The woman had a point. What was she good for? Mowing grass. Making sandwiches. Drinking. Paying taxes. Judging people. Worrying about things that hadn’t happened yet. Abstract existential horror. Pretending the world wasn’t on fire. Dancing past graveyards. Playing the squeeze box accordion.
“I should teach music lessons,” Nev mused.
“Christ.” Matilda-Jane rolled her eyes and walked away.
Nev watched her climb into a white van and rev the engine.
Matilda-Jane drove by with the window down and her middle finger out, heavy metal music blasting. She held the horn down as she passed Nev. Matilda-Jane switched from the middle finger to a backward peace symbol, then wagged her tongue between her fingers suggestively. Bumper stickers on the back of the van read, ‘Decolonize your mind,’ ‘Stolen Land,’ and ‘Jesus was a Boong.’ Nev couldn’t tell if the last one was racist or anti-racist, which made her uncomfortable, which was probably the point.
The van returned for a second pass. Nev caught the black leather hat tossed to her.
“Give that to Ripper. Ask if she opened my letter. Keep eating your Wheaties.”
Reg sat by the bedside. He chuckled when he saw her face. “Explains a lot, doesn’t it?”
Nev eased herself into the stuffed chair by the window, knees protesting. Matilda-Jane acted like a horrible teenaged boy.
“You must be a magician,” Reg said. “She never does what I ask.”
“I bored her to death. She’s on to the next thing. Short attention span.” Nev needed a drink but wanted a bagel. “I can’t believe you dated that woman.”
He smiled, looked down, shuffled his feet. “You know how it is when you’re in love. We were teenagers.” Reg sniffed. “She’s a free spirit.”
They both looked at Ron sleeping in the hospital bed.
Nev’s chest squeezed. Today was still yesterday, not yet differentiated by the healing oblivion of sleep. Ron must have a guardian angel—a powerful one. The experience of the past twenty-four hours wasn’t enough to make an atheist believe in god, but Nev had haggled.
An odd feeling, mercy.
It had been so pitifully easy for her to imagine that losing Ron was her own karma. She chewed her lip, then shook her head. She had cheated death before, but this felt different.
Reg hugged himself. He was having a hard time. She debated whether to put an arm around him. He was a grown man. No one had died. It was his kid, though. He was a wreck. She wondered why that was. It would be a crash, to come down to this reality, if you were happy ninety percent of the time. She could not relate. Perpetual satisfaction was not a problem she shared. Shit hitting the fan was just another day for her. Another iteration of normal.
Reg had been both mum and dad to his kids. Sensitive man like that had the skill set for it. He could talk for hours and he could listen. She imagined this barrel-chested bowling ball of a man sitting on the carpet playing with dollies and beanie babies. He must have.
He had never recovered from losing Ron when she was nine. Nev saw that now. He worried about his kids constantly. She wondered if each successive separation was easier or harder. People like Reg made her grateful that she never had a child. She couldn’t imagine loving someone that much, how he must feel, viscerally, missing a part of himself. She wondered if it was like the feeling described in books, like a string tugging from his sternum to his kids, tugging and stretching but never breaking.
Matilda-Jane had taken Ron away when Ron was the age Rainbow was now. Five years in a van in the desert with an adult child for a parent. What had happened during those years? More importantly, what had not? Nev knew the answer. Ron had been bored out of her skull. She didn’t thrive in the nomadic lifestyle. She was a team player. She needed other people. Being alone was torture for Ron.
If attachment was a psychological response to abandonment, Nev was enabling the girl. That wasn’t the right word. This wasn’t the place to think about it.
A young nurse stuck her head in the room. Her eyes landed on Reg. “Are you the dad?”
He nodded, cleared his throat. “I’m the dad.” Nev knew he had legally adopted Ron for times like these. During footy season she was accident-prone.
“The doctor reviewed the MRI of her spine, said to tell you it’s normal.”
“Thanks, mate. Appreciate it.”
The nurse disappeared.
Reg bent over his sleeping kid. Nev stepped out into the hall to give him a moment.
When she returned, Reg was sitting down. She gave him a tissue. He blew his nose. He had been up all night with her. She pulled her chair next to his. He leaned over and cried on her chest.
That was different. She patted his arm awkwardly. He was heavy and smelled like cologne. If she relaxed, he would fall asleep on her. “Go rest. I’ll stay.”
“You need to change out of those clothes, mate.”
