Chapter 22
MORNING
The sun rose slowly all at once, lifting the hospital room high into the air over Cairns.
Ronnie watched Nev watch the sunrise over the ocean from the floor-to-ceiling window.
She couldn’t see it from the bed, but could tell by her friend’s expression that it must be magnificent.
Ronnie couldn’t be bothered to move—the most recent diagnosis was low blood pressure and anemia.
“I’m off for a walk in the park,” Nev announced. “Need anything?”
“A winning lotto ticket?”
Nev reappeared later carrying a cup of coffee, then walked over to the window and gazed out at the Pacific again. It held power over her, more than a casual interest.
“Have you ever lived on the coast?” Ronnie asked.
Nev nodded.
“How was the park?”
“Nice. I see why people live here.” Nev continued staring out the window at the ocean.
“Anything interesting?”
“A fleet of scuba dive boats preparing to ferry tourists out to the reef.” The Great Barrier Reef. “Have you been?” Nev asked.
When she shook her head, Nev did too, which surprised her, because she thought Nev had been everywhere. “Gunni’s been a few times.” Nev stretched, then took the chair closest to the bed. Her voice softened. “How are you feeling? Knackered?”
Ronnie decided that was an accurate description. Nev touched her head, then gently pulled her hair. It took her a moment to realize that her friend was brushing her hair.
“That feels nice.”
She went back to sleep, or what counted as sleep here. Nev would be the only one of her visitors to remember to bring a hairbrush. Nev thought of everything.
The bed inflated and deflated, making a noise like a washing machine. Cuffs on her legs did the same, squeezing, forcing blood through her heart and lungs, simulating life. Her feet and ankles looked like they belonged to someone else. The doctor called it edema, swelling from surgery.
“When was the last time you brushed your hair?” Nev asked.
Good question. “Maybe in school.” No, that wasn’t true, it was mandatory in the place down near Brissie. Everything there had to be tidy for daily inspection, like in the military.
“I run my fingers through it every few days.” Her curls had broken every brush anyway.
“When I’m in New Zealand this weekend with Gunni, Blaise will wash your hair.”
“Do you always think of everything?”
“Yes.”
The ice packs on her stomach felt nice. Nothing to do now but sleep and wait for her body to heal itself. Full system reset. Unplug it and plug it back in.
“Not much petrol in your tank.” Nev tactfully didn’t mention the recovering from a c-section handout on the bedside table.
That wasn’t exactly the surgery she had, but someone here thought it was close enough.
The pamphlet said, ‘Five days in the bed, five days on the bed, five days near the bed.’ Mattie and Reg had both read it to her when they were alone with her.
Nev had a thing about blood. One time when Rainbow was four, Rainbow cut her head falling off the monkey bars Nev built for her at the farm.
Nev had run indoors to fetch a damp towel.
While Ronnie cleaned Rainbow’s face, Nev had been sick into one of two Japanese urns in the kitchen garden.
The urn had been too heavy to tip onto its side and too deep to flush out with the hose.
Ronnie licked dry lips, stomach full of painkillers and apple juice, suspecting she might be sick again but hoping the nausea would pass. “Remember the time you chundered in the Japanese urn?”
“Hard to forget.”
“Did you ever clean it out? Or just throw dirt in there and call it good?”
Nev chuckled. “Worms don’t know the difference.”
True. Judging by the sudden warmth between her legs that slowly turned cold, Ronnie suspected she had bled through another pair of maternity underwear. Nurses had taken the catheter out earlier and she hadn’t forgiven them yet.
Two nurses appeared, undid the leg cuffs and set them aside, then moved everything off Ronnie’s lap. She tried to help.
Linoleum was cold under her feet but she couldn’t feel her toes.
She pressed a pillow to her incision the way the nurses instructed her, then eased more weight onto her left foot. She couldn’t feel whether her right foot came off the ground. Still numb, then. Not a good show. The room spun.
Her center of gravity was off. Getting up had been a terrible idea. The nurses were patient. “Good job. Now move your left foot.” She leaned to the right. Her left foot didn’t come off the ground.
She swore. The women in pink scrubs appeared unconcerned.
“Relax. Deep breaths,” one said. Her scrubs had alphabet blocks and teddy bears on them.
“Don’t be tense,” the other warned. Her scrubs had baby bottles and pacifiers.
A wheelchair appeared at her hip. Lowering herself down by the armrests strained her back, which spasmed, making her freeze despite her best intentions. “Ahhh, ahhh, ahh…” She couldn’t be bothered to feel embarrassed.
“You’re doing beautifully! You can do this!” alphabet blocks said. “You’re already doing heaps better than you were yesterday!” Baby bottles pushed the chair into the bathroom.
She couldn’t remember their names or faces—the nurses all blurred together into a laundry list of patterned scrubs. Kind, helpful people she would never see again.
In the other room, Nev said something about a transfusion.
The only bad thing about the blood IV dripping into her arm for four hours was that a nurse had to sit by the bed and watch the numbers on the machines for the first fifteen minutes. Ronnie wouldn’t mind that if she was alone, but she could tell it made Nev uncomfortable.
The nurse stopped Nev from reading the bag. “Can I help you?”
“Whose blood is this?”
The nurse blinked. “We don’t keep track of that.”
“Yes, you do.”
Bleeding into post-partum underwear that felt like a diaper under white hospital blankets, she watched Nev google the sea chantey festival in Christchurch. Nev remained trapped in the visitor chair across from the nurse because Ronnie wouldn’t let go of her hand.
Images of Christchurch slid across Nev’s dirty laptop screen. Ronnie had forgotten that her bandmates had plans to perform at a sea chantey festival in New Zealand that weekend.
When the doctor on call stopped by on her morning rounds, Nev stepped out into the hall.
“Questions?” the doctor asked.
Ronnie didn’t have the energy to lift her head. “When can I play footy again?”
“After your eight-week check-up, if everything’s healing.”
“When can I ride a horse?”
“Same.”
“What about work?”
“What do you do?”
“Farming and coaching football.”
“You’ll likely be able to return to coaching after a month, but take the full eight weeks off your manual labor job.”
There went footy season. The primary school in Atherton must have noticed by now that she wasn’t coming to work. She could call them today, had to try to remember. Maybe the fact that they hadn’t called her meant that someone had called them already.
When the doctor left the room, Nev returned with Mattie.
She was relieved to see them, a little surprised that they were both still here. She pressed the down arrow on the remote that controlled the incline of the bed. “Did anyone call the school?”
Mattie leaned over the bed to kiss her on the forehead. “Dad did.” Of course.
“Tell him I said thanks.”
“Tell him yourself.” Mattie felt her temperature. His palm was hot. “How did you sleep? You’re looking better. Your lips aren’t blue anymore.”
“How’s Rainbow? Has anyone talked to her?” she asked, feeling guilty that she hadn’t asked earlier.
Mattie and Nev shook their heads. They hadn’t called her. Maybe Reg had. Rainbow was in school now.
Ronnie would call her this evening. Had to try to remember.