Zac and Mia (17 page)

Six days later an envelope arrives from America. Inside are two things: a postcard from Zac and a recipe in Wendy’s looping letters.

Imagining Zac in San Francisco isn’t easy. There’ll be no crowing roosters to wake him. No heavy gumboots or long pink gloves.

I reread the letter on the bus to the amputee clinic, where I’ll be getting my leg adjusted. I read it again, counting the references to ‘luck’. It’s typical of him to use the word so casually.

And he’s not the only one. During chemo, doctors would use it around my mum—they knew better than to try it on me.
Lucky we’ve caught it at this stage. Lucky it’s isolated
. And then, after surgery, I’d overhear nurses in the corridor.
She doesn’t realise how lucky she is
.

In the clinic waiting room, there’s a girl a bit younger than me. Her bandaged stump is mid-thigh. I catch her looking at mine with envy.
Below knee
, I see her thinking jealously.
Lucky
. She wears a wig and I remember how mine irritated me.

I have to look away. Does she really think I’m
lucky
?

It was bad luck that gave me cancer in the first place, wasn’t it? Bad luck put me through hell. So how
can it suddenly be
good luck
to survive with this much intact? Am I lucky to walk without much of a sway?

It’s impossible, this luck business. I wish it would just piss off and let me make my own mistakes. I want control back over my life.

I want to bake a fruit cake.

And then? I want to do something else, like get a job or travel. I can’t afford to fly to America, but I can go to towns I’ve never been, where people don’t know me. I want to look at a place with fresh eyes, the way Zac does.

At home, I lie in the small pool in the courtyard and admire the olive tree. When Zac’s back, I’ll invite him to Perth and the two of us can squeeze in here together. We can eat fruit cake and drink iced coffees, and he can tell me all about Disneyland.

‘Ariel,’ I say aloud, remembering my favourite character. As a girl, I was obsessed with Ariel from
The Little Mermaid
, with her beautiful red hair and shimmering tail.

I still have the DVD, so I go inside to play it. I know each song by heart.

But the movie’s not the same as it used to be. Ten years ago, I thought Ariel was incredibly romantic, sacrificing her tail for two legs to be with a human she loved. I’d forgotten the fact that the witch stole her voice, and how she suffered in silence to walk.

What a crappy swap, I think.
Keep the tail
, I’d tell Ariel now.

Keep the tail and sing
.

Zac’s letters are falling into a comforting pattern. I love the commentary and the random challenge he gives me each time. I know he’s just trying to keep me busy. It’s working.

Whenever the phone rings, I still hope it’s him. Maybe it’s 3 a.m. and he’s lonely in the city that never sleeps.

This morning, Mum beats me to the landline. She
answers a few questions, confused, then covers the mouth piece.

‘It’s someone from the amputee clinic. They want you to come in.’

‘Why?’ I was there only two weeks ago for an adjustment.

‘A fitting, they say. For your new leg.’

‘I’ve got it,’ I remind her, tapping the moulded fibreglass. This one should last me a few years. ‘It was probably meant for the other girl,’ I say, remembering the way she looked at me.

Mum hangs up the phone. ‘Strange. They said it was a carbon-fibre one. For you.’

It’s in the DVD store that I notice it. A strange feeling in my chest.

At first it reminds me of the butterflies that I used to experience on the Ferris wheel. But I’m standing on solid ground so there’s no reason for it.

I scan the TV series lined alphabetically along the shelves. Many of them are set in New York. I flip them over, browsing the front and back covers. New York streets have become familiar to me through sitcoms and dramas like these—the yellow cabs, the wide sidewalks, the narrow apartment buildings. Even the New York City skyline is recognisable.

Ideas are born this way: a convergence of two unrelated things. The first: a
Friends
DVD case. The second:

the memory of a postcard. Two images come together like strangers in a doorway. They jostle, apologise and sidestep, but still … something happens.

Something flutters in my chest.

Back at home, I watch episodes of
Seinfeld
as if I’m looking for Zac. Why is it suddenly so hard to picture him there?

I reread his postcards and letter. There’s no doubt it’s his handwriting. It’s Zac’s style too. His careless talk of celebrities. Weather. His mum’s obsession with Starbucks.

But now that I think about it, that feels odd too. On the few times I’d spoken to Wendy, she’d always offered me tea.

I run my fingers over the right corner of an envelope. There’s an Air Mail sticker and a blue $2.20 stamp of the New York City skyline. It’s the old skyline, complete with the Twin Towers.

It’s been over a decade since the World Trade Centre fell. It makes me wonder why the buildings would still feature on stamps when even old
Friends
DVD covers have been updated to a skyline without the towers. Why would a country risk opening old wounds?

What I feel isn’t dread. Dread is an anchor in your gut. Dread is losing your hair, dropping out of school, waking up without a leg and wishing you’d died. Dread is heavy and it holds you down.

What I feel is up higher, in my ribcage. It’s more like the stirring of fear and I don’t know why. I’ve
been through so much already. What could possibly still scare me?

I check Zac’s other postcard and envelope, with stamps proclaiming ‘Los Angeles’ and ‘San Francisco’.

Is it odd that none of them have dates? Is it coincidence the postmarked circles end at the stamp? That the corners peel off too easily, as if they’ve been peeled off before?

I have no reason to believe that Zac is anywhere but New York, doing all the things he tells me.

But giant wings beat at my heart and I know.

I know.

I know I’m being had.

I ring the number from the website.

‘The Good Olive, olive oil and petting farm.’

‘Bec?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re there.’

‘Yes … who is this?’

‘You’re back?’

‘Back from where?’

I hang up.

I try Zac’s mobile but it rings out. I sense him watching it; letting it. Does he know I know?

The wings have become a panicked bird in my chest. Nothing helps: the air in the courtyard, the tree with five green olives. Its kind, calming leaves. So many mixed messages.

‘The Good Oli—’

‘Bec.’

‘Who is this?’

‘Is Zac there?’

Silence.

‘Mia?’

‘Is he?’

A goat bleats in the distance. A cackle of chickens.

‘He’s at home.’

‘But he told me—’

‘I know.’

My voice crumbles. ‘Why would he say that?’

What an awful person I must be to make him go to such lengths—fake letters, old stamps, all those American clichés—just to avoid me. His whole family must be in on the joke, laughing at my gullibility. My ugliness.

‘Mia,’ says Bec. ‘Mia, he didn’t—’

‘He didn’t have to
lie
. If he hates me that much—’

‘He doesn’t hate you.’

How stupid I was for believing Zac could like me, when all his kindness was designed to get me to
leave
, to fuck off out of his life once and for all.

‘Mia, I told him not to—’

‘Because of my leg?’

‘It’s not your leg. It’s nothing—’

‘I won’t bother him anymore.’

‘Mia, he’s sick.’

Everything stops but that word. It snaps off in the air. It drifts from the other words, sending ripples across the courtyard, rustling each leaf of the tree. Five olives hang their small heads.

In the ordinary world, ‘sick’ means a cold. A headache. A sore throat. A complaint:
I’m sick of this. She makes me sick
.

But in our world it’s something else.

I’d assumed he was still well. I’d figured he’d had his turn and survived unscathed, to live as ordinary people do with ordinary marrow. He was supposed to be the one giving me strength. To keep distracting me, reminding me how lucky
I
am.

It’s not fair. I’ve been the lucky one all along—the ninety-eight per cent—and I never deserved to be.

Zac?

And the bird rips free, screeching up and over the fence, already tearing south.

My own cancer was a dog at my ankle, refusing to let go. I’d thought that all cancers were like that, gripping fiercely at bone until cut free and disposed of. But they’re not. Zac’s wasn’t.

I should have suspected something. He’d stopped updating Facebook, the way I once had. He withdrew into that dark place where you don’t have to be strong or funny. I should’ve realised he was hiding because I’ve hidden there before.

One website leads me to another as I track my way through help sites, forums, blogs and online diaries. I had no idea there’d be so many. When I was sick, I thought I was the only one.

Who’d have thought you can empty a human of their blood and marrow and replace the whole lot, only to have cancer reappear months later.

Unlike my cancer, Zac’s has nothing that can be cut out. Leukaemia gets into the blood and lungs, heart and stomach. It’s everything that makes him who he is—that boy who dared to knock, who’d rather make up lies than drag me down with his sadness. Even now, he wants to keep me safe.

Mum finds me in my dark room with the iPod on repeat. I don’t know what the song is. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s loud.

She stops at the door.

‘Are you sore?’ she says, but I shake my head and turn away. Why does it always have to be about my leg? There are worse things.

She’s supposed to avoid me when I’m like this. My music is the signal to leave.

But tonight it draws her in. I recall something Bec had said once.
When an animal’s kicking and fighting the most, that’s the time you need to pull it closer
.

Mum pulls me close and I’m just a kid, terrified. She smooths my hair as I tell her all about the boy from Room 1. The beautiful boy who put my pieces back together.

‘He shouldn’t have lied.’

‘He thought it was best.’

‘He should’ve told me.’

‘Everyone’s doing their best, Mia.’

‘What do I do?’

‘Get some sleep. We’ll do something tomorrow.’

She helps me into bed and squeezes my hands. When she leaves, she switches off the music and the light.

There’s no sleeping. In the darkness, I read online tributes to children now dead. Children who still believed in Santa. I watch the videos of bald teens, bored in isolation like Zac must have been. I read the blogs of patients who fought the first time, fought again at relapse, then ran out of momentum at the third attempt, or fourth. How many times before they give in? How many times can they go through this?

How many times will Zac?

I force myself to ignore the sites with statistics, focusing instead on survivors’ stories. I hope he reads them too.

I read about patients having four treatments. There are successes even then, even after the fifth. A woman has six bone marrow transplants over ten years and she lives, the blood of strangers colouring her cheeks. Twelve years in remission, thriving on a vegan diet. Others, too, who’ve fought so long and won, grateful to acupuncture, spirulina, wheatgrass, Vitamin B, yoga and prayer.

I hope he’s not out of fight.

It’s 3 a.m. and my mind runs hot. I check Facebook, wanting him to be there, his green dot pulsing like a faraway star.

Of course it’s not. I type a message anyway.

Zac, you can’t lie anymore. I know you’re home. Bec told me

But the words look accusing. I remember how patient he was with me in hospital.

I start again, slowly. I let the tears fall.

Typing this has taken all I have. I’m wrung out.

Before, everything I’d written had been about me—it’s
always
been about me.

I need this message to be for him.