Chapter 23
BLUE QUANDONG
Three days later, when her blood pressure was stable and she could shuffle zombie-like to the toilet, the doctor let her go.
Mattie pushed her down to the car park. It had rained overnight and earlier that morning.
The air outside the hospital in Cairns smelled like wet asphalt, exhaust fumes, and the ocean. Nev ran to fetch the truck.
Her brother stood behind the wheelchair massaging her neck and shoulders.
She always forgot he had a degree in sports physiotherapy.
When he had told her he wanted to be a women’s sports therapist during his off-season, she, along with everyone else, had written that off as a creepy excuse to get his hands on hot female athletes, but maybe she had been too harsh on him.
Whatever he was doing to her back felt amazing.
The silver truck appeared, then parked in front of them.
Getting into it was a challenge.
When she finally sat breathless in the passenger’s seat, safe from being asked to move again for at least an hour and a half, exhaustion made her cranky. She felt shitty about the fact that she hadn’t called Rainbow yet.
The thought of calling made her emotional, and she didn’t want to lean on the girl that way.
Rainbow needed calm reassurance and lighthearted jokes, not to be traumatized by a half-dead parent.
She couldn’t project safety and stability if she was half-asleep or a weepy mess.
In hindsight, not calling Rainbow was probably worse. She couldn’t win.
Nev pointed to the seatbelt. “You got to wear it.”
“I don’t.”
“Do.”
“Make me.”
They were still arguing when Mattie returned.
Nev shook his hand. “We’ll meet you at your dad’s in an hour. Have to make a quick pit stop.”
Ronnie wedged her hands under the seatbelt to take pressure off her incision. She had lost the argument.
Wet highway, steam-clouds rising off shining asphalt in the sun.
Who said roads couldn’t be beautiful? Travelling west on the Gillies Range Road through the mountains was the same as before, but she noticed the scenery through fresh eyes.
The view from the passenger’s seat looked different than the view from the driver’s seat.
Angles and sight lines. Funny how such a small shift in location caused a dramatic change in perception.
Life was fragile and precious; she couldn’t take it for granted, nor could she rely on always being healthy.
She couldn’t fight her way out of situations or run away.
She needed someone like Nev to be a second set of eyes and ears, a second brain, asking nervous questions like, “Does she need a transfusion?” and “Where does this blood come from?” Selfishly, she liked the attention.
Liked not being alone. “Reckon we ought to take better care of ourselves, eh?”
“Okey dokey.” Nev squinted against the sun.
“We have to quit smoking.”
Nev pulled down the overhead visor to shade her eyes as they went around a switchback. “I will if you do.”
“Deal.” Ronnie watched gum trees fly past the window. “I need to get back in shape so I can keep up with Rainbow.”
“Being an athlete doesn’t make you a better mum.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Does it make Mattie a better dad?”
Point taken.
“Time together is the important thing for Gumball. That’s all she wants.”
That’s not what you used to say... She turned toward Nev and narrowed her eyes. “What happened to ‘it isn’t the quantity, it’s the quality of the time you spend with her’?”
“Yeah, well.” Nev kept her eyes on the road. “That was back when you didn’t have a chance.” She frowned.
“What?” Ronnie asked. “You made a face. What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. Tell me.”
Nev glanced over at her, then back at the road. “Have you heard from the lawyer yet? When you’re feeling better, give her a call, check in. Have you talked to your ex about any of this yet?”
Ronnie shook her head. Since the frozen corn incident she had been avoiding Maude.
Now Reg picked Rainbow up in Gordonvale and dropped her off.
No contact. Easy Peasy, as Nev would say.
“Not yet. I’m letting her get used to the idea first. I’ll call the lawyer sometime.
No news is good news.” The lawyer hadn’t met with Maude yet.
If the woman in Mareeba had news, she would call.
Nev raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know how to help with that, but if you need me to, I’ll figure it out.”
“Thanks, but I’ll handle it. I think it’s headed in the right direction. I mean, the lawyer said Maude was on board…”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I wasn’t. You’re the one worrying about it. Jesus…”
Ronnie watched her boss shift the truck into park on the gravel in front of the plant nursery at Upsend Downs.
Ric-Rac or Barney had given the sign a fresh coat of paint.
The plant nursery was one of the beautiful parts of the farm, with wide views of rolling hills, hazy on an autumn afternoon, lavender fields, orderly and quiet, rows of silver gum trees, mahogany, bay laurels, and three hundred other species of native and exotic plants.
Sometimes she and the other farmhands helped out here with landscaping, maintenance, or building repair when the seasonal staff were gone.
Green hoses snaked and coiled between the rows.
Whenever she mowed the lawn here, she felt that something big was about to happen. The combination of orderliness and emptiness reminded her of a wedding venue before the guests arrive. That was a thought. They could become a wedding destination. Farms did that now.
Water evaporating brought a pleasant earthy smell up from the loam. Somewhere to their right a mister had been left on. Maybe it was on a timer. Nev opened the passenger door and offered her an upturned palm.
She took it, frowning. “Why do I have to get out of the ute?” Her friend didn’t answer, merely snapped open the rented wheelchair.
She gingerly lowered herself into it with a hiss.
Nev pushed her towards the potted rows, slowly.
She could feel how much harder it was for Nev to push the chair across crushed gravel than it had been for Mattie to push it across carpet and cement.
“Thought you might like to pick a tree to plant.”
“Me? Now?” Ronnie asked, incredulous. Oh, Nev… Nev, Nev, Nev, Nev, Nev…
Her boss was often clueless in an adorably oblivious way, but didn’t usually miss the mark by this much.
Ronnie liked plant shopping under normal circumstances, with the thirty percent employee discount, but not on the way home from hospital.
Maybe it was a surprise party. She hoped not.
She wanted to lie down in a dark room, preferably with Nev and the dogs curled up against her, and sleep for a hundred years.
“Babe…plant shopping is not good right now.”
“Any kind. Up to you. My treat. Remind me to pave these walking paths. They lied to me when they told me this design was wheelchair accessible.”
“Are you listening to me, babe? Stop. You’re going to have to go all the way back to the car park, and I’m not getting any lighter, so if I were you, I would turn this chair around right now.” Something was definitely up. “What is this? Please tell me it’s not a surprise party.”
Nev was a disembodied voice behind the chair. “Don’t be angry.”
“What did you do?” Her midsection burned, back competing with the incision scar for attention. “Come over here where I can see you. I feel like I’m talking to myself.”
Nev came around in front of the chair. She looked guilty. “Nothing. I thought planting a tree might be a nice gesture…”
“Of what? A nice gesture of what?”
Nev’s cheekbones and ears were pink. “It was just an idea.”
The nursery was pleasant in the shade, here on the hill with the breeze—honeyeaters in grevilleas, two or three unwelcome rabbits peeking out from underneath the boxwood, azaleas in pots, pots in ordered rows—but Ronnie needed to take pills and sleep.
She gazed wistfully at the ute parked by the checkout kiosk. “Baby... I’m mostly dead. I know you’re trying to do something nice for me, but I feel like I’m in a hostage situation and I have zero interest in whatever this is.”
Why a tree? Why did Nev think she wanted to plant a…
Oh.
Right.
She swallowed, closed her eyes. The headache she had woken up with after surgery got worse in the afternoon. She rubbed her temples.
“Don’t make this a big deal. Don’t make it worse than it needs to be.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Nev said. “If you’re not interested, we’ll go. I just thought it might be nice.”
“Nice…?” Ronnie swallowed. “What part of this is nice? There’s no part of this that I want to remember. I don’t dwell on shit like this. Trying to forget about it and move on as fast as I can.”
“I’m sure that’s very healthy,” Nev quipped. “You might feel differently about the ectopic in the future. Planting a tree would be a gift to your future self. Hedging your bets. If you never need it, grand.”
“Grand? You’re Irish now? Can you please just be a normal fucking person for one second, please? And not try to…” What was Nev trying to do? “This isn’t the Titanic. I don’t want flowers. I don’t want a song. I want to…”
Bloody hell... Nev sounded like she wanted to have a funeral for the embryo. Unbelievable... Ronnie held her cracked ribs to make it easier to breathe. “You’re not even religious! Neither of us are. It was never viable. It wasn’t a person. I can’t believe I have to say this.”
The only baby I lost is Rainbow.
Nev crouched beside the chair, tearing apart a stray azalea leaf until it resembled confetti. “I didn’t say those things. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
She knew Nev was trying to be supportive and she felt bad for snapping at her. She sighed. “I’m sorry. I have to conserve my fucks for living people who depend on me.”
“By all means, do that.”
“I will.”
Clearly this meant more to Nev than it did to her. Nev had seen actual dead babies and Ronnie should give her more credit—the owner of Upsend Downs knew exactly what an ectopic was, but she had never experienced one.
Once Ronnie realized that this pit stop wasn’t for her, she changed her mind.
If planting something to watch it grow was important to Nev, Ronnie would do it, but she would complain the entire time.
She rubbed her face. She hadn’t bathed in a week and desperately needed something; she wasn’t sure what.
“Fine. We’ll do this faggy thing and never talk about it again.
Call Gunni, he’ll want to be invited. Play some Enya. ”
Nev stood up. “Forget it. Don’t be a nong.
That sounded like something your mother would say.
” Nev inhaled sharply. Ronnie watched her friend pull an almost empty carton of cigarettes out of a back pocket, put one in her mouth, produce a lighter, then catch herself.
Nev returned the cigarette and lighter to her pockets before turning the wheelchair around.
Ronnie held her head. “I didn’t mean it in a derogatory way.”
Now Nev thought she was a homophobe, which was a new low. After making an arse of herself the least she could do was pick a shrub.
As Nev wheeled her between rows, Ronnie felt strange considering qualities of each young tree such as leaf color, shape, size, simple, compound, double-compound branching structure, projected height, and drought tolerance, looking for one that best matched the qualities of the embryo that had almost killed her.
Nev was smarter than she was, so it must have occurred to her.
A large sapling in an unusual bright pink pot caught her eye.
It was her height, or would have been if she was standing.
She didn’t need to look at the tag to know that they had bought it in as a tiny sprout from the non-profit native plant nursery for forty-nine dollars and now that they had kept it for years, priced it ten times higher. “That one.”
“Blue quandong.” Nev crouched to cut off the tag, straightened, then handed the plastic ribbon to her. “My favorite tree.”
Ronnie laughed, then regretted it. “Ow. Is that a thing? Do people have favorite trees?”
“Rainbow does.”
She frowned. When was the last time she thought about her daughter?
She should have been thinking about her this whole time.
Rainbow was waiting for her at Reg and Blaise’s house at this moment, probably wondering what was taking them so long.
Ronnie sent off a quick text to Rainbow using her voice to text ap.
(Ronnie) Hey babe, stopped at the farm with Nev, be there in a bit. Can’t wait to see you!
A moment later her phone vibrated.
(Rainbow) Ok, see you soon. Me too!
The tag said it would be a large evergreen with buttress roots.
The blue quandong was a native rainforest tree in a symbiotic relationship with the cassowary; the seeds of its giant, bright blue fruits weren’t viable unless they passed through the gut of an enormous blue-headed bird.
“The fruits are the same electric blue as the cassowaries,” Nev added, cheerfully.
“I know what a quandong is.”
Nev found a shovel and a wheelbarrow. “You have expensive tastes.”
Ronnie chuckled. “Where will you plant it?”
“You’ll see.”