CHAPTER 46
‘I’m fine!’ I cry, pre-empting their concern as I fall onto one of the wingback chairs. I knock over the lamp on my way down, but to my extreme mortification, no one even laughs.
I push my palms into my eye sockets. I just need a moment. Or a million moments. Maybe a year. Or another six.
My voice is tiny when I finally manage to speak. ‘Am I the last to find out?’
‘It’s very new,’ says Dad quietly.
Jessie crouches in front of the chair and her hands find mine. ‘Dad wanted to tell us all together but I’d suspected for a while, so I asked him outright a few weeks ago.’
Maxy perches on the arm of the chair. ‘I call Dad most night shifts when it’s quiet, so I worked it out pretty quickly. He’s not the most cunning of blokes.’
‘And you didn’t want to tell me?’ I can’t meet Dad’s eye.
Dad perches on the other edge of the wingback chair and his hand lands on my shoulder. He smells like the OMO that comes in the giant blue box, which brings even more feelings to the surface: he’s still buying Mum’s favourite laundry powder. ‘Oh Mill,’ he says. ‘Of course I did. It’s just …’
‘What? You thought I couldn’t handle it? You thought I’d lose my shit?’ (Noting I fully recognise that I just broke a lamp and am now hyperventilating about laundry powder.)
Dad’s voice is quiet. ‘I wanted to protect you, Mill. We know how hard you’ve been working, and we didn’t want to create a distraction for you.’
I know Dad having a girlfriend is not the end of the world.
He’s mourned, he’s lived alone, he deserves some companionship, but I can’t help the way my intestines feel like they’re being turned inside out.
This is why I’ve spent six years planning and anticipating: so I don’t have to deal with feelings that roll in like dust storms and leave me gasping for air.
Dad pulls me to his chest and I plant my face on it, trying to soak up his goodness as guilt skewers my stomach. My family still don’t know I betrayed them in the worst possible way.
Dad’s voice is soft as I lean into him. ‘No one’s expecting you to be instantly okay with this, Mill. If you’re uncomfortable, I can ask Alex to leave and she can pop over another time when you’re ready.’
‘No,’ I say, pulling away and rubbing semi-circles under my eyes with my shirtsleeve. ‘I’m fine. I’m sorry I’m crying, I hate doing this to you guys.’
Jessie’s hand rests on my shoulder. ‘You don’t have to apologise, Mill. No one is worried by you crying.’
I wipe the heels of my hands over my eyes. ‘Okay, so let’s pretend this never happened, and if Alex asks, I have bad hayfever.’ I try to stand up but I’m barricaded in by three above-average-height humans. ‘Jess, can you please move?’
Jessie, Dad and Maxy share a look, then Dad takes a deep breath.
‘Mill, this is probably not the right time but …’ He pauses, and an alarm bell sounds somewhere deep in my subconscious.
As if in slow motion, I see the bob of his Adam’s apple.
He’s opening his mouth. I know what he’s going to say and I don’t want to hear it but I don’t know how to make him stop.
‘We want to talk to you about Mum,’ he says.
The sound that comes from my mouth is half-shriek, half-laugh. Nope, nope, nope. I am not talking about this.
‘I’m fine!’ I say, in a higher voice than I’d intended.
‘I just got a bit overwhelmed about the Alex thing, but I can see now that I was being a massive drama queen, and seriously, Alex seems great. I’m judging her from the quality of the footstool you made, because I haven’t said one word to her yet, but if you like her, I like her, Dad.
I’m on board!’ (I’m obviously not—yet—but I could be one day.
This is my only positive personality trait: perseverance.
I will say the things until I believe the things. Dream, believe, achieve!)
I bark out a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ I insist. ‘Keep calm and carry on. Where’s the potato salad? Do you need me to make the dressing?’ I try to stand up again, imagining how I might do some kind of Fosbury flop over Jessie, but Maxy gently forces me back into the chair.
‘Ha,’ I laugh. ‘Nice try.’ I stand up—successfully this time—and push past them, but Maxy’s Go-Go Gadget arm stretches out to catch me.
‘Nice try yourself,’ he says. There’s a smile in his voice but I can’t look at him, because I can feel more stupid tears welling behind my eyes.
Suddenly my face is being crushed against his shoulder, his arms are looping around me, and it’s different from the Dad hug.
Dad’s hugs are souvenirs from childhood, warm and comforting like buttery toast with strawberry jam.
This, on the other hand, is unfamiliar. Maxy and I don’t hug.
We playfully punch each other in the arm like we’re testing the air pressure.
We flick each other’s upper ears and steal hot chips off each other’s plates.
We show our love through DM-ing ferret memes.
We only hug when shit gets really, really real, and we haven’t hugged since the time when we couldn’t stand on our own two feet, so we hugged each other to keep ourselves from falling down, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever known.
Worse than seeing the hospital bed in our living room and the pill bottles on the coffee table.
Worse than holding that fragile, spidery-fingered hand that bore no resemblance to the one that used to slice a serve across the court with just enough topspin to tangle your legs like spaghetti.
By the time Maxy and I were hugging, everything had gone to shit. Mum was already a memory.
‘Mill, we’re trying to talk to you,’ he murmurs.
I disentangle myself and aim for an air of calm and grateful understanding. ‘Thanks Maxy, but I’m all good.’ I turn around. ‘Thanks Dad, thanks Jessie, but I am A-OK. Please don’t stress about me.’
‘Mill, you’re not okay,’ says Jessie, standing up. ‘You’ve never cried!’
‘Of course I have!’ I insist. ‘I’m crying right now! I cry every time the Premier’s office calls on a Sunday night to ask for urgent talking points. I cry at spin class! I cried when Archie … oh well, don’t worry,’ I mutter shaking my head. ‘The point is, I cry all the bloody time. And I’m fine.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Jessie insists.
‘No, I don’t!’ I lie desperately. Can we please not have this conversation when Dad’s not-male-friend-but-actual-love-interest-slash-POSSIBLY-MY-FUTURE-STEP-MOTHER is outside on the deck?
‘It’s been six years,’ Dad says, standing next to Jessie. His eyes are so heavy with sadness, it feels like another truckload of guilt has been dumped on my head.
‘I know!’ I yelp. Can they just leave me alone? They’re making this bigger than it needs to be. I am fine. They are fine. We’re all fine. Well, apart from Mum, who had her life ripped apart by fucking cancer—but apart from that WE ARE ALL GOOD.
‘Mill, you need to deal with what happened to Mum,’ says Maxy.
He stands next to Jessie, and it’s a wall of Hattons. The good Hattons. I suddenly wish woman-Alex would appear with the wine and break up this ambush. ‘You don’t need to always pretend everything is fine,’ Maxy says.
Jessie adds, ‘You can’t keep working so hard to avoid what happened.’
‘You’re burning out,’ agrees Dad.
Maxy’s voice is tiny. ‘We’re worried about you, Mill.’
My own voice—when I hear it—is not mine.
It’s an animal. A pterodactyl. A shrieking cyclops, or something else subhuman.
It terrifies me, because it’s been inside me all this time—for six years—and I’ve never wanted it to get out.
I’ve tried to ignore it for six years, hoping that if I stuck my head down and tried my hardest, everything would go back to normal.
But that can never happen, because normal is Mum.
Normal is Mum. Normal is Mum. And she’s never coming back.
‘DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME!’ I scream. ‘I don’t deserve it!
I don’t deserve your pity. It’s my fault Mum’s not here!
I could have saved her, but …’ A giant pain cracks me in half and I stumble backwards until I crumple against the bookcase.
‘I let her die.’ I sink onto the floor, as if the reality in my conscience has toppled me.
Dad’s callused hand grabs mine. He crouches beside me. ‘Mill, what do you mean?’
His eyes flit across my face, searching for clues, and I realise that I can’t take it back now.
I have to tell them the secret I’ve been hiding for six years, even though they’ll never speak to me again once I do.
I’ll have lost everyone I ever loved and I’ll die alone after spending my life working for a narcissist to get just enough money to afford rent on a matchbox-sized apartment.
I sigh, staring at my feet. ‘It’s because I was too lazy, just like Mum always said.’
‘Mum never said that,’ says Jessie, sinking down next to me.
‘You could have picked up the pace,’ I mimic. ‘You’re distractable, you’re careless.’
‘Oh Mill,’ says Maxy, crouching next to us. ‘You got distracted because you cared. I think you’re literally the only person who ever cried after being crowned age champion because they felt bad for beating the opponent.’
‘But Mum never criticised you guys the way she criticised me.’ I realise I sound like a petulant child, but that’s how I feel: like a kid who could never understand why she wasn’t good enough.
Jessie gives a rueful smile. ‘That’s because Mum knew how to get the best out of you. Some people are motivated by praise, some are motivated by challenges, but you’re motivated by both. Mum never thought you were lazy.’
I look up to meet her eyes and she nods.
Dad and Maxy do the same. I think of all the times Boss told me I was his secret weapon, and how I worked harder to impress him every time he raised the bar.
I think of all the times Mum told me my smash shots were awesome, and then one day she mentioned I wasn’t hitting them as hard: I came back to the courts after the tea break and broke three strings on my racquet.
I think of all the times Archie sniffed out a scoop about Boss, and I ran myself into the ground trying to outwit him.
‘You think so?’ I ask quietly.
‘I know so,’ says Dad. ‘We talked about it all the time. She was so proud of all you kids. She loved you all so much.’
My chest is heaving with dry sobs. It’s like as soon as someone mentions Mum, my body reacts on behalf of my conscience, sucking all the tears back into a sand-blasted desert of regret.
My sadness is so deep I could fill an ocean and the Mississippi with salty tears, but my body knows that’s a luxury I don’t deserve.
I take a deep breath. ‘It’s still my fault,’ I repeat, rubbing my eyes. They’re prickling and sore, like I’ve just binged too much TV.
‘How can it be your fault?’ asks Jessie softly. ‘Mum had cancer, Mill. There was nothing we could do.’
I swallow hard. There are no words to convey the shame, the sadness, the guilt. It feels like the cornerstone of my existence. I guilt, therefore I work. I guilt, therefore I am.
I can’t imagine a life without this gnawing anxiety in the back of my brain, somewhere behind my left ear, as pervasive as tinnitus, ringing constantly, sometimes a hum, sometimes a din, reminding me every day that I stuffed up and nothing can fix it.
I stole my mother from my siblings. I stole a wife from my dad.
I stole a tennis coach from thousands of unsuspecting kids with freckles on their noses and grass stains on their shorts.
I was so lazy and careless that I ruined it for all of us.
I can’t say this in words, so I haul myself up, stride over to the wall and pull a framed photo off its hook: three kids in neon cossies wrapped in the arms of two beautiful parents, the colours of Wet’n’Wild like a carnival behind us.
I pull the backing off the frame.