Chapter 5 #2
It is more of a furious stomp around the perimeter of our block, two acres, a loooong fence, the sun’s heat fading my last remaining energy like plastic, turning me brittle and sharp.
At the furthest point from the house, the very back corner of the block behind the lily pillies that have been planted to offer everyone a bit of privacy, something shifts.
The air lightens, or the sun fades, or I start to feel like a human for a second, finally.
I climb up to sit on the railing of the fence and try to hold this moment of okayness in my soul.
Dr Montague talks of finding glimmers – tiny moments of joy that present themselves each and every day that we can focus on.
‘Glimmer’ is not achievable as imagery for me right now, it is too ostentatious, but ‘okayness’ is not bad.
Sure, it lacks a visual element, but I can create that.
Let’s see – ‘okayness’ is a basalt rock.
That will work. It is there, it is doing its thing, it is better than feeling like a watermelon being squeezed in one of those compressor things that people seem to enjoy filming in slow motion.
Basalt may not be pretty, or sparkly, or even particularly positive, but it could not be squeezed like that either.
I close my eyes and will time to stop. Or at least my heart rate to return to a normal state.
Fight or flight has carried me for so many years, it will take some time to convince it that I am okay to handle some things by myself.
More than anything, I wish I had someone to talk to about this, someone who isn’t a blood relation or a random person on a Reddit page.
Someone in the middle of those two extremes would be nice, which I suppose is probably a friend.
Or a psychologist, but Dr Montague needs to write back first, so in the meantime I suppose, yes, I do mean a friend. Bit short on those, unfortunately.
A car engine starts up and my body overreacts.
It takes all my effort to maintain balance on the fence, hooking my ankles in behind the wooden panelling to stabilise myself in lieu of any core muscles.
Across the lawn, I see a white car I don’t recognise, pulling out of the Baileys’ driveway, with a side profile I do see through the driver’s-side window.
I would recognise those dimples anywhere.
My stomach clenches. It is a flash, before the tyres spin and the car takes off with a jolt, confirming it is certainly, most definitely him.
He has never been good at driving manual.
I wonder if he has cut his hair, or if it is just tied back.
I wonder if his nose is covered in the freckles that usually bloom there this time of year.
I wonder if those sunglasses are new. I wonder where he is going, who he is seeing, how he is feeling.
I wonder whether my not wondering these things sooner is what allowed it to become too late.
This is something that might happen, I am realising, when things get too much.
My focus narrows. People slip outside my field of view, and it is as though they have fallen off the edge of the world.
When Fran first met Luke, it began to feel as though I was watching my favourite person in the world become someone who, in the not-too-distant future, might remember to say hello to me when he passed through the house, on his way to visit the obviously more appealing sibling.
A nightmare in slow motion, the kind that made me want to kick and scream at Luke to STAY AWAY FROM MY FRIEND.
He had enough of his own – too many if you asked me.
And what a sixteen-year-old was doing spending time with a twelve-year-old was beyond me, because Luke always treated me like a baby and I was almost thirteen by then, but I suppose age did not matter much when you wanted to kick a soccer ball from one end of the garden to the other.
I could have been his twin and I would have failed that test just the same.
Still, it made my chest constrict whenever I saw them interact.
Scarcity worked in my favour and Luke needed to not be around.
All of my attention was focused on sustaining Fran’s by this stage.
I thought of little else; everything happened through the prism of what Fran might think or how he might feel.
It was an all-consuming platonic obsession, the intensity of which easily overpowered my young mind.
My focus had never applied itself to a real-life person before; I was uncovering magic without grasping the potential dangers of its power.
None of this was Luke’s fault. And luckily, he was often gone, doing things sixteen-year-olds do, like working and exercising and riding shotgun to the beach with his one friend who had their licence.
Fran did not seem disappointed when Luke was absent, but I felt as though it was a feeling he worked hard to hide from me.
He was protecting my fragile heart, surely, even as he stomped all over it.
‘Do you like Luke more than me?’ I asked one afternoon when we were in our tree.
The air was dense, and we were lounging like monkeys, eating fruit and throwing leaves to watch them scatter like confetti.
Fran had been quiet and so I assumed that quiet was not only because of me but directed at me for not being my brother.
When it came to his actions, or lack thereof, I could follow a narrative so far along in my mind that being drawn back to reality gave me whiplash.
‘No,’ he replied, his complete lack of elaboration only confirming my fears.
I tried to hold my breath, as though breathing would draw feelings from my stomach to my face, and must therefore be avoided if I wished to be inconspicuous in my despair.
Unfortunately, flushed cheeks were the outcome of either option.
Eventually I had to take a huge gulp of air and Fran turned his head in surprise.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
I nodded, but my opened blood vessels and inability to breathe like a normal person had given the game away.
‘I like him more than my own brother, Rah. That’s all,’ he said.
I should have asked him more about it, or consoled him about his crappy, mean brother.
From what little I had seen and learned of Martin, his communication with Fran was limited to frequent threats of physical violence, and periodic enaction of said violence.
He was hulking and unkind. But instead, I swam in the reassurance and thought only of myself; of Fran through the lens of how he viewed me, rather than what he might be experiencing within himself at any given moment – I am repulsed by that thought, knowing it to be true.
I wonder if the same could be said of Luke.
My easiest memories to recall of Luke are ones like this, where I have felt outdone by him, despite his minimal participation in the scene.
My perception, my feelings; he is barely a ghost. I struggle to remember many times when Luke and I were alone, together, and this makes me think these were scarce.
Perhaps seeing him will bring more to the surface, because surely there are more experiences, shared experiences, from our time growing up together in this house.
Low self-esteem, Elsie said he had, but where was the evidence?
I pan the waters until I get a flash of him, no older than ten, crying in the kitchen because he had come off his bike and grazed his leg from ankle to thigh on the gravel road between the local park and our house.
He was really crying – small shoulders shaking, snot streaming, wails that sounded like the last cries of an ending world.
‘Come on now, calm down, you’re fine, you don’t want your father to see you like this when he gets home,’ Mum said, searching the cupboard for the first-aid kit that contained bandages and antiseptic cream.
‘You’re a big boy, Lukey, you’re okay. You’re a tough kid, aren’t you? Stop crying, you’re okay.’
Olivia and I watched from the living room, shocked into silence by our indestructible brother’s emotional moment of undoing.
It scared me, I remember; it made me avoid bike-riding and venturing anywhere near that road or that park for a long time.
To try to take away the lens of my perception, I can also accept there was a difference in the way our crying was treated in this house – mine an inconvenience, sure; attention-seeking, dramatic, but almost expected; whereas Luke’s was perhaps more distinctly disallowed.
He must have taken that on, it must have contributed to his own view of things.
It was not as though Mum had told him directly: boys don’t cry.
She was not a caricature, or a movie villain.
She loved him, she wanted to console him, to calm him, to make sure he was okay.
She hugged him and bandaged him up well.
But still, the implication was there. Different players, a different field.
And Luke, I am sure, adapted the best way he knew how.