29
TWO DAYS LATER it’s the one-year anniversary of Charlie’s death. That sentence is impossible and unreal, but it’s also true. Mum, Dad and I sit around the kitchen table trying to eat toast and drink coffee and orange juice.
Mum had originally decided that she wanted today to be a celebration of Charlie’s life. That we should cook his favourite meal and watch his favourite movies and tell funny stories about him. Dad had nodded and smiled in agreement like a scary, sad puppet. But now that feels like something Mum read on some blog post about coping with bereavement—which it probably was—not like something you can force or fake in real life, and this morning she hasn’t brought any of that up. Maybe she’s getting it. I mean, I am wearing all black and she hasn’t even said anything.
‘Well, to be honest, I’m not feeling all that great today,’ Dad says, his voice weak.
‘Oh, thank god,’ Mum says, dropping a cold, barely nibbled piece of toast back on her plate and letting out a little whimper. ‘Neither am I.’
I stare at my orange juice, surprised, then try to find the words to express myself accurately. ‘I feel like my chest cavity is a 24/7 gym and someone has attached dumbbells to my heart.’
‘Oh sweetie.’ Mum reaches across to rest a hand on my arm. Then she thinks for a second. ‘I feel like…I feel like the Hawaiian Santa costume I crumpled at the bottom of the bin.’
We both turn to Dad. ‘What’s something that heals really slowly?’ he asks. ‘Like, the opposite of a tongue? That’s me.’
Mum places her other hand on Dad’s wrist, both of her arms now outstretched like a sea bird drying its wings. She looks so sad, but the moment is still somehow soothing.
After we clear our uneaten toast, Mum and Dad go and visit Charlie’s grave. I don’t go with them because I don’t see the point. My brother’s more here, in this house, than he is there in the ground. Charlie’s friends are having some kind of small memorial thing at someone’s house which they might drop in on on their way home, but I don’t want to do that either. Thankfully, Mum and Dad don’t force me to leave the house; I tell them I’m going to call my friends.
I’d already told Jacinta, Rach and Ben what today is, and when they each pick up I’m pretty sure they’ve been standing by. And it’s weird—all I’d wanted for most of the past year was to be left alone with my heartache, but now it’s starting to feel better to share it. Not that we talk about Charlie, I just know I could if I needed to.
‘Say hello to Franklin TAFE’s newest beauty-therapy student,’ Jacinta says when she picks up. She’s slightly perkier than she was yesterday. Her dad got out of hospital this morning.
‘Yes, Cint!’ I scream into my phone, fist pumping the air. ‘You’re a legend!’
‘I feel like a bad, selfish person but I’m also kind of happy about it?’
‘Yeah, life is that complicated. Hey, are you gonna get free makeup?’
‘I doubt it. But prepare to have your pubes waxed in the name of my education.’
‘Hold up,’ I say. ‘I want free IGA Passiona for life before I let you in my pants.’
‘Bet you didn’t cut that deal with Zoo Boy.’
I roll my eyes. ‘It’s a—’
‘ Sanctuary . I know. And, actually, first things first, is Dinesh’s monobrow.’
Rach picks up on the second ring. ‘So, okay,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you this in case you got upset. But then I remembered that you’re a goitre vase, not glass, and also that you need all the gossip if you’re going to successfully integrate back into our year level.’
‘I don’t want to integrate ,’ I say, before drinking some chocolate milk straight from the carton. ‘I want to float on the social periphery but close to you, ditch PE with forged notes and watch clouds.’
Things aren’t perfect with Rach and me. I definitely feel like the whole jealous-of-Jacinta thing is going to rear its head properly at some point, but if we can deal with what we’ve already dealt with we can probably figure that out too.
‘Okay. Deal. No gossip then.’
‘No!’ I say. ‘I want the gossip!’
She hesitates, then spills. ‘Lockie’s back with Tina.’
I groan, unsurprised. ‘Of course he is,’ I say, but I don’t think I care that much.
Ben calls, and we talk about our mutual scars and their origin stories, the rules of basketball, the latest in the peregrine falcon family saga, and our favourite pizza toppings (both vegetarian, his with chilli flakes). We talk for an hour, about everything and nothing, then we stay on the phone and play Flying Ninja . I beat him seven times. And even though we agree we’re probably getting too attached to Ninja, Ben then sends me some new footage of her. They’ve put her in a bigger enclosure than she was first in, and I can see her leave the ground, hovering in the air for a few seconds like a fluffy helicopter before landing and doing it all over again. It’s amazing and, even though Ben would say I’m anthropomorphising, she looks so happy. And watching her makes me realise something that feels important—something I wish I could explain to Charlie: I don’t think Ninja is flying all the time to prove anything about herself. She’s not on some mission to be transcendent, to be a unique or special plains-wanderer. I think she’s doing it for fun . And maybe animals know they’re born with inherent worth, that they don’t have to earn it somehow. Or, at least, they’re not capable of overthinking their own lives to the point that they worry about things like that. And wow, yeah, now I’m jealous of a bird again.
Finally I hear my parents get home. I tell Ben I’ll see him tomorrow, reminding him of the place and time, then hang up.
For the rest of the afternoon Mum, Dad and I watch Grand Designs reruns because we can’t decide on a movie and we don’t want to do anything but sit very still and be mindless. After a few hours we order some Thai takeaway, surprising ourselves by being hungry, and while we eat we talk about me maybe going back to Leonie for a bit.
Then I write an email to Briony to say I’d love to volunteer on a permanent part-time basis this year, even though my actions will all be meaningless in the end, because I’m trying very hard to ignore where that logic leads. And when I hit send, I somehow manage to feel a tiny swelling of excitement for my future.
Around 11 pm, when we’re all almost tired enough to sleep, we stay up a little longer and eat Charlie’s second-favourite dessert—wafer biscuits dipped in warm Nutella—while standing around the kitchen bench. Mum reminds us of the time Charlie fell asleep with the Nutella jar in bed. He woke up thinking he’d had a very serious and embarrassing ‘accident’.
‘It was on his cheeks,’ Dad says, laughing my favourite big belly laugh of his.
I crack up, too. ‘I could hear him gagging from my room.’
Mum groans. ‘I had to throw the sheets out,’ she says. Then she’s laughing too.
And then the day is over. It was both a nightmare and also not that bad. We say goodnight, and then I lie in my bed, staring at the crack in my ceiling. I don’t feel the tug of the black hole because I’m already deep inside it. And at first that scares me, panic creeping up my throat, but then I remember that I know its dimensions now, I know it has a floor, and I know how to put words to what I’m feeling, and that’s enough to stop the blackness from completely closing in.
I wonder if the black hole will always be in my life—this scary place that holds the weight of existence and everything that comes with it. Maybe my eyes will learn how to adjust to the dark.
‘Are you there?’ I ask my bedroom, hoping Charlie will speak back. ‘Are you spying on me like a total creep?’
My brother doesn’t answer. Because he’s gone. And that makes me feel like complete and utter crap. But I don’t pick up my phone and start scrolling. I let the fact that Charlie is dead flow through my mind like water and the tears roll down my temples and into my hair.
I hold a hand over my beating heart and let them come.