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Taryn
“TESSA’S STILL NOT AWAKE.” Mum covers her face with her hands, her shoulder shaking, her whole body shaking as I arrive at the hospital waiting room. “Why isn’t she waking up?”
I reach out, hug her, even though it’s been years. Even though we’re not close now. She’s smaller than I remembered, somehow, like she’s shrunk, her spine curving maybe. She clings to me in a way that hasn’t happened since Helena’s death. Mum’s always the strong one.
Except when Helena died. Then she melted.
No. This can’t happen again.
It can’t.
I swallow hard.
“Mum, what exactly happened?” Because I still don’t know.
She was hysterical on the phone, every time I called from various buses as I was getting nearer and nearer, just screaming over and over about how there’s been an accident. Tessa is in a coma, but that’s as much as I know.
Mum starts crying harder.
“Okay, where’s Tammy?” I ask, looking over her shoulder. I’ve only just got here. The same waiting room where we waited to hear news on a Helena, even though I’d already known. I’d heard her last breath and seen how she’d shattered. I’d looked into her eyes, and I don’t know why, but I remember them as broken glass, as if she had glass eyes. She didn’t, and I don’t know why that image is so strong.
“Grandad’s got Tammy. They’ve gone to get something to eat.” Mum speaks the words against my neck. Her breath is hot, feels muggy. Dense with tears.
There are other people in here, waiting, and several are watching Mum like she’s entertainment or something.
I turn her away from them.
“But the doctor said to stay here,” she says.
“And Giovanni?” I don’t really like my mum’s boyfriend, but then again, I don’t know him. Every time I’ve returned home, he’s been at work. He travels a lot for that. A lot of the time he isn’t even in the country.
Mum rubs her face. The skin below her eyes is red and distorts without snapping back straight away as she pulls at it. “I still can’t get through to him.”
“What? He doesn’t know? About any of this?”
She shoves her mobile into my hand. “You try him. I’ve got to....” Her face crumples, and then she’s running, her massive handbag slamming into her back with every step.
“Mum!”
“Stay here,” she cries, turning back to look at me—just for a second. “In case the doctor comes. I just can’t...”
And then she’s gone. A hollow feeling fills me, getting bigger and bigger, like someone’s whittling away my insides. Scraping out my flesh.
Last time, Mum melted into a puddle, became a sodden tissue on the ground that no one could scoop up and get to stand on its own. Now she’s fleeing.
Everyone’s looking at me, and I sit down. Do I stay here like Mum said? Or go after her? Her phone screen lights up, but it’s just a Twitter notification.
Okay. Giovanni. I’ll call him.
I try to unlock Mum’s phone, but I don’t know her passcode, so I call him on my own phone. I’ve had his number in my contacts for years, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever used it. I press my phone more firmly to my ear. The line rings and rings before it clicks off. No answerphone, so I can’t leave a message.
A nurse calls out a name—one I don’t catch—but then a woman with a baby on her lap stands. The baby begins shrieking. I try not to show alarm visibly, but I just don’t really like babies. And sometimes, I feel like I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t like them. I just don’t feel maternal.
Even when my sisters were babies, I didn’t really connect with them. Well, I didn’t really see them. I was away at Roseheart, or at my previous ballet school. I only saw the babies in glimpses, but that had been enough. Everyone else coos over babies, even Teddy. He’s always saying how he wants a family one day.
“Taryn!”
I look up as a blur of blond pigtails and a pale blue Elsa dress flies at me, jumps on me.
“Tammy!” I almost feel winded as I hold onto her, somehow not dropping either phone.
In the doorway of the waiting room, Grandad appears. He shuffles, walking with a stick, apparently putting great concentration into each step. He sees me and smiles.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says a moment later as he sits next to me.
I lean forward. “What’s happening? Do you know?”
He shakes his head and suggests to Tammy that she plays with the kids’ toys a few feet away. Then he turns to me. “Where’s your mother?” He frowns, looking around.
“She just ran off.”
Grandad rolls his eyes a little. “She’ll come back.”
“So, tell me what’s happening? Mum’s barely said a thing.”
He is breathing hard, wheezing a little. “Tammy found Tessa unconscious. She said she was sleeping, but then your mum couldn’t wake her. She didn’t call an ambulance straight away. I don’t know why. She phoned me, hysterical. I then called an ambulance, and by the time I got there, she said she’d phoned you too. She was in a bad way, calling Tessa Helena.”
Coldness fills me. I flex my fingers and focus on Tammy. She’s picked up a picture book with a red dog on it and is flipping through the pages, frowning. Then she sits down next to the box of children’s toys and starts pulling out all the books, one by one. I guess she must like books, but that’s as much as I know about her. Tammy has always been the baby until recently. Now she’s two years old, I find her a bit more endearing, but I’ve not really gotten to know her as a person yet. Tessa is two years older. I know more about her. But not enough.
“Has Tessa got any medical conditions?” I ask Grandad.
“Not that I know of.” He reaches across and places his hand on top of mine. “I’m glad you’re here. I know it’s difficult for you, being back here.”
I nod a little. I don’t want to focus on that. I look toward the door, as if Mum is going to reappear.
“Should I go after her?” I ask.
“Let me. You just stay and watch Tammy. A doctor’s going to be back any minute, I should think. We’ve been waiting two hours, and they’d said it would only be an hour. Ring me as soon as a doctor is here, and I’ll come back.”
Grandad ambles away. I ring Giovanni again, but still no answer. I call Tammy to me and hug her tightly, because I think this is what I’m supposed to do. She babbles to me about the book clenched in her hands. Sleeping Beauty.
“Like Tessa,” she says. She’s smiling, looks happy. She doesn’t realize how serious this is—and none of us actually knows what’s happening. Not knowing is the worst.
When we were last here, me and Mum and Grandad, we were waiting on news of Helena, and it was agonizing, but deep down, we knew. They’d been trying to save her, Mum and Grandad, giving CPR until paramedics arrived and took over, trapping her into their ambulance. But I’d known, when I was sitting here, waiting for news. I had that gut feeling. I’d seen Helena’s body, broken. I’d heard how raspy her breathing was—and when it had stopped—before Grandad had arrived and shouted to start CPR.
I’d known what was coming then. But this time? This time, I’m in the dark. I don’t know what’s even happened with Tessa. Nobody seems to.
My phone rings, startling me. Giovanni.
“Taryn?” His rich voice is full of concern. “What is going on? I’ve got many missed calls from Shannon, Bob, and now you.”
“It’s Tessa,” I say. Tammy, next to me, looks at me with wide eyes. “I don’t know exactly what’s happened because Mum’s hysterical, but we’re at the hospital. Tessa is in a coma, I think, and I’m with Tammy now, in the waiting room. I only just got here, maybe ten minutes ago, and I haven’t seen a doctor yet.”
“Oh God.” There’s a long pause. “Pass me onto Shannon.”
“Mum’s not here. She got upset and ran out. Grandad’s gone looking for her.”
He swears under his breath. “Right. Text me details of the hospital. The postcode and address. I’ll leave work now.”
I hear him shouting to his secretary, asking her to book him a flight.
“I’m not going to get there until this evening but call me straight away if there’s any news. And get Shannon to call me as well, as soon as she’s back.”
“I will.”
Giovanni ends the call. Tammy looks up at me, sucking her thumb. Her eyes are filling with tears, almost in slow motion. Then one trickles over and runs down her face.
“Is Tessa going to join Angel Helena?” Her voice cracks. “I don’t want Tessa to go there. I want her to play with me.”
Angel Helena.
I didn’t even know that’s what they call her.
“Shhh,” I say. “It’ll be okay. Tessa will be fine, Tammy. It’ll be okay. We’ll see her soon.”
Maybe the worst part of saying those words is that I don’t know if they are a lie, and the weight of that possibility wraps around me tightly as I text Giovanni the address.
###
ALMOST AN HOUR LATER, a doctor emerges. He says Tessa is awake and recovering, says she had a critically low blood sugar level. He says it’s most likely diabetes. They’ll keep her in for tonight. Mum is back now, subdued and tearful. She says she and Grandad will stay at the hospital overnight and Giovanni should arrive here at about nine. She gives me keys to the house, asking me to take Tammy back as it’s almost midnight now. Tammy is now asleep on my lap, and I nod.
The bus back is quiet. Tammy and I are the only people on it, until a heavily pregnant woman gets on. The driver pulls the bus away from the stop before she’s had a chance to sit down, and the woman lurches to the side, stumbling. I reach out to grab her, to help, but I’m too far away. As it happens, the woman half falls into a seat.
“Are you okay?” I call.
She turns, looks a bit shaken, but nods.
“She has a big tummy,” Tammy whispers into my ear, then buries her face into my neck.
I don’t know whether to say it’s because there’s a baby in there, because what if there isn’t? Alma says one of her sisters has endometriosis and at times is so bloated from it that strangers ask her when she’s due. “It’s the most upsetting thing, too,” Alma told me once. “Because she’s struggling with infertility due to scarring on her womb or something, and she’s had three rounds of IVF. And then strangers assume she’s pregnant. She’s practically in tears when that happens.”
I definitely don’t want to assume anything. I’m uncomfortable just at the thought of making someone uncomfortable. But then seeing pregnant people has always made me feel queasy as well. I’m not exactly sure why or when it started—or if anyone else feels this way. I mean, it must just be me because everyone says how wonderful pregnancy is. Pregnant women are always complaining about strangers touching their bellies—so it must just be me. I can’t imagine anything worse than reaching out and touching a pregnant belly.
Would it feel soft or firm? Can you, like, feel the baby underneath the skin?
I saw a video a few months ago on Facebook. It was one of those progress videos where a short clip was filmed each week to track a woman’s pregnancy. At first, in the early weeks, she looked pretty much normal. You wouldn’t have known she was pregnant. That only started being apparent by week nine in the video, only ever so slightly, and for the next few weeks she had a small bump. The kind of pregnancy bump that I thought looked nice. But then it ballooned. Her belly became wider than she was, and all I could think was that it looked like an alien, this thing stuck on her abdomen.
I scrolled through all the comments, curiosity getting the better of me as I read all sorts of loving comments professing this pregnant woman’s beauty. And that was when I knew for sure there must be something wrong with me, because by the thirty-week clip, I was repulsed.
The thought of something—someone—growing inside me or anyone just made me feel sick. I broke out in a sweat, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. I had to stop watching the video.
But I often get this sense of repulsion, looking at bodies. Not just pregnant bodies. All bodies. Sometimes I get weirded out by what the human form is like. Like how weird it is that we’re just these torso lumps on two spindly legs. How we have a huge blob on top for our head, and two arms. A couple of times when I’ve been people-watching after ballet has finished and it’s the next group warming up, seeing them contort their bodies like that has made my stomach queasy. Made me think of grease pooling in my gut, and I’ve had to take several deep breaths.
Everyone in the ballet world seems to think that the human form is beautiful. It’s art. And so, I don’t know why I’m like this—because when I dance, it feels like I’m beyond my body. Like I’m transcending my human limitations. Dancing with a partner feels intimate and emotional and perfect. When I’m purely in the zone, I forget that we are sacks of muscles and flesh and bones, encased in skin. We’re art and stories and emotion.
But sitting on this bus now, with the pregnant woman several rows in front, it’s not art, not for me. It’s flesh and blood and bone growing, transforming.
I have to look away before I feel any queasier.
###
TAMMY SAYS SHE’S HUNGRY when we get back, and I am too, even though it’s nearly 1 a.m. I make Tammy and myself a snack, figuring it can’t do any harm, and we stream an episode of Peppa Pig as we eat. I reply to messages on my phone from the Roseheart dancers—Ivelisse and Li Hua—even though it’s late. Ivelisse will probably still be awake anyway.
I stare at Jaidev’s message. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a suggestion, and I didn’t mean to put any pressure on you.
That almost feels like a lifetime ago. I reply, telling him it’s fine. I mean, it has to be. Maybe I was overreacting too. And right now, I’ve got more important things to worry about.
It’s strange being back here. The house with the plush, blue carpet and the same scent in the air fresheners and all the balconies.
The balconies.
I close my eyes. No. I can’t think of them. But of course I can see the door to one. The glass door. There’s no curtain in front of it. The house is old, several hundred years, but there are four balconies. Two on each side of the house. One on each level. The living room, the kitchen, and upstairs, two of the bedrooms. I wonder if Mum has had the railings replaced with stronger ones. Safer ones.
Or maybe the doors stay permanently locked. I can’t bring myself to try one of the door handles.
Tammy and I are on the sofa. The same sofa I’d curl up with Helena on. It’s more stained now, the fabric worn thin in places. Over there, by the log burner, is where we’d sit to warm our hands on cold winter’s nights while Mum would tell stories. Our favorite stories were the ones about our dad. She had all these amazing tales about the stuff he was doing—but really, it turned out that we were conceived as a result of a one-night stand. Mum said she’d had a phase where she was out every night, meeting men, and she’s never said it, but I don’t think she knows who our father is. I’m pretty certain he doesn’t know. And so, neither do we.
But we always had Grandad, Mum’s father, and he said he’d be our dad too. He was. He taught us to ride our bicycles when we were little. He took Helena fishing when suddenly she decided she wanted to go, even though he’d never been before. He’d pick up coloring books for us and felt-tip pens. And he bought us our first pointe shoes, when we were both a couple of years into ballet and the ballet mistress at the first school had said we were finally ready to go on pointe.
On the mantelpiece, above the fireplace—now cold because Mum never lights it until the first day of October—there are four photographs. I’m first, in the white frame. Then Helena in the blue frame. Then Tessa, the green frame. And Tammy, the orange frame. Four girls smiling. Each photo was taken when we were two years old, so it almost looks like we should all be the same age now or something. There are no photos showing the age gaps. Always individual ones, I notice. And no photos taken after Helena and I were older than five are no display.
But the four photos just emphasize how there should be four girls here. I can almost feel Helena’s presence in the room, and I daren’t look toward the balcony doors in case I see a shimmer of her.
Quickly, I head into the kitchen, telling Tammy I’ll wash up and then it’ll definitely be bedtime, so she doesn’t see me cry.