The Problem With Crazy (27 page)

T
HE HOUSE
was eerily quiet as I clicked the coffee machine on and waited for it to heat up. Odd, I thought, glancing at the clock that read seven am. Usually Mum was up and racing around the house, getting ready for work by now.

I grabbed some milk from the fridge. It was brandished with a yellow post-it note:
Call me
.

Huh? But Mum had to be home. Where else would she be?

I placed the milk carton down on the bench and took the thinly carpeted stairs, two at a time, to my parents’ bedroom. I gingerly knocked on their closed white bedroom door, third on the right, my knuckles barely rapping the surface.

“Mu-um, time to get up,” I sang out in the cheeriest tone I could muster. I think it fell somewhere in between Ursula, the evil octopus from
The Little Mermaid
, and Morticia Adams.

Silence.

“Mum?” This time, I slowly turned the handle and peered into the dark of my parents’ room.

The bedspread was thrown back, crumpled in a heap at the foot of the bed, and sheets were knotted across the mattress. The dresser drawers were open, a T-shirt hanging suicidally from the corner of one, and the curtains were drawn tight. Not a skerrick of light entered the room, aside from where I’d opened the door.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

This was bad. Really bad.

I’d never known Mum to leave the house without making her bed, without letting the light into her room, without leaving it so tidy you could have had a house inspection in her absence.

When had she left? Where did she go? And where was Dad?

I swallowed as a sick feeling settled in my stomach, rolling around as heavy as a bowling ball.

Something had happened to Dad and, somehow, in my blissful post-Lachlan sleep, I had dozed right through it.

I flew down the stairs and snatched my mobile up off the counter where I had left it. I hit “favourites” and clicked on Mum’s number, biting my lip as I waited the eternity it took to connect, as it slowly rang that obnoxious repetitive tone.

It rang out and I tried again, muttering the words “Come on, come on, come on,” and pacing back and forth, like it would actually have some effect.

“Kate, I can’t talk.” Mum’s voice was short, like she was doing a million other things. Knowing Mum, she probably was.

“Where are you? Is everything okay?”

“Your father is sick. They think it might be pneumonia. We’re at the hospital, down in Sydney, next to the counselling centre. They flew us there from Lakes early this morning after your dad—after your dad …”

“Mum?”

“Sorry, Kate. He’s just really sick. And if it’s pneumonia, with his condition …” She didn’t have to say anything else. My heart froze.

“You didn’t wake me up?” I was five years old again, bottom lip atremble.

“It all happened so quickly, my love. Everything’s fine, he’s getting the best medical care, and—”

“I’m coming, okay?”

“Kate, you don’t have to do this. Stay there—”

I ended the call and raced back up the stairs, throwing on the outfit I’d worn the day before, running a brush through my hair to make sure that, if I had to go to work straight from the hospital, it would be okay.

Okay. Like that word was relevant anymore. Dad had pneumonia. I flashed my mind back to the things Leslie had said about people with Huntington’s.

Potential causes of death: Injuries caused by falls. Pneumonia.

My heart beat at double speed, thumping deep in my throat so I could hear and feel it resonating throughout my body. I threw an elastic band around my hair, pulling it off my face, and grabbed my phone and handbag as I raced out the door, barely remembering to lock it behind me.

I turned the key in the ignition and drove, trying desperately to stay within the speed limit and not think about the worst possible outcome for the hour it took me to reach the hospital. It was hard to shut out the noise in my head.

I had my psychiatrist’s appointment scheduled the next day, too. And after that, the blood test, which meant another four weeks and I’d know my fate. Whether I could have the Huntington’s gene, too. Whether one day, I could wake up, my health having gone from sniffles to downright pneumonia overnight, and having my life hanging in the balance, too.

Please don’t die. Please don’t die.

I slammed my car in the first available spot and jogged up the lawn, through the doorway of the big, white reception area. A woman sat behind a desk, prim and proper, her hair pulled back in a stark bun.

“I’m here for my dad, Paul, Paul Tomlinson,” I told the receptionist. My breath was coming short and shallow, tiny gasps that racked my chest.

“Just breathe, dear.” The woman clicked away on her computer for so long I almost wanted to jump the counter and type the name in for her.

“He’s in emergency. No visitors.” She looked up at me and smiled. “You can wait in the café, though, just down the hall to the left, it is.”

“I’m his daughter.”

“I don’t make the rules, dear.” She shook her head. “You might be able to see him, but he probably needs the doctor’s full attention right now. It’s just how it is.”

“Where would my mother be, then?”

The receptionist flashed me a smug smile. “I don’t know, dear. Is she a patient, too?”

I slammed my fist on the counter and stormed off, racing towards the lift. I’d follow the signs to emergency and just find him there. Surely, they’d be more sympathetic once they saw me in person.

When I rounded fifty corners and took thousands of stairs, I reached emergency and ran straight up to the counter there, noting that out of the twelve people in the room sitting on chairs, none of them was my father or mother.

“I’m here about Paul—Paul Tomlinson,” I gasped to the nurse behind the counter. She smiled at me, checking the piece of paper in front of her.

“Are you immediate family, dear?” Her red hair was frizzed around her face. She reminded me of a slightly less in-control version of Leslie.

I nodded. “He’s my dad.”

“Your father is being transferred to the wards as we speak. I spoke to your mum just minutes ago.” She smiled. Her droopy cheeks shook as she waddled closer to the counter.

“Will I be able to see him?”

“Absolutely. Just sit down and I’ll call you when.” She gestured to the couches on the side of the room and I walked over to them, shoulders slumped.

After the seconds ticked by and turned to minutes, I finally heard my name called and the receptionist gave me a little piece of paper with a room number on it. I took it from her hand, trying to control my shaking, and walked out of the office down a long, narrow corridor.

Room 401.

Four-oh-one.

He had a room. He wasn’t dying. They wouldn’t put him in a room if he were going to cark it. It was going to be okay. He was going to be okay.

I opened the door to the room and feasted my eyes on every last detail. There was Dad, hooked up to an IV and a drip, tubes running in and out of his body. His eyes were closed, a five o’clock shadow on his chin, and his hair stuck to his head, like he’d been sweating, or caught in the rain. He was in a white hospital gown, and his face was drained of colour.

My heart was doing the pounding thing again and my knees felt weak.

“Kate,” Mum spoke, a quiet voice shaking with worry. Her eyes never left his thin frame. She hovered near him, clutching his hand tightly in hers.

“Is he okay?” I asked. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, either.

“He’s very sick.” Mum squeezed again, her nails gouging into his wrist. I couldn’t blame her. Anything to get some feeling back into his body.

“Is he going to … die?”

The words hung between us, big buckets of space swallowing them up until they weren’t even our words any more. They weren’t words Mum was prepared to answer.

“Good afternoon.” A lady in scrubs entered the room, giving us both a quick nod. “I’ll just do a few quick checks.” She looked at the machines attached to my father, comparing them to the little scribbles of writing on a clipboard she’d taken from the end of Dad’s bed.

No, not Dad’s bed. The bed Dad was in. The bed he would soon be leaving.

“Is he going to be okay?” My voice was trembling, even though I tried to steady it. The nurse looked over at me, past the clipboard.

“It doesn’t look to be pneumonia. He has a bad case of the flu, yes, but at the moment things are looking good.”

“But he’s unconscious,” I said, pointing to his still figure on the bed.

“Sleeping.” The nurse shook her head. “I didn’t mean to panic you. Even the flu is very serious for someone with a disease like his.” She placed the clipboard back at the end of the bed. “Keeping him here is mainly for observation and prevention. We’re trying to make sure his condition doesn’t worsen. You did the right thing, coming in. Much better safe than sorry.”

“Okay.” I sank numbly into a white plastic chair next to the hospital bed. Dad’s breathing was laboured, varying in speed from rapid staccato gasps to long, drawn out inhales. With his eyes shut, his skin so pale, cheeks so drawn, he didn’t look at all like my father. It was easier to believe this stranger was the man who had Huntington’s, not the guy who’d demanded a beer or thrown a saltshaker at a wall. The guys who had been alive, three-dimensional, were too similar to my dad, and too full of life to be hospital-bed sick.

This guy was nothing but a shell.

I pursed my lips, thinking how one day this could be me. I thought of Lachlan, who had kissed me anyway, and his close relationship with Johnny, despite how hard it must be.

I scooted my chair closer and rested my hand on Dad’s arm, for the first time in more than a year.

I
DECIDED
to go to work, content in the knowledge that Dad wasn’t knocking on death’s door. Mum was curled up on Dad’s bed, asleep. They looked cute together; like a young couple.

Would Lachlan get sick again?

One day, will I curl up on his hospital bed? Or will he curl up on mine?

The thought didn’t upset me like I’d thought it would. Instead, it was a morbid curiosity that plagued me for my trip from Sydney back to Lakes.

I pulled into the parking lot beside Lachlan’s bike and raced in through the back entrance, hoping no one would notice how fifteen-minutes-late I was.

“Sorry,” I muttered under my breath as I jammed an apron around my waist and tied the ribbon in a bow at my back. Lachlan just shrugged and smiled, throwing me a tea towel.

“It’s okay.” He took out some milk and filled the beaker next to the machine as I lined up a few fresh cups. A string of receipts were lined up in front of him, and I wished I’d kept a better eye on the time. Clearly, he’d been busy.

“I was visiting the hospital,” I offered, as I added tiny cookies to the two cups of coffee he placed in front of me. “I won’t be late again, though.”

I placed my hand under the first saucer to lift it up and deliver it to its rightful owner when I felt a firm grip on my wrist. I widened my eyes as Lachlan pulled me closer to him, ever so slightly. The milk trembled in the glass.

“Is everything okay?”

The passion, the intensity of concern burning in his eyes went straight through to my soul. I shivered.

“It’s fine.” I took a step backward. I had to break the connection of his flesh on mine. He was making me feel much more than I wanted to, much more than I was able to.

I delivered the coffees, cleared a table, delivered more coffees, and cleared another table. Soon I’d fallen into a seamless rhythm. I was like an actor in a play, never once deviating from her script. It went something like this:

“Hi, how are you today?”

Insert mundane answer here; usually “Good thanks” “Fine” or, in some cases, complete ignorance of the question.

“What can I get for you?”

This is where they would ask for
X
cups of coffee and
X
sides, and please make sure it was low-fat/extra-sugar/came with a dash of caramel/weak-strength/double-shot/not too hot/scald-your-mouth burning.