When I wake up, Amie’s here.
She’s stroking my hand, just these feather-light touches, but I feel it in my whole body. I want to tell her that, but my mouth’s not cooperating.
‘Shh,’ she says, smiling. ‘Don’t try to talk until the anaesthetic has worn off. Here, see if you can sip this.’
She holds a straw to my lips. I take a tiny suck because anything more seems to make my head reverberate. It’s only enough to wet my lips, clear the stale taste out of my mouth.
‘The surgery went great,’ Amie says. ‘Your cheekbone is repaired, and apparently after the bruising goes away you won’t even have a scar.’ The wattage of her smile dulls down a notch when she sees my eyes. ‘I know you’ll always remember, Harris. I’m sorry.’
I shake my head a fraction. How I ended up back in surgery, how Ando died… I think about it, mostly at night. Sometimes in my dreams. But it’s not something we should both have to carry.
‘I’m hoping…’ Amie hesitates. ‘Well, I’m kind of hoping that we can smother over the bad old memories with newer nicer ones.’
She gives me another sip of cool water. This sip is easier. She puts the cup back on the nightstand, leans over me. Her hair is loose and it falls on either side of my face, so I feel like I’ve walked into a charcoal drawing – shades of dark brown, sable edges, but mostly black. Soft glossy jasmine-scented black. Our own privacy curtain.
‘Poor guy. Can’t eat, can’t talk…’ Amie’s brown-gold eyes are mesmerising, quirked with laugh lines at the sides. ‘I guess we’ll just have to think of something else for you to do with your mouth.’
Her head dips and her lips are soft, warm, slow as honey. She breathes into my mouth, teases me with the tip of her tongue. It’s like there’s nothing else she’d rather do than kiss me gently all day. And I am totally okay with that.
It takes some of the sting out of the fact I’m recuperating only half a ward away from my dad.
A few days later, when I’m better, stronger, and Amie and her dad have come to take me home, I walk into my father’s room. He’s only half-awake, and our situations are weirdly reversed: now I’m the one with the speech, and the revelation, and he’s the one lying in bed, cringing at the shock of it all.
Dad’s never been a great cringer, though. ‘You can’t fuckin’ leave now!’
‘I’ve paid off all the bills, Dad.’ I gaze out the window. Barb Dunne is out there, sitting on a milk crate with another nurse, both of them having a smoke break. ‘The rent, the pub tab, the groceries, the bookie – everything’s sorted. I’ve done my duty, and then some.’
His face is mottled, pink and yellow. ‘But I’ve got me treatment in a coupla months, you can’t just piss off and –’
‘Remember how we used to go to the rez, Dad?’ I shift on my feet near the window. ‘Remember how you used to pound me for skimming stones?’ I turn fully because I need to look him in the eye when I say this stuff. ‘What about that time you burnt me with cigarettes? Or the day I got into strife for nicking that bloke’s ute – the belt buckle day? You remember that day?’
Dad wriggles in his bed but there’s nothing on earth can stop me now I’ve started.
I straighten my shoulders. ‘I rememberallthe days, Dad. All of ’em. And you know what it was that really got me? It wasn’t the pain, or the times I ended up in hospital, or even the fact I gave up living my own life to deal with your shit. What got me, Dad? Was that you didn’t care. You still don’t care. You never have.’
‘That’s a bloody lie!’ Dad spits.
‘Is it?’ I make a hoarse laugh, which is crazy, cos my eyes are welling up. ‘Maybe it feels like a lie to you. But it feels like the truth to me. Because if you cared about me at all, you’ve never shown it, and that’s all that really matters in the end. It’s not enough to just think it, Dad. You’ve gotta make it happen. And that’s what I’m telling you now. I’m gonna make my own life happen. And the only way I can do that is to not be around you anymore.’
Dad’s lips are wet with fury, his eyes are bulging. In another time, another life, I would’ve been scared. But that time is over. As I head for the door he makes one parting shot.
‘You’ll never find your mother without me!’ he yells. ‘All that bullshit about meeting up with her and Kelly again, it’ll never happen!’
I pause, my hand on the doorknob. ‘I know. But I made my peace with it. And now I’ve made my peace with you, Dad. That’s…kinda all I’ve got to say.’
He’s still screeching when I leave the room. Closing the door cuts off some of the noise. Thankfully, Amie is standing within arm’s reach. She hugs me hard. ‘You’re shaking.’
‘It’s over.’ My arms slide around her back. My heart’s going like a trip-hammer, and I’m glad, so glad she’s here. ‘Jesus.’
‘You right, son?’ her dad asks. He plucks at the strap of the sling holding his right arm, and I can’t remember when he stopped being The Sarge and just became Amie’s dad, or Derrin.
‘I’m good. I’m all good.’ I pull back, scrub my thumb across my eyes. ‘It’s done.’
‘He was yelling a lot of stuff about your mum…’
It’s hard to talk for a second. I sniff and shake my head. ‘It’s okay, hey. I’ve come to terms with it. Mum doesn’t want to be found. And she set it up that way for a reason.’
The reason is still bellowing curses from the room behind the door, so Derrin ushers me and Amie further along the hall. ‘You shouldn’t have to give up your family just to be free of your dad.’
