to make a costume for Liam’s school parade tomorrow. Needless to say, her end of the line was a lively affair.
‘I’m excited too. We’ll have heaps of fun.’
‘I don’t know about this headpiece. I think it’s going to fall apart when you put it on, sweetie.’
I was fairly confident that was not directed at me. ‘What do you guys want to do when you’re here? I won’t have heaps of time between work and study, but we can try to fit some special things in.’
‘I want to go to the snow!’ I recognised the voice as Molly’s.
‘That’s a great idea,’ I said. ‘Let’s cross our fingers for snow.’
We continued a busy, broken conversation for another few minutes.
Before we hung up, the niggling worry I’d had ever since my last conversation with Mum was too much to ignore.
I hadn’t spoken to her since her call about the art trip, from which she’d have returned now.
She wasn’t answering my calls, which could mean anything from loved-up elation with Greg, to alcoholic stupor, to busy shifts at the hospital.
When I’d asked Ebony, she’d been vague and evasive, and increasingly irritated by my questions.
‘How’s Mum?’ I ventured lightly, hoping the question didn’t sound as loaded with meaning and worry as it did in my brain.
I heard Ebony’s frustrated sigh before she even said anything. Her voice came through gritted teeth. ‘Stop worrying, Mary.’
‘I’m sorry. I hate to ask you. I just haven’t heard from her and I feel so far away … and all this with Greg is—’
‘Maybe Greg is great. Maybe Mum is doing really well. You’re so cynical and suspicious. How do you even live like that? It must be bloody awful.’
Her words stung right to my core, pushing on a sore spot.
Because, sometimes, I wondered how I lived like that too.
How difficult I found it to trust in anything, anyone.
The thought of Abel landed, sudden and unannounced, and with a deep sense of aching need.
If I had trust, maybe I could just let myself fall for him, let myself really look at what this thing going on between us was.
Maybe it was nothing at all, but my fear never even let me look at it head-on.
The conversation didn’t go any further and I was left with no insight into Mum’s situation.
‘I need to go, okay? This goddamn lion’s head thing isn’t working.’ Ebony’s playfulness had been replaced with genuine frustration and I wished I was there to help. I had no clue how she managed all this on her own; just being on the other end of the phone felt exhausting.
I tried to recover the conversation by saying how much I was looking forward to seeing her, but her goodbye was cool.