ONE
Things to google while you wait in a hospital corridor: Who picked mint green as the universal colour of choice for health care providers? My leg taps at the same speed as my thumb while I spell out the inane question. I’m pretty certain the device in my hand is the only thing that’s stopped me from accosting the poor nurse for the thousandth time as she passes by. The way my mood is going, I’d probably find myself kicked off the premises for harassment.
Not an ideal situation for the only available next of kin.
The answer to my question flashes up on my screen, and I read it—well, I skim it—as I shift on the uncomfortable plastic seat. Something about a calming mood, influencing the patient’s psyche. The friendly orderly who stopped to check on me a half hour ago had suggested I move to the family lounge, but fuck that. It’s no more of a lounge than a decorated twelve-by-ten tank to contain the hopeful in. Nope. Instead, here I am, camped out in the sterile, bleach-tinged hallway, watching the trauma patients as they pass by.
I haven’t spoken to Kath in seven years. Does she still go by Kath? Or is she Katherine now she’s older, more refined? Strangely enough, it hadn’t been the first question on my mind in the five minutes we had shared before she lapsed into unconsciousness. My head had been busy circling around the one thing she did manage to say as the doctors and nurses flew around her.
“Childcare. Number’s in my phone.”
Childcare. Since when does she have a kid? Mum left that interesting titbit out the last time my estranged sister came up in not-so-casual conversation.
I’d ring like she asked, find out the truth, but I don’t have her phone. Chances are it’s crushed somewhere in the mangled steel that barely resembles her Audi. She bought the sedan shortly before we’d stopped talking, citing their impeccable safety record. I guess you could say the vehicle held up its end of the bargain, considering I’ve been told a dozen times over that it’s a miracle she survived the accident that took the other driver’s life.
I told the attending officer about the kid instead, who then promptly disappeared, hitching the radio on her shoulder closer to her mouth as she rattled off the details. They said they’d sort it. They said they could track down the name of the facility and have an officer there within the hour.
They shouldn’t have to. What kind of sister knows nothing about her apparent niece or nephew?
This one.
My phone vibrates in my hand, and I stare at the name sitting proudly above the Accept and Decline icons.
Mum.
I told her I’d ring again when I got more news. There isn’t any. But you can’t blame her for worrying.
“I still haven’t heard.”
She sighs down the line, the quiet hum of the television in the background. “It’s been over an hour.”
“I know.”
My bladder knows.
My rumbling stomach knows.
Yet, I can’t bring myself to leave the uncomfortable-as-hell seat in search of relief, in case I miss an update.
“Well, we’ve booked the next available flight. Your father’s packing our bags in the car; we depart in an hour and a half.”
My father, the retired psychologist, convinced Mum that a move to Queensland was what they needed. The thought of another winter in New Zealand’s south, snowed in, was more than he could stomach. “I need the sun to heat my bones,” he’d said. And Mum agreed.
Kath and I stayed behind, put down roots where we’d grown up, and promptly drifted our separate ways since there was nothing left to tether us to each other. Otago is more than large enough if you don’t want to be found. Seven years living within twenty kilometres of one another, and we never crossed paths. Not once.
“I’ll ring you if I hear anything.”
“Message me if we’re in the air,” Mum urges. “I want the update as soon as we hit the ground. We’re picking up a rental car in Christchurch.”
“Of course. Sure thing.” The majority of international flights still come in to the South Island via the airport in Christchurch. Once they get their rental car, it’s still a four and a half hour drive south to Dunedin. Yet it’s probably still quicker than waiting for the next direct flight to Queenstown and making the shorter drive north.
Silence hangs heavy. I don’t know what else there is to say that won’t seem trivial given the circumstances.
“She needs you,” Mum whispers, breaking our reverie. “Don’t make this about the past. Please.”
I don’t say anything. I know Kath needs a familiar face, someone in her corner, but my capacity for caring is tied up in how this affects our ageing parents, not me. I could have easily received the phone call and dismissed it, safe in the knowledge Kath is in the best hands here at the hospital. But I came in. I dropped what I was doing and took a cab across town to be here, because I knew it would break my mother’s heart if she knew how deep the fissure between her children ran.
“I’ll call you,” I say simply, before hanging up.
The low power warning flashes up on the screen of my phone, and I set it to battery save mode. There goes my entertainment. I slip the device into the pocket of my coat, and fidget with a frayed patch on my designer jeans. I used to feel bad about spending the amount of money I do on clothing and accessories, worried that somehow it portrayed the belief that I thought I was better than the average Joe. But that’s not why I choose to drop two hundred dollars on super-skinny denim.
It’s because I earned the right to.
I studied, I went without to focus on my goal, and I worked my damn arse off to get where I am now. The opportunity to work on half-million dollar apartments around the country, to coordinate their interiors and advise the elite on what style best suits their schedule, isn’t thrown in the laps of the lucky. It’s earned; fought for and won through determination and fire.
I made my life what it is, and so I deserve the rewards, shallow as they may seem to some.
“Ms Harris?”
I glance up at the nurse, who looks apprehensively down at me. “Yes?”
“They’ve collected your sister’s son. He’s here.”