Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (32 page)

He was utterly fucked.

“What can we do to help, Doctor?” Mum, trying but not succeeding in keeping the emotion from her voice.

A hard squeeze across the top of his foot. Dad.

Doc talked about the appointments that would need to be made. If he didn’t speak up in a second they’d have his future all mapped out for him. He put a hand up to stop them.

He got two brisk pats on his knee. He got, “Darling, what is it?” and, “Jesus, he can’t tell you, Midge. Write it down, mate.”

He put the pen on the page and then nothing. He had nothing; brain function shut down, it was too big to think through. He made angry lines on the page, digging the pen in hard so it scored, so it tore. They’d be watching him, thinking he’d have something profound for them, something to make them feel better, or at least show he understood. He didn’t understand. He’d had a routine operation. Polyps were a common, fixable complaint. He was supposed to be fine, not looking at the end of his career.

“Damon, mate?”

All he had was harsh lines, emptiness and the screaming he wanted to do, pounding in his head. He needed to move. He needed to get out of bed. He didn’t want them looking at him. He needed to be alone. He ground the pen into the paper, the noise of it ripping like the echo of his whole life coming apart. Then a hand over his and the pen and pad were gone. “It’s going to be okay, mate.”

Doc’s pat, pat on his knee. “Damon, no use of your vocal cords at all. Not a sound. There are other instructions as we’ve talked about. I’ve written them down for your carers and emailed a copy so your computer can read them to you. We’ll know more in two weeks, and we can talk about the new surgery, but until then I want you calm, quiet and close by.”

The bed shifted and there were nice to meet you’s and goodbyes. Dad’s heavy tread following doc’s heels into the corridor, wanting a private word, wanting the bottom line. Mum, sitting on the end of the bed, her hand over his shin. So many times they’d been in this place together, bouncing bad news between them; Mum and Dad practical and stoic, trying to manage the disappointment, the damage, trying to replace the dark with new sources of light and seeking, always finding a way to make it okay, accepting that others had done it, that it was never the end of the world.

But there was no bullshitting this time. His voice was his world and that’d been taken from him, what else was there left to give?

Mum was talking, he couldn’t take it in. He knew Dad was in the room again. He thumped the bed to get their attention and the pad and pen were slipped onto his lap.

He wrote. “I’m OK,” because that was his job. His part to play. He was always all right no matter what happened, no matter what he really felt.

“You’re not, mate. You’re not all right at all. This is a terrible blow.”

“Dunc, did she do a good job this surgeon, did she make a hash of it?” Mum’s anxiety whirred in her like a noisy ceiling fan. There was the clack as she clutched at a necklace, they’d be her good pearls, like rosary beads between her fingers.

The sound of Dad’s hand on Mum. “I don’t think she messed up. I think he’s just very unlucky.”

Unlucky! Unlucky was when you lost your wallet, when you pranged your car, when your house got broken into. Unlucky was catching your girlfriend two-timing you, losing a bet at the races or breaking your leg. This was the end of him, the end of everything he’d built and made his life into. If he didn’t have a voice he couldn’t work, when his savings ran out, he’d need to find some other way to earn his living, but doing what? What skills did a blind, mute man, who’d spent his adult life pretending to be a cartoon character, have to offer?

“You’re already at the empty pot, mate. Get off the rainbow.”

“Your father’s right. It might be okay still.”

Doing their job, they were only doing their job, but they’d heard doc. He wasn’t getting his old voice back, he might not have a voice. He didn’t know who Damon Donovan was without being The Voice. And fuck what did this mean for Georgia. He couldn’t lose her, but it wasn’t right to hold on to her either. She’d been to this place with Hamish; if he dragged her back there he was a calculating, selfish bastard.

“Darling, can we get you anything? Are you sure you don’t want us to stay. I think we should stay, Dunc.”

Mum would fuss. Dad would go mad with nothing to do in the city. There was no one to mind the farm for more than a day or two anyway. He shook his head. He had Georgia and Taylor, and Angus was coming to collect him. He’d be fine, physically fine, and there was nothing anyone could do for his mental state. He needed to keep it together. He’d drug up and sleep for as long as possible and otherwise hold his breath until there was something more to know.

He picked up the pen and found wrote. “Don’t tell. Only us,” and turned the pad around so they could see.

“You don’t want to tell the boys and Taylor, darling?”

He shook his head. He couldn’t handle the questions, the way this would change everything. Not yet, not yet.

“Are you sure that’s best, mate?”

“What about Georgia?”

Georgia, Georgia. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand over his face. They’d not met Georgia yet and that was probably for the best. He was desperate for a shower. He wanted to be home. He wanted to be in Georgia’s arms and he’d let himself have that, the coolness of her touch, the healing of her presence.

He turned the pad, wrote, “4 now.” There was now, when the worst was unclear, and there was what happened when he knew the worst for sure and he needed to make changes.

He needed time to think this through and he didn’t want everyone second guessing the future, or tiptoeing around him any more than they were already going to. He needed to get through these next two weeks and then he’d make a new plan, but for now, for now, this was the right use of silence.

26: Postmarked Sorry

Dear Georgie,

I imagine a letter from me is like a dose of plague. You were well rid of me and now I’m back like a bad smell. And I appreciate that if you’re reading this, it’s a miracle. You might well have chosen not to. If I was you, and I’d been treated so poorly by someone who’d professed to love me, this letter would be confetti now.

But I have to write this in the belief that you are reading. And so you’ll see the next words I write.

I’M SORRY.

I’ll give you a moment to absorb that. I’ve never said it before so it would be shock.

I’m sorry, Georgie, for all the ways we went wrong. All the ways that weren’t my fault and then all the ways that were.

I went back to counselling. I should never have stopped. And this time I’m learning that a traumatic brain injury isn’t an excuse to be bad tempered and just a total shite to the person who cared the most for me.

In the beginning, of course, I had plausible deniability for my utter berkdom. I just wasn’t the same anymore and I had no control over the anger I felt. I had no control over a lot of things and what I lacked in good sense I made up for in bad temper.

But all that time, through the coma, learning to walk again, the confusion and moodiness, the inability to work or even stay awake long enough to do anything interesting other than carp at the world, you stuck with me.

You loved me, Georgie, when I was at my most unlovable.

And berk that I was I blamed you for all of it. After all you blamed you for Jeffrey, for me not being me anymore, so piling on didn’t feel like a big deal.

But it was a big deal.

I got my legs back and there’s worse than a limp. I got my ability to think clearly back, most of the time, the headaches I can handle with meds, the fatigue I’ll have to live with. I even like what I do for work. I might not sing or write music but being a music librarian is almost as good without the sex, drugs and, well, you know.

But the thing is I never got past blaming you, so I made your life miserable.

And that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is—I got off on it.

I didn’t understand that till now.

You took me on for better or worse and I only ever served you worse and you were too good to quit on me until I quit on you. And seriously, what kind of a pillock has an affair and waves it in his wife’s face like I did, instead of talking things out sensibly.

Strike me dead, Georgie. I’m sorry.

I don’t mean I’m sorry I ended up with brain damage. I am sorry about that. There is no reconciling it, only acceptance, and I can’t pretend I don’t still struggle with it. Every single day. In my dreams I’m still a fellow who never gets headaches, never gets confused or angry for no good reason, who is sure on his feet and has enough energy to get through the average day without a nanna nap.

And who was never an arsehole to you.

I’m sorry I couldn’t separate out my feelings and put them in the appropriate places. Jeffrey did this to me, not your friendship with him. Nothing you did made Jeff the violent, dangerous idiot he was. I’m sorry I gave up counselling. I should never have done that. What a dickhead I was.

I’m sorry I made you feel like a nurse, like the hired help. No, worse, like the house slave. I made your own home a war zone between me and my wonky brain and my thwarted ambitions. See, arsehole.

Before it all we were so good. I know that’s not a false memory. I loved you so much and we were good together. And after I needed you so much. But we were too young to know what we were up against and you were too good to walk away. And I was too messed up to let you do it easily.

We should’ve listened to my parents. Your dad would’ve been so disappointed in me. If he was still alive and sober, I think he might’ve smacked me around some. It was probably what I needed, but I was so angry I pushed everyone away, especially those whose opinions I didn’t like. Most of all you, and you only ever wanted to do the best for me.

You know you never complained and that made things worse. Looking out for your dad taught you that. Taught you to make do with a bad lot and not make a big deal out of it. You should’ve left me years ago, when I was stable, when we knew all there was to know. I’ve been such a colossal berk.

But now I sound like the old me, blaming you again. I hate how easily I can fall back into that. I’m not that man anymore. At least, I’m trying not to be. I can’t be who I was before Jeffrey, but I need to be someone much better than who I was after him.

Eugenia left me. Of course she did. I was a bastard. I deserved to be dumped. I got older but my brain is stuck at eighteen. It’s like I never grew up because I never took any responsibility.

I don’t mean I was responsible for getting attacked. I definitely don’t mean you were. I mean I was responsible for what happened afterwards and how after I got better I got bitter and let that bitterness become the whole of my life.

It’s a valid reaction. There are people in my therapy group who are like that. They’re hard to sympathise with and that took me by surprise. I want to tell them to grow up, to make lemonade. But then I realised I’m not much better and I made a terrible mess.

I always thought Jeffrey wrecked us. I know now I did it. Not intentionally of course, though it must seem that way to you.

I’m wondering if you’ve even read this far. I really can’t imagine that you’d ever want to hear from me again. I had to stop writing this and start again at least a dozen times and I still don’t know if it’s wise to post it. I say post because it’s so much more of a process than an email and I need the whole address the envelope, limp to the post office routine as a counter measure against further stupidity. Pressing send is all too easy. Like blaming you was. Like making you feel guilty for wanting something better than what we had. Like writing the words I’m sorry are.

I should’ve had the grace to leave you alone, not to pull your thoughts to all this unhappiness again. I’m more or less resolved that whatever I do will be the wrong thing. I know that’s how you used to feel with me. No win. If I don’t at least attempt to make contact with you and tell you how sorry I am that’s just shitty, but in doing so, well, in doing so, that’s just shitty too, isn’t it? Par for the course with me, right. And that’s not a question. I know the answer is yes.

If I were you, I’d be asking why I didn’t simply phone you. I could’ve done that, called you at your work, but I was scared you’d hang up on me, like I’m scared you won’t read this, and also scared you will. I’m still a mess, and really I’m learning the way I am has much less to do with having a brain injury than I thought. I didn’t miss out on becoming the world’s greatest singer/songwriter because of my injury. I didn’t get there because I gave up on myself. Like I gave up on you, on us.

Anyway, I wrote because, difficult as it is, I can express myself clearly, or at least I hope I’ve done that, not that this is a literary masterpiece by any means, but I think you’ll know what I’m trying to say.

So now I’ve gotten to the part where I need to close this missive. You know I let this sit for a week before I got to this bit. Closing is as difficult as the first sentence was to write, which will turn out to have been a stupendous waste of time if you’re not in fact still reading.

I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am about what happened to us, about what I did to you. You were the sunshine of my life until I covered you with storm clouds and pelted all over you with ice. I thought I’d start typing and decent words would come. You know how I am that way, never short of a word on a good day, but I was very wrong. Everything I’ve written reads like bollocks. I wish I was brave enough to get on a plane and come find you and tell you all this to your face, but I’m not because, well, when was I ever brave, except when the concept was forced on me. And then I thought bravery was overrated and hashed it up by being grumpy and obnoxious. You were the brave one. You took me on when you needn’t have and you stuck with me when I deserved to be put out with the garbage.