Chapter 2
2 July 2023
Scott:
I wish you hadn’t left last night. I love you.
Scott:
Will you call me before you leave today?
Scott:
Brynn? You there princess?
Scott:
You do realise I can see you’re reading these messages don’t you?
Scott:
Geez Brynn, Jacq was right, you’re so sensitive.
Scott:
You embarrassed me in front of my friends.
Scott:
My friends. Not yours. Don’t forget that. You’re going to come back to Brisbane with no friends.
‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t do this,’ I say, closing WhatsApp and slipping the phone into the front pocket of my backpack. My stomach churns and for the first time I can’t tell if it’s because of Scott’s messages or the fact that I’m about to move to the other side of the world.
‘Bit late now, mate,’ Chris says, indicating and driving around the roundabout.
‘Nah, I can turn around any time before they shut the plane door.’ But even as the words come out of my mouth, I think about what I’d have to deal with if I stayed home. On autopilot, I open my travel wallet and check for the thousandth time that my passport and documents are safely nestled inside.
‘How are you two going to cope without me for a year and a half?’ I ask, imagining my little brother Matty’s Milo not being made in the precise way he likes it, Chris not eating a proper breakfast. Tomorrow will be the first Monday in over a year when I haven’t been the one to wake Matty, find his clothes, make his breakfast, and help him get ready for school.
‘We’ll be fine, won’t we, Matty? Us boys will look after each other, right?’ Chris says, glancing in the rear-view mirror.
‘Yeah!’ Matty cheers from his car seat and I turn around to see him pump his little fist in the air. ‘Boy time.’
‘Well, you boys better not forget that it’s superhero day at school on Friday and Matty’ll need a gold coin donation. I washed his Spider-Man costume—it’s hanging on the drying rack in the shed, but if he decides to be Batman, the costume should be in his wardrobe. Oh, and Henry’s got a vet appointment on Saturday morning. He’s going to need a new script for his ear drops ...’
My voice hitches on Henry’s name. Only twenty minutes ago, while Chris was muscling my luggage into the car, I held his fluffy little white body in my arms and peppered his fur with kisses. He was impatient with the affection, as always. Mum was the only one who the little Westie—our runt of the litter rescue dog—had gone to for cuddles: he just tolerated my love.
Chris reaches out and puts a hand over mine. ‘Brynn, we’ll be okay, I promise.’
We clamber out of the car, and I unbuckle Matty from his seat for the last time and help him put on his ever-present Batman backpack full of his ‘special things’, while Chris unloads the boot.
Thanks to Chris being paranoid that I’d be running on Murri time, we’re hours early and there’s only a few people ahead of me in the line to check in. I stand with Chris and Matty, nervously checking documents over and over until Chris tells me to relax.
‘You haven’t forgotten anything, I promise,’ he says in his calm, deep voice.
I tuck the wallet under my arm and squeeze Matty’s hand.
‘Wow, look at the towers,’ Matty says, and I follow his gaze to see a super-skinny white girl wearing enormous black sunglasses and a very, very short skirt, walking up to the counter right in front of where we’re standing. It takes me a second to understand that the ‘towers’ Matty means are her extremely high silver stiletto heels.
Behind her, a man dressed in a suit wheels an airport trolley stacked with Louis Vuitton suitcases to the desk and starts unloading them. The attendant, a woman with pale skin, rosy, over-blushed cheeks and bleach-blonde hair, gives the girl a wide smile and compliments her on the beautiful luggage. The girl looks bored and gives one-word answers in an American accent that reminds me of Paris Hilton. I wonder, just for a second, if it is Paris, before realising that there’s no way she’d have to check in to the Qantas counter with the plebs.
‘Do I need to pay for the excess baggage?’ the girl asks. ‘I wouldn’t normally carry so much, but I’ve done a little bit of shopping while I’ve been here.’
‘How do you do a wee on the plane?’ Matty asks, tugging at my hand and distracting me from the girl.
‘They have toilets, silly,’ I say before turning my attention back to the desk. I’ve missed the attendant’s answer. Disappointing. I wonder how much it costs to take five full-sized suitcases on board. Transaction finished, the girl walks off towards the restaurant, rolling a smaller suitcase in matching brown and gold Louis Vuitton print, and carrying a huge pink tote bag.
The line shuffles along and Matty asks more questions about the plane, until finally we’re called to a desk. It’s the one with the bleach blonde attendant who had served the rich girl a few minutes earlier.
‘Where are you travelling?’ she asks, looking at Chris even though I’m the one standing at the counter with a passport and a printed Flight Centre itinerary.
‘New York,’ I say. ‘Well, LA first, but then on to New York.’ I hand over my passport.
She glances at the three of us, and I bristle at the obvious difference in her attitude to the snooty girl and us.
‘Are you travelling alone, Miss Wallace?’ she says, looking down her nose at Matty first and then Chris. Matty is gripping the straps of his backpack and looking up at her and I can see how he’d be mistaken for a traveller.
‘Yes, just me.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to wait over there,’ she points back to the end of the row. ‘Only travellers in the queue.’
I can’t see what the problem is—it’s not like the line is past customs—but Chris smiles, lifts my suitcase onto the scales and takes Matty’s hand. ‘We’ll go and order some breakfast.’
The attendant gets to work typing things into the computer and tagging the case before it disappears down the conveyer belt. Once it’s gone, I think she’s going to hand me my ticket and give me instructions for finding the gate, but she looks at the carry-on. ‘I’ll need to weigh that. And your backpack,’ she says.
‘Oh, they’re fine,’ I say, trying to straighten my shoulders underneath the backpack’s weight. ‘Definitely underweight,’ I lie.
‘I’m sure they are, Miss Wallace,’ she says, though her pinched expression says otherwise. ‘But I’ve got to check.’
I slide the backpack off and put it on the scale, feeling triumphant as it comes in underweight.
‘And that one,’ she says, eyeing the suitcase.
It takes some effort to put it on the scale and, combined with the backpack, it comes in over cabin allowance. Shit.
‘It’s books,’ I say. ‘I’m going to New York to be an editor. I need my books.’
There’s a rumour that if you have a good excuse and act nice and needy that they’ll let you pass. Five extra kilos are nothing, especially not compared to all those bags the other girl had before.
‘Well, you’ve got to get rid of five kilos’ worth or they’ll make you check the case and pay excess baggage at the gate,’ she says. Clearly, I’m not nice or needy enough for this one. I think back to the way she dismissed Chris and something twigs. Maybe it’s less about being friendly and more about being too Blak.
‘What? Now? I’m supposed to just ...’ I gesture at the ground and contemplate spilling out the contents of the case, which includes more than just books. There’s at least a week’s worth of clothes and toiletries in there too because Nan lectured me about lost bags and getting caught without spare undies. I don’t fancy sorting out knickers from editing handbooks on the floor of Brisbane Airport.
‘No, you can do it wherever, you’ve just got to do it before you get on the plane. The newsagent has boxes and stamps in case you want to post your books to your address in the US.’ Her nose wrinkles as though ‘books’ is a dirty word. ‘Or you could just put them in the bin and buy new ones over there.’ I was never going to win this one.
I scoff. It’s more likely that I’ll ditch the undies in favour of the books, but five pairs of black Kmart brand pants won’t even save one book. Even if they are the giant high-waisted granny ones.
I thank her and huff my way to the food court, where Chris has found us a table and ordered enormous mugs of coffee and a glass of juice for Matty.
‘Your breakfast is on its way,’ he says, gesturing at the plastic number at the centre of the table. ‘I got you a big one since the food on the plane is gonna be terrible.’
‘Thanks,’ I mutter, slumping into the chair.
‘What’s up?’ he asks, clocking my unusual lack of interest in the food.
‘Oh nothing, just that thanks to that cudgerie at the counter, I’ve got to get rid of five kilos worth of stuff from my carry-on or they won’t let me on the plane,’ I say. ‘Maybe I should give up and we could go back home?’
Chris is already out of his seat, crouching on the ground next to the red case. ‘What did I tell you about giving up?’ he says. ‘Now, what’s in here? Far too many books, if I know you.’
I bristle. ‘There’s not one book in there I don’t need.’
He holds one out. ‘ The Baby-Sitters Club: New York, New York ?’
I snatch the battered softcover Super Special from his hands. ‘It’s practically a Lonely Planet guide,’ I say, thumbing the cover. ‘No way am I moving to New York without it.’
‘ The Australian Government Style Manual ?’ he says, pulling out the big book. ‘Brynn, I know this is for editing, but even dropped-out-of-year-twelve me knows that you won’t need it in America. Plus, there’s this magical thing called Google. You should try it some time.’
He’s right, of course, but I took my editing lecturer seriously when she told me style manuals were akin to the Bible. I’d never given the actual Bible much credit, but this one’s full of instructions and rules on how words should be used. Surely some will translate to American English?
‘Don’t diss the style manual until you’ve had to fight with your boss about whether a hyphen is equal to an em dash,’ I say, grabbing it off him and hugging it to my chest.
‘But do you need it? It’s got to weigh at least ...’ he snatches it off me and passes it back and forth between his hands, ‘... a kilo? Maybe even one and a half?’
‘But it’s full of annotations. Look,’ I tilt the book at him so he can see the Post-its flagging pages where I’ve marked important things from my editing lectures.
He keeps digging through my case and I leap when I see at least two pairs of undies dislodge from where I’ve rolled them between books. ‘Chris, do you think maybe it’s not appropriate for a stepdad to search his adult stepdaughter’s suitcase?’
He ignores me. ‘Brynn Wallace, if that dictionary is in here ...’
‘It’s not,’ I gloat, clambering to rescue my knickers from the airport floor. But I don’t tell him that I did have a serious moment at two this morning where I’d considered packing the two-and-a-half kilo Oxford English Dictionary that Mum had bought me when I started uni.
In the end, I let Chris remove the Style Manual, two novels, a bunch of old Overland magazines, and three hardcover notebooks. He stacks them in front of himself on the table and then returns to his coffee as our breakfast arrives.
‘What if I get through customs and the bag’s still overweight?’ I ask through a mouthful of eggs and toast.
‘Then you’ll have to give them your Baby-Sitters Club books,’ he says with a grin.
‘Book. Singular. There’s one. You saw it.’
‘Yes, I saw one . We didn’t even start going through your backpack.’
My mind goes straight to Stacey’s Mistake and Welcome Back, Stacey! —two more seminal BSC books set in New York—which I hope are nestled safely between my laptop, folder of freshly printed resumés and extra visa documents.
‘She’s got two in her backpack,’ Matty chirps. ‘I saw her pack them yesterday.’
‘Dobber,’ I say, shooting him a look.
‘Am not.’ He pokes his tongue out.
Just as I’m about to come at him for being cheeky, the enormity of what I’m going to do hits me and my breath catches. How am I supposed to get by without this bub taunting me every single day? He’s five now and when I get home in eighteen months, he’ll be almost seven. That’s a lifetime in kid years. I sob and burst into tears.
‘Brynn, don’t cry,’ he says, climbing down off his seat and into my lap. He wraps his little arms around my neck and squeezes. The tears fall heavier.
‘I’m sorry, buddy, I’m just thinking about how grown you gonna be by the time I get home.’
‘I’m already grown,’ he says, letting go and jumping back into his seat, puffing his chest out. ‘Mumma told me I was a big man, don’t ya ’member?’
I laugh at this image of this little brown-skinned boy calling himself a grown man, but then I start crying again when I think about how when he is actually grown, Mum’s not going to be here to see that.
Chris passes a tissue and I wipe my eyes and kiss Matty on the forehead. ‘You are a big man,’ I say. ‘You gotta look after your dad and Henry for me while I’m gone, okay?’
He nods. ‘Walk Henry every day after school, give him his dinner and make him practise his tricks.’
‘And make sure Dad eats his breakfast before he goes to work. And that he does the dishes.’
‘Oi, I do the dishes,’ Chris says. ‘And what about telling the big fulla here to pick up his clothes off the bathroom floor and keep his toys tidy?’
‘That’s your job, Daddy,’ Matty grins.
Matty picks at his breakfast in silence for a few minutes and I cringe as he spills baked beans down his shirt. I reach for my handbag for wipes, but then realise I’ve only got my backpack, not the giant totebag that I usually carry, which is full of the wipes and spare clothes and snacks that we always need when we’re out as a family. By the time I’ve realised, Chris’s produced a wipe from his backpack and is scooping off the mess.
‘I’m not saying we don’t need you,’ he says as he wipes Matty’s face. ‘Because we do. But we will also be okay.’
I look down at my breakfast. I’d be lying if I didn’t worry that without Mum, there wouldn’t be a place for me with Chris and Matty. But Chris has always made me feel like I belong and I love him for that. His words smooth over some of my anxieties: not just the fear that they won’t cope without me, but the one where they prefer it being just the two of them.
‘I know,’ I say, biting my lip. ‘Thank you.’
‘So, how were your drinks last night? You must have had a good time—you were later home than I expected.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Don’t ask. Jacq organised this whole big surprise party at her mum’s. Didn’t Aunty Barb tell you?’
‘Nah bub, I haven’t spoken to Barb in a few days. So, was it fun?’
‘Sort of,’ I say, not wanting to get into the whole Scott thing. Chris and I are closer than average but all he knew was that Scott and I had broken up after the funeral. ‘It was okay and then Jacq did something ... lousy. We had a fight, Aunty Barb brought me and Bridie home. That was it.’
He frowns. ‘You and Jacq fought on your last night? That’s no good.’
I shrug. ‘I guess.’
‘You should text her before you get on the plane,’ he says. ‘Not good to leave it on a bad note when you’re away for so long and you girls have been friends since primary school.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say. But also, I can’t help but think I should have let Jacq go when I let Scott go.
He doesn’t push, and we spend the rest of our time chatting as though we’re just out for family breakfast instead of saying goodbye for the next eighteen months. After a while, I can tell that Matty is getting restless and bored.
‘You two should go,’ I say. ‘Henry will be barking his face off and the neighbours won’t be impressed with their Sunday sleep-in being ruined.’
‘Are you sure?’
I nod. ‘Yeah, you won’t be able to see me get on the plane anyway, and I should check in this bag and try to get through customs sooner rather than later.’ I look at Matty. ‘Take your dad home and give Henry a hug for me.’
Together we walk to the yellow archway that leads down into the customs area. A sick feeling churns in my stomach as Matty holds my hand and skips along; the fact that I won’t be home with them for a long time hasn’t sunk in for him. I don’t want to say goodbye.
I crouch down to his level and hug him. ‘You are a big strong warrior man. But you can ask Daddy to call me whenever you want to talk.’
‘Love you, Brynny-Boo,’ he says, kissing me with his sloppy, baked bean lips.
‘Love you too, Matty-Moo.’
When Chris hugs me, he whispers something in his mob’s language in my ear. I got no more than hello in my mob’s words, but there’s something about spoken language that settles in my heart and makes me feel safe.
‘Go well, my daughter,’ he says, prompting fresh tears, but also a sense of calmness.
‘Love you, Dad.’ It’s the first time in eight years I’ve called him Dad and I don’t want to stick around to see his reaction.
‘See you in a year,’ I whisper, backing away from them quickly.
I head to the escalator, leaving Chris and Matty—my home—behind.