Anders’ internal satellite navigation system tracked us quickly and efficiently through Royal Brisbane’s maze of walkways and corridors and into a part of the hospital that I hadn’t seen before.
The surgical ward was a bit of an improvement on last night’s jammed corridors in Emergency, but not much. There were still way too many sick and wounded people for my liking. Too many beds, drips and trolleys. And that antiseptic smell that didn’t exist anywhere else in the world, that had gotten right up my nose. That, and my worries about Mum, made the nerves jump under my skin every time I spotted a blonde head on a pillow, in a ward or wheeling slowly up the corridor.
Anders stopped suddenly and I barrelled into the back of him. He backtracked, checked the ward and bed numbers again, and frowned.
‘What?’ Anxiety made my voice squeak.
‘She’s supposed to be in Bed 9. You stay here. I’ll find–’
‘What are youdoing here?’ The harsh accusation in my mother’s voice spun me around.
She was standing not three metres away in a corridor coming off to the left. Propped up on crutches with a nurse at her elbow, presumably to catch her if she fell – and right now she looked like she just might.
Her lower left leg was off the floor in a half-cast that was open at the front. Her right forearm wore a lightweight cast too, but it was her face, ashen with shock and pain, that hurt the most to see.
‘Mum–’ I ran to her, throwing my arms around her, crushing my flowers against her crutches, burying my face in the flattened fluff on the crown of her head. Without her heels, she came up to my chin. Her body trembled, tense and stiff in my arms. ‘I couldn’t go to school. I had to make sure you were all right.’
I pulled away, babbling out my news. ‘We found your contract – well, Anders did, in your car. They’re going to pay you, everything’s going to be OK–’
‘Andy–?’ Her voice came out in a strangled whisper; her eyes wide and staring as they swung between the two of us.
‘And ers,’ I reminded her. ‘He’s a friend of Manny and Caleb’s – the artist, remember? He took the contract into your work this morning. They said the money would come through in thirty days so you don’t need to worry–’
‘Your mum’s gone a bit pale, love,’ interrupted the nurse at her side. ‘We might sit her down for a minute.’
She grabbed a wheelchair parked next to the wall and I helped her settle Mum into it. Her face was grey and sweaty from the effort. But there was something else going on. She was staring past me like there was a snake in the room; she didn’t even react when I lay the flowers I’d brought with me into her lap.
I grabbed at the nurse’s arm in alarm. ‘She’s sick,’ I said accusingly. ‘She shouldn’t be out of bed. She just had her leg operated on–’
‘Your mum’s doing remarkably well,’ the nurse said. ‘All things considered.’
She took Mum’s wrist in her hand, timing her pulse against the watch hanging from the front of her uniform. ‘The surgeon was able to plate and screw the broken bone. She’ll probably be able to go home in a few days–’
‘Go home? She only just came in–’
‘She’s managing the crutches, that’s the main thing. She can’t put any weight on that leg for the next few weeks, but she doesn’t need to be in hospital while it heals. Trust me, love. She will be better off at home.’
She patted Mum’s hand. ‘Your pulse is racing, so have a bit of a rest here with your family.’ She picked up the bunch of crushed hydrangeas. ‘I’ll pop these into a vase and be back to check on you in a few minutes.’
She walked briskly off down the corridor.
I turned back to Mum. Some colour had flared in her cheeks. Her eyes were hard, nailing Anders to the wall.
Every muscle in his body had tensed, as though steeling him against a blow he could see coming but was powerless to avoid. He looked cornered, but at the same time oddly determined, as though backing down was no longer an option; he’d take the hit, come what may.
It struck me then that he had looked that way the first morning I had met him.
‘Mum–’ I placed a hand on her good knee. ‘What’s going on?’
Her chest rose and fell, her breath coming in short, hard gasps, as though it hurt her to breathe.
‘That’s a good question, honey-bun,’ she said in a voice I barely recognised. ‘Maybe And ershere could answer it. Maybe he could tell us both what he thinks he’s doing here with my son–’
‘Mum, don’t–’ I grabbed her good hand. ‘He’s been helping me, helping us. You don’t know him, he’s–’
‘No, youdon’t know him,’ she said fiercely. ‘You know nothing about this man. Nothing–’
‘And neither do you Lydia,’ said Anders, stepping forward to stand beside me. The blood had run out of his cheeks, leaving his face pale against the black wings of his hair. His blue eyes blazed with a determination I hadn’t seen before. ‘I was a boy, Lydia. Only five years older than Henry is now–’
‘Get out,’ she hissed. ‘You have no right–’
‘Maybe not. But you have no right either, to keep uprooting this boy and running away every time I try to get in touch–’
‘Wait – You two knoweach other?’ I looked from one to the other. My mother, hard-eyed and colder than I’d ever seen her; Anders, pale but determined in the face of her inexplicable anger.
‘Righty-ho, back again.’ It was the nurse, returning with the battered hydrangeas in a stubby white vase. ‘If you grab the flowers, lovey, your dad can take your mum’s wheelchair and–’
‘He’s not my–’
The words caught in my throat. Anders and I had both turned when the nurse sang out. Behind her was a window that reflected back a clear image of us. Side by side. The two of us, black-haired, pale skinned and ... My eyes met Anders’ in the mirrored glass.
Blue-eyed.
The world tilted and I grabbed for the only person who could make sense of what my eyes were seeing ... what my mind couldn’t quite grasp.
But my mum wasn’t looking at me. She was staring, her eyes brimming with bitter tears, at Anders.
I backed away from her. She looked like a stranger, pinched and ill, in her wheelchair. Her hands flew up, alarm making her voice sharp. ‘Honey-bun, wait–’
Anders moved towards me, reaching out, his voice cracking.
‘Henry–’
I kept backing, needing to put some distance between them and me. Needing to get away from the slip-sliding world that was rolling and bucking under my feet. I needed to find a space where I could curl up, away from them and the pain and confusion of all their untold stories.
A trolley banged into the back of my legs. I swerved round it, glad to have a physical barrier between me and them. The ding of the lift sounded behind me.
‘Honey–’
‘Don’t!’ I raised both palms to ward off their words. Anders froze and I backed away, holding both of them in place with short, jerky movements of my hands. ‘Just ... don’t.’
Then I turned and I ran.
The lift doors slid closed as I threw myself through the gap. I jerked my head around to see Anders sprinting towards me, the doors slamming shut on his anguished shout.
‘Henry, wait!’