Me Without You (20 page)

It didn’t take her long to find an iPod dock and crank loud her playlist of carols. The cars had started arriving, and from thereon it was like a tidal wave of cheer was upon us.

In the lead-up to Christmas, I’d been thinking so much about the past and about my family. Christmas lunch with Leon and Nancy’s family, though, was so hectic and chaotic that I found myself fully absorbed in the moment. Faces and names escaped me; there were too many people, each introduced rapid-fire as they arrived. Being the outsider, everyone knew my name, and everyone wanted a chat. I met the social worker from Melbourne and her public-servant husband early and went all day before I finally worked my way around to their teenage son. He showed me the illustrations he’d been quietly working on in the corner, including a brilliant one of Lilah and myself, which I asked to keep. I chatted for over an hour to the young medical student who Leon and Nancy were financially supporting, and was impressed with his focus and determination to work in medical aid to third-world countries. I met Leon and Nancy’s youngest daughter, who was working as a firefighter, her softly spoken partner and their adopted daughter, Yi-Liang, which strangely enough was the only name I managed to remember all day.

There was an endless array of delicious meat-based foods (Lilah inevitably picking away at the vegetable side dishes beside me), and the never-ending loop of Christmas carols on the sound system. And Lilah, flitting about like a butterfly around stints at her plate between Peta and I, and chatting to Leon and Nancy’s descendants as if they were her siblings.

I’ve never had a day like it. When the eating slowed and the cleaning began, Nancy directed Lilah, Peta and I to supervise the children while the other adults cleaned.

We settled into seats near the kids as they tore around Leon and Nancy’s garden squirting each other with water guns and laughing hysterically. As Peta sat down, she held herself gingerly, as if she was tender.

‘Too much lunch?’

‘Always,’ she said, but she said it quietly and that in itself was a shock to me. I didn’t realise Peta knew how to be reserved. I glanced at Lilah, who was watching the children play, a far-away look on her face too.

‘Are you two okay?’

‘We’re fine,’ Lilah shook herself a little to smile at me, then drew in a deep breath. ‘Fantastic day, wasn’t it?’

‘Amazing,’ I said.

‘Was it like this at your place when you were a kid?’ Lilah asked me.

‘It was,’ I said slowly. ‘It was exactly like this. A crazy volume of noise and too much fun and just people making the most of each other.’

I remembered the look on Mum’s face as we opened our gifts, the excited expectation that she was about to delight us with exactly what we’d asked for on our Santa lists—which she always did, regardless of how obscure our requests were. I thought of Dad, pretending to be grumpy to be woken up so early, then wrestling the twins for the right to hand out the gifts, even though that always ended up being his job anyway. I thought of the camera they bought me when I turned thirteen, even though they cost an absolute fortune at the time, and the car that magically appeared in the driveway on Christmas morning when I was seventeen. Mum always made a full roast with all of the trimmings, including a turkey, most of which wound up in the bin. Hardly anyone in Australia ate turkey back then, let alone a whole turkey, but Mum never stopped missing the cold Christmases she grew up with or the enormous family she’d left in New York. And even as we got older, right up until Mum and Dad died, not one of us boys had dared to miss a Christmas. Not even me, even as I’d grown comfortable in the idea that I was a token add-on to the family somehow.

But suddenly I saw my family life from a much broader view, and the good memories—the great memories—seemed so much bigger than my feelings of exclusion. For the first time in years, I felt a pang of longing for my brothers. There had been great times in amongst the tension. Maybe, looking back at my family life through the lens of adulthood and the filter of decades, I had the ratio of those things mixed up.

‘Surely it’s time to exchange gifts,’ Peta prompted, her slightly uneven voice interrupting my reverie. She slowly withdrew a Christmas gift from her bag, and Lilah did the same, a cheeky grin on her face.

‘Merry Christmas, Mum.’ Lilah extended her tiny package and Peta did the same with her larger, soft one.

‘Merry Christmas, my darling.’ Peta whispered. There were tears in her eyes and she clutched Lilah’s little gift close to her chest.

‘Oh, come on, Mum.’ Lilah tried to laugh. ‘It won’t be that bad—come on and open it.’

Peta swallowed and nodded, and I wondered if Lilah and her mother had somehow squeezed an argument in among all of the fun. I rubbed Lilah’s shoulders, and she smiled at me and began to unwrap her gift.

‘Oh, how lovely.’ Lilah held the scarf up by the very tips of her fingers, as if it might contaminate her somehow. ‘Real angora?’

‘It is, darling.’

‘It’s… beautiful.’ Lilah dropped it onto her lap and pointed to Peta’s package. ‘What do you think of yours?’

Peta was holding a key ring in her hand. She raised her eyebrow at Lilah.

‘It’s pretty?’

I took it into my hand and turned it over. The plastic case contained a photo of a beautiful vista, a deep valley with endless gum trees beyond it. The other side was similar, but in tiny, hard-to-read text, stated
Proud Platinum Donor of the Fight Coal Seam Gas Coalition.

‘How much did you donate?’ I asked Lilah quietly.

‘You don’t want to know.’ Lilah was delighted. ‘But it’s the gift that keeps on giving, literally for generations.’

She went to take it from me, but Peta reached out and snatched it back.

‘Hey!’ Lilah protested. ‘That’s not how this works. I don’t want your tortured rabbits and you can’t keep both.’

‘I can,’ Peta said. She frowned pointedly at Lilah and I wondered what the hell I’d missed that had spurred such a fierceness between them. ‘And I will.’

They glared at each other for a moment, and I winced to myself and reached into my pocket.

‘Maybe you can give Lilah her crappy key ring in exchange for this. Merry Christmas, wicked non-mother-in-law.’

As I’d expected, Peta was distracted, at least enough to take the parcel from my hands and stare at it for a moment.

‘Callum! I didn’t even think to get you a gift. I feel terrible.’

‘Not at all,’ I said. The day was already full for me. I didn’t need a single thing more.

‘From the same designer who made your necklace,’ I told Lilah as her mother withdrew two very large, sparkly earrings from the package and immediately placed them in her ears. They were flashy, gaudy and ridiculously shiny—the perfect match for their new owner. Like Lilah’s pendant, they were made from repurposed materials, but, unlike Lilah’s pendant, featured oversized glass quasi-gemstones.

‘These are amazing, Callum.’ Peta had tears in her eyes, and then to my surprise choked back a sob. She pulled me close for a hug and I felt her trembling against me.

‘Are you okay, Peta?’ I hesitantly patted her back.

‘Just give me a minute to collect myself,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want the kids to see me crying and get upset.’

‘What a bloody drama queen,’ Lilah looked suspiciously misty-eyed herself, but she rose and pointed to the water fight. ‘You two girls can sit here and weep; I’m going to go wage warfare on innocent children.’

It was a little awkward when she left, but I tried to comfort Peta as best I could given that I could only assume she’d overindulged in the champagne at lunch or perhaps was thinking about her husband.

‘Sorry,’ she said after a few moments. She righted herself, wiped at the streaky mascara that was all over her cheeks, and watched Lilah chasing the kids through the garden. ‘It’s been a tough day. But your gift was so thoughtful. Thank you, Callum. And thank you for making my daughter so happy. I never thought I’d see her this happy, actually.’

The tears were welling again. I patted her hand, hopefully without condescension.

‘She’s a special lady,’ I said softly. ‘And a stubborn, obstinate nightmare sometimes. Did you two have a fight?’

Peta swallowed and rose.

‘I think I have just enough room in my stomach for another glass of champagne. I’ll be back shortly.’

Alone now, I looked around, to the children and then back to the chaos of twenty adults all trying to clear the table at once, and sighed with a kind of stuffed contentment. It had been unforgettable.

P
eta decided
to sleep at the beach house. She muttered something about having too much wine over lunch to drive home, and walked with her elbow looped through Lilah’s as we made our way back across the driveway.

They were walking slowly and I was distracted, thinking about how much I’d enjoyed the chaos of the day and how little I’d expected to. I thought again about my brothers, and wondered what they were up to. Ed would no doubt spend Christmas with his wife, and maybe her family. What about Will—did he have a partner, or did he spend Christmas Day alone like I’d tended to, his only nod to the holiday an overindulgence of convenience food?

And then my mind turned to the future and I wondered if I’d be back in twelve months’ time, and what Lilah and I would be doing by then. My apartment would be finished. Would I sell it and move in with her? Could I convince her to reconsider children? Would we decide to marry?

The future seemed so golden, every possibility more delicious than the last. I had changed so much over these months and was slowly arriving at peace with my warped idea of family, beginning to dream of a clan of my own for the first time in forever.

My thoughts meandered, but my footsteps didn’t, and as the women dawdled on I walked ahead. It was easy to fall out of the conversation when Peta was there, especially after the tension between them over lunch.

I was at the front door when I glanced back to see Lilah and Peta in an embrace. They’d stopped quite a distance from the house and it took me a minute to realise that they were trembling with that whole-body shake that only comes from crying. I smiled to myself, assuming they were sharing some touching mother-daughter Christmas moment as they cleared the air, and turned back into the house.

2
5 December

There’s no doubt now.

I liked the doubt. I liked the possibility that my remission—my miracle—did not come with an expiry date. No one had ever had a remission from this disease before, which meant no one knew what to expect. I liked to think that I’d been cured. I needed to live as if I had.

Mum reached over at Christmas lunch and grabbed my hand. Her grip was too firm and I didn’t understand at first, until she released it just as suddenly and we both saw that my hand was jerking ever so slightly on the table. I could never feel the chorea unless I was watching for it. It’s minute today; most people would probably think I’m just burning off excess energy. But it’s not a nervous habit. I can’t control it. It will get worse. It will consume me.

I suppose, though, now that the hope is fading away, I can be honest with myself. Six months ago, most of the time I was sure that I was well, and since then I’ve felt differently. On some level, I knew, which makes it all the more dastardly what I’ve done to Callum.

People live with Huntington’s for decades and they lead fulfilling lives. They have children, they have careers, they have marriages, hobbies, achievements, fun. If I told Cal right this very instant, he’d be gutted, but then he would do one of his goddamned Google searches and within half an hour he’d be full of hope and plans again. It’ll be a slow decline, he’d argue, and we can make the most of the time we have together. We could try more experimental treatment. We’ll find a way. Together.

If I hadn’t already watched two people I cared about disintegrate into this disease, I’d buy into that, and I’d continue to entrench him in my life. I’d stop pretending that I was anything but crazy in love with him. We’d move in together, probably travel, and maybe I’d actually marry him after all.

The one indulgence I’ve allowed myself with this disease is to let Callum into my life. It was a slippery slope, this relationship. It gained momentum so damn fast and by the time I realised what was happening, I didn’t want to stop falling. It was like a luxurious reward to myself for having survived these years so well.

But enough is enough. The reward to me, the comfort I’d take in my final months or years, would not even come close to the pain for him. I’ve seen light and life grow in Callum over these months as he’s crawled out from his shell. I refuse to be the thing that puts it back out again.

And I’m not playing the martyr. I don’t want him to see me decline. I want him to remember me like I am today. I’d like Callum to take the thought of all of these months with him into the rest of his life, and to continue to grow himself. If in ten years’ time he happens upon photos of us together here at the beach house or snorkelling or parasailing or at the art gallery, I want him to smile to himself, to think of me with fondness, to miss me. I can’t bear the thought of him seeing that same photo and his mind shuddering back to a hospice where I lay twisted and writhing and drooling on my pillow. I don’t ever want him to change my catheter bag or feed me through an NG tube or remind me constantly what his name is.

And yes, maybe it’s selfish of me, but I love the look in his eyes when he stares at me. There’s adoration there, and I shine it right back at him. It’s sacred. I want to remember these good times with him, not what comes after.

When I told Mum that I have to let him go now, she begged me to reconsider. She wanted me to tell him the truth and to let him figure it out for himself. We were walking down the driveway and he’d wandered up ahead and disappeared inside. Mum and I stayed outside for an hour and we both wept and she argued for a long time that his love in my life will do me good. I think even she could see my point by the end though. She, of all people, should understand.

Later on I realised that Cal had been texting his brothers while we were arguing. He was so excited to have touched base with them, and I was so proud of him. They’re baby steps, but he’s reaching out, making connections for himself, and I hope that in some small way I’ve been a part of that. What a brilliant legacy to leave behind, maybe my best—Callum Roberts, this intelligent, giving, nurturing soul, has realised that he has something to offer to others.

For both of us, I will fix this now, before I put the wheels in motion towards this new, last stage of my life. But first, I’m giving myself a few last days to say goodbye.