Outback Blaze (13 page)

‘Not much,' her father sighed and glanced gloomily at her mother. ‘The insurance company doesn't work today and we can't start cleaning up until the asbestos is removed.'

All the more reason to get out – he was like a caged eagle when he had no work to do.

Her mum looked up from the bowl. ‘We need to talk to you, honey.'

There was an edge in her voice and Ruby glanced at her dad whose face was a cocktail of shock and concern. ‘Lyn,' his voice held a warning tone. ‘We agreed to leave it. Now's not a good time.'

‘I can't. There might never be a good time.' Lyn dropped her spoon and it clattered against the side of the bowl. Her face seemed to crumble inwards and her lower lip shook.

Ruby looked on as her dad shoved his chair back and rushed around the table, taking his wife in his arms. He stroked her hair back from her face as she began to sob, her whole body trembling, tears cascading down her cheeks in a messy avalanche. Such an emotional display wasn't like Lyn at all. Ruby had cried plenty in her life but her mum had always been so much stronger. Her parents had always been an equal team, but the fire had changed the dynamics.

She frowned, wanting to join her dad in the comforting but she was frozen in confusion. Her mind ticked back over the past few days – her mum being overly tired and crying on the night of the fire. That hadn't seemed unusual when it happened because who wouldn't get upset watching their livelihood burn to the ground, but now that Ruby thought about it, it had seemed out of character. And it wasn't the only thing – they'd forgotten her birthday and her father had been even more tender, more protective of her mother lately, offering to do things she'd normally be quite capable of doing on her own.

‘We have to tell her. I can't do this anymore,' Lyn's words intruded in on Ruby's thoughts, startling her into action.

She crossed the room and knelt beside her mother. ‘Tell me what, Mum?' A zillion thoughts churned through her head but one in particular disturbed her.
Had
her parents had a hand in the fire?

No!
Ruby shook her head, not willing to even contemplate such a horrid thing as she stared into her parents' faces and willed them to talk.

They spoke as if she weren't in the room.

‘Let's go into the lounge room,' her dad suggested. ‘Have a coffee together and think about it for a moment.'

‘No,' her mum's voice was firm. ‘I'm not going to change my mind. I know you think we shouldn't burden her with this on top of everything else she's been through lately, but I can't hide it anymore. She's stronger than you think, Robert, and I won't be able to hide this much longer.'

Okay, now she was really getting scared. ‘What is it? Stop squabbling and just tell me. Please.'

‘We're not squabbling,' her father snapped, his hand resting again on his wife's shoulder in a show of solidarity. ‘I just think we've all got enough to deal with right now.'

‘Oh Robert.' Lyn sniffed and pressed her fists against her eyes as if trying to plug the tears. ‘It's not going to go away. Why won't you accept that?'

‘That's it,' Ruby raised her voice, something she couldn't recall doing to her parents in a long time, maybe even ever. ‘I'm twenty-seven years old. I can handle whatever it is you need to tell me.' At least she hoped so.

Robert sighed. He looked up at Ruby and she noticed lines in his face that she'd never seen before. The last few days had really taken their toll.

‘I'm sorry for yelling, Dad, but please, trust me with whatever it is you're hiding.'

His eyes watered. ‘I trust you more than anything, love, but you've been through so much heartache and I just want to protect you from more. I want to protect both my girls.'

The heart he mentioned – the one that Jonas had ripped to shreds and then stamped all over – quickened at his words. She fought the urge to place her hand above it. The more they lingered over telling her, the more horrible scenarios she would continue to imagine.

‘I'm sick, sweetheart.'

At her mum's words, Ruby's gaze switched from her father to her mother and then back and forth again before she said, ‘What do you mean
sick
?'

A painful sound, almost like a wild animal mourning, left her father's mouth and he buried his head in his wife's lap.

Having never seen him so much as sniffle at the weepy scene in a movie, Ruby stared at him in horror. ‘God, Mum, what's going on? Are you talking about the flu or something more?' The big C word rang out in her brain like a gong, but she couldn't bring herself to say it.

Lyn stroked Robert's hair and a calm look came over her face. She reached out her free hand and squeezed her daughter's. ‘I have motor neurone disease, darling.'

Ruby's hand rushed to cover her mouth and she felt her knees start to give way. Grabbing the table for support, she shook her head, refusing to believe what she'd just heard. ‘But you're only sixty. And you're healthy.'

As long as she could recall, her mother had barely spent longer than a day in bed sick and even those occasions had been rare. Customers constantly commented on Lyn's boundless energy. She seemed to have an oversupply for such a small and petite figure.

Her fingers tightening around Ruby's, Lyn said, ‘You can get MND at any age, but it's most common between fifty and seventy.'

She sounded so matter of fact – like she was reading a pamphlet – but Ruby didn't give two hoots about how old
most
people were when they were diagnosed. This was her mother they were talking about – no one else mattered.

‘Are you sure they're right? Who diagnosed you? Maybe you should get a second opinion?' She took a moment to cast her eyes over Lyn's body, looking for signs other than tiredness that something serious was going on. Because although her knowledge of motor neurone disease – or MND as her mum called it – was limited, she knew it was about as serious as diseases could become.

‘Stop asking so many questions,' Robert said, raising his head and wrapping an arm around Lyn's shoulders.

‘Rob, Ruby's entitled to have questions.' Lyn silenced her husband with one look and patted her daughter's hand. ‘Maybe we
should
make some coffees and go into the lounge room where it's a bit more comfortable.'

Ruby fought the urge to yank her hand away and flee the room. How could her mother be so damn placid about this? If someone had just diagnosed her with a debilitating disease like motor neurone, she'd want to hurl things around the room, scream obscenities, find someone to blame.

‘Love? Are you coming?' His voice and expression had softened and Robert touched Ruby on the side of her arm.

‘Let me make the coffee,' she said, unable to move even a muscle yet.

‘I don't want to leave you, darling,' Lyn took a step towards Ruby. ‘We've had time to get used to this.'

Ruby held up a hand, tears already bubbling beneath her eyelids like the lava in volcano ready to explode. One of her mother's hugs would be her undoing right now. ‘Please, I need a few moments.'

With expressions of reluctance on their faces, Robert and Lyn left the room, his arm still cradling her shoulders as they walked away.

Ruby took a deep breath, placed her hand against her chest and swore under her breath. She never swore, but right now curse words were the only ones going through her head. Maybe if she pinched herself, she'd wake up and discover this was all some horrific dream. Maybe the whole week had been a nightmare. But the winter sun shone through the kitchen window, almost blinding her, its gentle warmth told her this was all too real.

She tugged a seat out from under the table just in time to save herself from collapsing onto the floor. Her legs had given way, a physical symptom of the terror sweeping through her body. Her heart pounded – the fear inside her only comparable to that she'd felt when she'd been cowering on the floor, looking up at Jonas and wondering if he was going to kill her. A shiver scuttled down her spine at the thought.

But it wasn't her life at risk now.

It was her mum's, the person who meant more to her than anyone in the world. No one knew her as well as her mother and she didn't think she'd have gotten through the last year without her. If her mum was ill, Ruby didn't have time to sit around wallowing in her own fear and sadness, she needed to be there. To look after her, make sure she was comfortable and had everything she needed.

The chair scraped against the tiles as she pushed it back and stood. She filled the kettle, flicked it on and scoffed a banana while she waited for the jug to boil. It wasn't much of a breakfast – she didn't feel like anything – but she needed food in her body to function properly. When the kettle began to whistle, she whisked it over to three waiting mugs and made the coffee, adding extra sugar to all of their drinks. Lord knew she needed something to get her through the next few hours and it was too early for alcohol.

Carrying her mum's favourite tray – the one with pale pink lilies all over it – Ruby took a deep breath and headed into the kitchen. Her dad stood looking out the window and her mum sat on the couch. She patted the spot beside her as Ruby placed the tray on the table.

‘Dad, come sit,' she instructed, picking up the first mug and handing it to her mother. He heaved a heavy sigh and joined them, sitting on the armchair closest to the television – the one he sat in during every AFL game, so he could yell obscenities at the umpires.

Her parents each took a sip of their drinks but all Ruby could do was cling to the mug. She glanced between them. ‘How long have you known?'

Lyn took one more sip and then laid her mug on the table.

‘I started getting weird cramps all over my body about a year ago,' Lyn began.

‘A year?' Ruby couldn't help the sharp protest. How could they keep this from her for such a long time?

At the remorseful expression on her mum's face, she swallowed. ‘I'm sorry. Go on.'

‘It was getting harder and harder for me to cope with the workload of home and shop. That's when we took on an extra casual worker, but I still didn't feel any better. I couldn't seem to beat the fatigue. And I started getting emotional. I had to stop reading my romance books because the happy-ever-afters made me sob.'

Hearing the raw emotion in her mum's voice, Ruby put down her mug and inched closer to her mother, placing a hand on her knee.

Lyn put her hand on Ruby's. ‘I thought maybe I was going through some kind of second menopause and eventually your father convinced me to go and see Doctor Rivers.' She glanced up at her husband and he nodded encouragingly. ‘At first she thought I might have MS and there were other possibilities too. She referred me to a neurologist who sent me off for all sorts of tests, even an MRI scan. Meanwhile I started developing other symptoms. Sometimes my muscles twitch and there's nothing I can do to stop them.'

‘Hang on,' Ruby interrupted. ‘All these tests and things, were they happening when I…when I was breaking up with Jonas?'

Her mum didn't meet her gaze but her father nodded solemnly.

‘Oh God, I'm so sorry.' Ruby's hand rushed to her mouth. She felt glad her stomach held nothing but a banana because she wasn't at all sure it was going to behave. Neither of her parents had ever indicated they'd been dealing with their own worries while Ruby made her escape from Jonas. The thought filled her heart with guilt and shame.

‘Darling, stop.' Lyn wrapped one arm around Ruby and drew her close. As her mother's hand crept up to stroke her hair prickles tingled beneath her eyelids. She lost her battle and within moments salt-water rapids were cascading down her cheeks. ‘You have nothing to feel guilty about. We're your parents – you mean more to us than anything and we wanted to be there for you. We're glad you let us get close at that horrible time.'

Ruby tried to lift her head – Lord knew she needed about an entire box of tissues to mop up the tears – but it was impossible. She clung to her mother as if she were five years old and had just lost her favourite cuddly toy. No one said anything for a very long while as if they sensed Ruby needed this time to let the news settle. She hated being so weak, but decided if she let herself go to pieces, let it all out now, then maybe then she'd be able to be the strong person her parents needed her to be.

‘Okay,' she said eventually, forcing herself out of her mother's arms. ‘Can you continue?' She wanted to know exactly what they were dealing with.

Leaning into the couch slightly, Lyn nodded. Ruby thought she'd cried enough for now but sat clutching the tissue box just in case. ‘After my neurologist had ruled out all the other possibilities, eventually, about a month ago, he diagnosed me with MND.'

Ruby's instinct was to ask why they'd waited so long to tell her, but deep down she knew the answer – they wanted to protect her – and it didn't matter anyway. Not now. ‘What's the treatment?' she asked instead.

Although Lyn opened her mouth she couldn't seem to find any words. Robert left the armchair and came to sit on the other side of Ruby. She turned to look at him.

‘There is no cure if that's what you're asking,' he said.

Ruby's heart froze in her chest, an iciness spreading rapidly all over her body.
No cure
. ‘That can't be right,' she whispered. ‘There must be something doctors can do. You don't look sick yet, medical advances are happening all the time. They'll probably find a cure in the next few years, we just have to be strong. Stay positive.' Even as she said this, she heard her voice wobbling and knew it wasn't that simple.

Lyn reached for Ruby again, this time clutching both her hands around her daughter's. ‘I probably don't have that long,' she said.

Ruby swallowed, struggling not to scream. ‘How long then?' she asked, surprising herself by how calm she sounded.