Everything Left Unsaid (9 page)

When we’re both lying in our beds in the darkness, Sam asks, ‘Tai? Does it feel really weird? You know, the whole dying thing?’

‘Yeah. Like
really
weird. Like it’s not even real. The kind of thing you hear about happening to other people and are happy it isn’t you.’

‘Are you . . . does it scare you?’

‘Yeah,’ I admit. ‘And my olds, Juliet . . . I can’t talk to them about it.’

There’s a pause, and then Sam says, ‘Well, you can talk to me about whatever.’

Once he’s asleep, I lie there in the darkness, thinking of what else I could’ve said.
You’ve got no idea how much this tumour scares me, the shit that goes through my mind that I never say. How I once heard a rumour that your fingernails keep growing after you die and now it’s stuck in my mind like a splinter. How I can’t stand the waiting, not knowing when. Wondering what I’ll be like right at the end, whether I’ll be stuck in a bed, drooling, not able to do anything except grunt and blink. How I Googled how to kill myself, just in case it gets too much, though I don’t know if I could go through with it. How I wish it was happening to someone else
.

• • •

The next morning, Mum picks me up from Sam’s and drives me to a tidy little row of offices in the city.

‘I’ve already seen the counsellor at school,’ I groan.

‘I know, Tai, but this one is different. She’s got more experience with people who are facing . . . your kind of challenge.’

Love the euphemisms, Mum. You are going to have to say it eventually, you know? You’re going to have to admit it eventually.

‘Yay.’

But this woman is not what I was expecting. She’s not that much older than me, and an iPod lies next to a huge cup of coffee on her desk. There’s a thick bangle on her wrist, but I can see a tattoo peeking out from underneath it, and I begin to wonder if maybe Mum chose her on purpose.

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ she asks.

‘Do I have to?’

‘No,’ she says, ‘but it’s probably more interesting than the two of us staring at each other for the next hour.’

‘You probably know I’m dying, right?’ I stare at her, and unlike everyone else – my mates, my parents, the kids at school – the words don’t make her look away.

‘I know.’ She looks at me, waiting, then says again, ‘So, do you want to tell me about it?’

‘I don’t really know what to say. Everyone else is usually pretty busy talking. And people . . . they just don’t want to hear, even when they think they do, you know?’

‘I’m not sure that I do.’

‘Okay, like, my girlfriend, Juliet. She wants me to tell her everything, she reckons. Except she doesn’t really want to know about how I spewed on my sheets because my head hurt so much I couldn’t move and couldn’t get to the bathroom quick enough. And my olds, they think they want to know everything. But when it’s three in the morning and they’re asleep, I’m not going to wake them up to tell them that the pain is worse, that it’s starting to scare me, that I can’t go back to sleep in case I don’t wake up.’

‘That’s a lot to deal with, Tai,’ she says quietly.

‘I know. And everything is just weird. Mum and Dad are insisting I finish school because it’ll mean something – but I can’t see the point anymore. Why bother, you know?’

‘Will it mean something?’

‘For them, maybe.’

‘And for you?’

‘I don’t know.’ I rub my head, rub the place where the tumour is. ‘If I do the exams, get the marks, then what? All of my friends, they’ll do their exams, get their marks, and then go to uni or get a job. I just get a box in the ground. Or turned into ashes. I’m supposed to decide that, too.’

She picks up the coffee from her desk, drinks some. ‘Okay. One thing at a time. Forget about everyone else for a minute, Tai. This is your life – so what do you want to do with it?’

‘I guess I would finish school. Just to see if I would be good enough to get into that degree, you know? Juliet and I were going to go on a road trip when we got our licences. I know it sounds stupid, but I’ve never been on holiday without my olds before. And Juliet . . . I don’t know, I wish I could see how things would turn out with us. I really like her, and I know people say that teenagers never stay together for long, but I wish I knew how things would be without
this
.’

She checks her notes. ‘And your brothers?’

‘Sometimes that’s the worst part. River is only little. He still climbs into bed with me if he has a nightmare. Where will he go, when I’m not around? They don’t understand, not yet – but I don’t know what things will be like later, you know? I don’t want to scare them.’

She scrawls some more notes before looking at me again. ‘So what are your thoughts about the funeral and burial?’ Full credit to her, she’s actually looking me in the eye.

‘I can’t think about it. I just . . . I don’t know.’

‘There isn’t a right answer, Tai.’

‘What would you do, then?’

She’s caught off-guard by that, and says, ‘I don’t know either.’

‘I keep having these dreams that I’m buried alive,’ I say, ‘which make me go for cremation. But then I Googled a bunch of stuff and found these school kids talking about drawing on the coffin of some kid who threw himself on the train tracks, and they said doing that, having a place to go later, it helped. And I’d be totally happy not to decide at all – except that I know it would only make it worse for Mum, having to think about this later. She shouldn’t have to decide this for me.’

After the counsellor visit I’ve got another appointment with the oncologist. Dr Dellar has a waiting room with a fish tank and a bunch of old people who stare at me, curious. It’s a relief when he calls my name and I can escape them.

Mum and I sit down in the chairs opposite his desk, while he settles into his chair, holding up my scans between finger and thumb. While he looks at the note that came with the pictures, I try not to stare at his enormous bushy grey eyebrows. When he’s done he slides it all back into the envelope and says, ‘Tai, I think it’s time for us to schedule a surgery. How does next week suit you? I can fit you in on Thursday.’

‘That soon?’

‘We might as well. You’ll find that once you’ve recovered from the surgery you’ll experience quite significant relief from your symptoms. For a period of time, that is. You’ll still need medications to help you manage, but things will be easier.’

I nod at him. In return, he starts talking about ‘the procedure’. More hair-shaving. Valium prior to surgery to keep me calm. He picks up this stupid little plastic model of a brain on his desk, all muted purples and reds, and points out where they’re going to make the incision. ‘We’ll remove as much of the tumour as we possibly can,’ he says, ‘and then once you’ve recovered from the surgery we’ll start you on radiotherapy then chemotherapy to fight what we couldn’t remove.’

‘Will it – do you think there’s a chance that it might—’

‘Tai.’ He stops me, mid-sentence. ‘I want you to listen to me carefully. I will do everything in my power to make life as comfortable for you as I can over the upcoming months. But’ – he lowers his voice, and his eyes are kind – ‘the surgery and the medication may not cure you, Tai.’

He waits for me to process this information, waits for me to get over hating myself for being so stupid to believe for a second that this might be fixable after all. After a minute he starts talking again, about morphine for pain relief afterwards, and a ventriculostomy (‘a drainpipe, basically,’ he explains) to stop any fluid from gathering around my brain.
Great. A drainpipe in my skull. Anything else, doctor?

‘Tai? Do you have any questions?’

‘Do I have to have this surgery? If it’s not going to fix anything . . .’

‘No. You certainly don’t have to. But if you don’t, it’s highly likely that you’ll only have about six months left, at the most.’

Beside me, Mum turns her face away and pretends she’s not crying.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay. Next Thursday it is.’

The day before Tai’s surgery I go over to his place, having promised Mia and Stanley I’ll babysit while they take Tai out for dinner. In the doorway I have to step over Hendrix, who’s sitting on the naughty mat.

‘What did you do this time, Hendrix? Punch your brother?’ I’m smiling down at him, gently teasing.

He looks up and shakes his head glumly. ‘I got in trouble at school again.’

‘What happened?’ He looks so miserable I sit down next to him.

‘I put glue on Sarah Turner’s sandwiches.’

‘Glue? Why’d you do that?’

He sighs, and it’s a big sigh for a little kid, almost too big for his body. ‘My teacher said I was a good boy, but I don’t
want
to be a good boy. Grandma Eve said they only take the good ones and that’s why they’re taking Tai.’ Hendrix looks at me worriedly. ‘Juliet, who
are
they and where are they taking Tai?’

Oh god.
Grandma Eve is a bloody idiot
, I don’t say. ‘Um . . . I don’t know. How about you ask your mum?’

He looks down. ‘Okay. When I’m allowed off the naughty mat.’

As I walk through the kitchen I see Mia sitting at the table. ‘Tai’s in the shower, Juliet.’ She gestures to a chair and pushes a packet of biscuits in my direction. Suddenly she starts talking, telling me that River’s been having screaming nightmares, that Hendrix keeps ending up in the principal’s office for reasons no-one’s been able to work out, that the medication is starting to make Tai someone not completely familiar. The vomiting, the bruises – but most of all, the silences that seem to last longer and longer. I’m pushing a pile of biscuit crumbs around the table with my finger, silently wishing she wasn’t telling me all this.

As if aware of my thoughts, she abruptly changes the subject to issue a million instructions about babysitting Hendrix and River. It’s not like I haven’t done it before, but I know that’s not the real reason Mia’s nervous; she’s just on edge about tomorrow.

When they’ve finally left, Tai promising we’ll hang out when they get back, River drags me off to play with his Lego. The kid has a great Lego set – there are castles and boats and everything – but the only thing I’m allowed to do is put the train tracks together while he supervises. When he’s not telling me how to do it
properly
, he’s showing off his village, pointing stuff out.

‘There’s the school, Juliet, and that’s the hospital, and there’s the farm – see the cows?’

‘Oh, so it’s a cow farm, then?’

‘No. The cows are the farmers. Duh.’

River picks up one of the little Lego guys, prances him over to another spot in the village. ‘That’s the cemetery, and he’s going there to die.’

‘Um – I think people die first, and
then
they go to the cemetery.’

‘Do they all die because of what Tai’s got?’

I’m tempted to drag out the list of emergency numbers Mia left, call in reinforcements. This is too hard. What little kid builds a cemetery out of Lego? What little kid has to watch their big brother die?

I announce Lego time is over, make Hendrix and River get socks and shoes on, and walk them down to the park. They have sword fights with sticks, then go really high on the swings.

When they’ve had enough, we walk back home and stand in front of the fridge, door wide open.

‘So, what do you guys want for dinner?’

‘Mayonnaise,’ Hendrix tells me.

‘Mayonnaise?’

‘Yeah. Straight out of the jar.’

River is practically quivering with delight at his brother’s mischief.

‘Okay.’ I grab the jar and hand it to him. ‘There you go. Dinner. What about you, River?’

‘Peanut butter sandwiches. With ham.’

‘All right, I can do that.’

They eat their dinner in the lounge room, drinking juice straight from the carton and watching
The Simpsons
, even though I know Mia thinks it’s crass. I know I’m being irresponsible, but I’m trying to give Hendrix and River a few hours where they can forget what’s going on, just for a little while. The freedom goes to Hendrix’s head, and he’s hyper for the rest of the night, running around the house with Mia’s underpants on his head and pretending to snorkel in the bath before I order him into bed. He tries to cartwheel into bed, crashing in failure instead, and launching questions at me faster than I can answer them in an effort to delay bedtime.

‘Juliet, I’m not even tired. I don’t need to go to bed yet. Why do I have to go to sleep now? You’re not tucking me in right: monsters will eat my toes. Why do they live under beds, Juliet, why don’t they live on trains? And hey, Juliet, why aren’t we allowed to stick our arms out the train windows – would they get chopped off or something? I have a cool train set, wanna see? Juliet . . . why does Tai have to die?’

After the last question he pauses. I don’t know what to say.

‘Everyone dies, Hendrix. But usually not until they’re old. Even older than Grandma Eve. Sometimes, though, people who aren’t old get hurt, or really sick, and what’s wrong with them can’t be fixed. Like Tai.’

Hendrix is listening intently, silent now. ‘You know what? I wish Tai wasn’t going to die. I wish I knew why this kind of stuff happens. But I don’t.’

After that, he’s finally ready to go to sleep, and Tai and his parents get home soon after. Mia and Stanley check on Hendrix and River then get ready for bed. Tai and I stay up watching the late-night movie on TV but eventually switch it off and just lie on the lounge together.

I’m deliberately ignoring my curfew, but I don’t care. I close my eyes, shutting out everything but Tai. After a while he pulls up a blanket and ever-so-gently tucks it in around us. He must think I’ve gone to sleep, because he’s so quiet and moving as little as possible. He wraps his arms around me and I savour the closeness, pushing all thoughts about tomorrow out of my mind.

When I’m close to being asleep for real, I feel Tai shift again, just a little, and then whisper quietly, ‘I love you too, Juliet.’

Mum and Dad take me to this crazy little yum cha restaurant. I choose pork buns and Dad goes for chicken feet. He spears a deep-fried chicken foot on the end of his chopstick. It’s how he eats with chopsticks: just spears things, because he can’t use them properly. He holds up the chicken foot, waves it at me.