‘Oh, it’s nothing like that. I overdid it with the lawns is all.’
‘So, it wasn’t a panic attack?’
‘And what would I have to panic about? Nothing, I’m fine.’
When someone puts up a brick wall, there is very little you can do to acknowledge your understanding that there are things hidden behind it. While I would agree that I cannot think of anything Dad would have to panic about, that is not really how anxiety and panic works. He wants to ignore it, to push it down and turn away, and I have to let it happen like that because I am not the one in charge of his life. But the knowledge that there exists a pain behind the wall does not sit well for me, more because of the wall than the pain. Are we not allowed to feel things? Should we not be able to talk about these things with our family? Because if not, what is the point of any of this?
A more eloquent or emotionally regulated person would be able to say this to their father as he lies in a hospital bed, but I am not that person, perhaps exactly because my dad is the kind of dad who is only ever fine, and my mum is the kind of mum who gets frustrated with the idea of someone having a panic attack in the first place. Perhaps the long-term survival of their marriage has relied solely on neither having any big feelings at either end of the scale. That strikes me as particularly sad. I am not sure I have ever had the inclination to zoom out enough to think about it, only viewing them until now in their roles as my parents. More self-absorption – Elsie is not wrong. That and the fact that the necessary genetic and environmental factors are not present. It does not make it impossible, though. I vow to keep trying, to figure out a way to scale the wall. And I understand now that excessive talking is not the only way to connect with someone, so I sit on the chair beside his bed and take his hand in mine. He does not look at me, but he allows this and so this is how we stay. Time passes without me; hospitals are not all that interested in time.
‘Do you know when you are getting out?’ I eventually ask.
‘I’m waiting on one more doctor to give me the all clear; they said he would be around soon. I’m ready to go, my emails are probably piling up.’
‘Fran and I will wait, then. Your emails can, too. You’re on leave, Dad. And we can bring you home.’
‘That would be nice, thank you. Do you want my apple juice?’
‘Yes, please.’
I let go of his hand to take the little cup from his tray, peel back the foil, and sip the sweet drink slowly. I think about the fact that one day he and Mum will not be around. It is a horrific thought, and one I cannot sit with for long.
‘I love you, Dad. I am glad you’re okay. And I get it, it’s hard. It’s really hard,’ I say, trying to put everything I am feeling into those few words.
Dad does not say anything, but he nods a few times in recognition. When I have finished his apple juice, I give him a lopsided hug, and make my way back to the waiting room, to Fran, following signs I did not notice on the way in.
We sit in plastic chairs until the doctor, a kind-faced young woman, comes out and tells us it is okay to take Dad home. She has not received, or perhaps not accepted, Dad’s note about his episode not being panic-related. I wonder how many panic-attack-disguised-as-heart-attack patients carry shame about their ill health being related more to mental than physical reasons. And I wonder why it makes such a difference.
‘Try to keep his stress levels down if you can. I know it’s a tricky time of year,’ the doctor says.
Dad laughs at this, and when I take his arm to lead him out to the car park, Fran leading the way to the car, I find myself laughing as well.
The summer after I graduated high school remains my most visited memory. I do not have to imagine it as anything else, because it is perfect in its true form, a reprieve from the events of the day that soothes me on the drive home. It was bonus time; I was no longer on the clock and thus no pressure existed to make me feel bad about doing whatever I pleased. My ATAR score had not yet come in, so even if I wanted to think about university I couldn’t, and I really did not want to think about university. When they graduated, Luke and Olivia ranked well and had their pick of courses; Luke left for Sydney before I realised he had even been contemplating it, and when it was Olivia’s time she was just as quick to move to Brisbane with a group of her friends. They had made plans; they had dreamt of what came next. And Grandpa David had left enough funds for these dreams to be put into action. But I could barely forecast as far ahead as dinnertime, and even then, it was always with the understanding that the weather could change. Now I can start to see how burnt out I must have been, and how disconnected I had become from myself. If I had known I was on the right track with rest, if I had allowed myself more of it, rather than stressing about having already taken too much, perhaps things would have gone a different way.
Fran’s seizure had been caused by epilepsy, and he started medication that made him feel sleepy and weird. He could not drink, so I did not either. My mind welcomed the break. It also meant we did not venture far, though he seemed to worry that he was preventing me from some imagined life of adventure and excitement, as if that would have been otherwise on the cards. He questioned me about my non-existent other plans all the time.
‘Why would I want to go anywhere? Doing nothing with you is my favourite pastime,’ I told him, as we restartedNew Girlfor the eighteenth time.
‘You always say that,’ he replied, getting comfortable on the floor of his bedroom.
He stacked two cushions on his lap for me – the firm one and then the soft one, just how I liked it.
‘Because it’s true.’
We saved our favourite holiday episode to watch on Christmas Eve. My house was a no-go zone, natural disaster area: pre-Christmas Cyclone Elsie, steer clear. Fran had made his room cosy with cushions and blankets to nest in. I laid my head on his lap and sang along to the theme song. It was as close to comfortable as I can remember feeling – in my comfort clothes, in my comfort place, on my comfort day, with my comfort person, and our comfort show. This was the feeling I was always chasing, I should have told him, because comfort was not boring to me. It did not mean giving anything up. It was a state of being I spent more time dreaming of than I ever had the opportunity to experience. Maybe I did not have the words or perspective to understand it then, but I felt it all the same. I wish I had been able to communicate that to Fran.
His hand started on my shoulder and by the time the episode was reaching its end, it had travelled down to the dip of my waist. The warmth that gathered under his palm spread to every other corner of my form. That could not have been a one-sided experience, could it? A chemical reaction surely required more than one reactant. It might have meant nothing, humidity and skin, but I allowed the feeling to merge with every other piece of us, our history and the last few quiet months we had spent like this, until it meant everything in the world. I wanted to approach things differently this time, to let him know it was ahimthing, anusthing, not just something I wanted to tick off an imagined to-do list.
‘Remember how we used to make out when we were younger,’ I asked, subtle as an axe.
‘Yeah,’ he replied, unsure.
I could not see his face, which made it hard to judge his reaction. I did not have the skill to direct the conversation the way I was desperate for it to go with any kind of sophistication. Without alcohol, or nosy not-quite friends, I was lost, regardless of how many teen movies we had watched. I knew not to jump to the end point, not to mention sex at all, but that only restricted my options, rather than laying out any alternative routes.
‘That was really nice,’ I said, because it was the only thing that felt true without putting expectation on him.
Fran took his hand off my waist and adjusted his seating until I got the hint that he wanted some distance between us. I sat up and tried to gauge how badly I had messed up this time. From the look on his face, quite badly indeed.
‘Sorry,’ I said, quick and sharp.
