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Taylor let go so abruptly he grabbed for the other side of the doorjamb. “He hasn’t coughed once since we’ve been here. Hasn’t cleared his throat. That kinda scares me. He’s been doing that for so long and now he’s not. It means something, and Midge said the surgery went well.”
It did mean something, so did how much easier swallowing had become. But he didn’t trust that. He didn’t want the specialist’s final verdict either, he’d been putting it off. He could pretend it didn’t mean anything, that sending Georgia away was the right thing to do, as long as he lived enclosed in darkness and self-imposed silence.
Because to open his mouth was to grieve aloud for the last words he’d said to her, for not understanding the precise cut of loss. It had nothing to do with his voice and everything to do with his heart, and to get his voice back without hope of mending his heart wasn’t a tragedy he’d prepared for.
He lifted his chin. So much he wanted to say but the person he most wanted to say it all to was thousands of miles away. And he’d lost her as surely as he’d lose Taylor and Jamie, Angus and Heather and Sam, if he didn’t step up.
It was now or never and yet he had nothing worth saying.
He opened his mouth and his first sound was a garbled cough and Taylor buried her face in his side. He got an arm around her and tried again, choked out, “I, ah.” It didn’t burn. “I, ah. I.” It sounded like he had a mouth full of sawdust and there were cobwebs so thick over his vocabulary he couldn’t find a way through them. I fucked up, I blew it. I hurt her.
He took a breath. “Spew spawn.” The first words of his second chance. The words he’d given Vox. They came out not much more than a whisper and Taylor thumped her forehead into his chest. She might be crying. He might be too, because his face was wet.
Jamie said, “And raging blue thunder.”
He cleared the mass in this throat that was fear and not physical and repeated the line Jamie had given him in a scatty tone with wild pitch.
Jamie said, “More.”
He took a shaky breath and focused. “You can shred me,” he wiped his face and squeezed Taylor so hard she squeaked. He took another measured breath. Unlike after the first surgery, there was no sandpaper rasp in his throat, no grit inlaid over his vowels and he had some control over volume. He held out a hand for Jamie to clasp. “But I plan to be annoyingly alive when the darkness comes.”
Mum did cry. But she roasted two chickens with barrow loads of vegetables. No one pressed him to talk, they were satisfied he could. They talked at him, insulting him, picking on him and it felt right. He let them have at it. He’d been a miserable human being, they deserved their fun at his expense.
That night he packed a bag. In the morning he was going home with Taylor and Jamie to see about rebuilding his life.
34: Secretarial
Hamish had written Damon Tuesday 10am on a post-it note and stuck it on Georgia’s borrowed bedroom door. “You answered my phone.”
He shrugged. “You left it behind. It kept ringing.”
“It can take a message.”
“I did know that.”
Georgia looked at the yellow post-it, looked at full of himself Hamish. “You don’t get to answer my phone and make appointments for me.”
He laughed. “You don’t say.”
“Unmake it.” She slapped the post-it on his forehead and moved past him. “Damon has a whole twenty-four hours to find something else to do with his Tuesday 10am.”
Hamish followed. “That would just be rude.”
“Answering someone else’s phone and making an appointment for them is rude.”
“No, it’s secretarial.”
She stopped in the kitchen and turned to face him. He looked silly with the post-it note on his head, and he’d never been fond of looking silly. Good. She’d never dared to make him look or feel silly in the past. “Did I ask you to be my secretary?”
“Did I ask you to move in with me and waft around like a hopelessly lost waif?”
“What?”
He took the post it-note off his head. “You need to do this.”
“I’m not doing it. You keep the appointment.”
“Georgie, you’re not very much fun, you know.”
