Are You Seeing Me? (2 page)

“Uh, Pez?”

Perry halts his runaway train of thought, takes a breath and begins lightly tapping the tips of his fingers together. He looks down at his seat-belt buckle. The couple stare in my direction.

“My name’s Justine Richter. I’m Perry’s sister and caregiver. Just so you know, Perry has a brain condition. It can cause him to feel—”

“Brain condition?” asks Jane.

“Yes. That’s right.”

“So, is he one of those people who are very good with numbers?”

“I
am
good with numbers,” confirms Perry.

The husband arches his brow and twists in his seat. “What’s 1,491 times 6,218?”

Perry thinks for a second, then unbuckles his seat belt, leaps out of his chair and opens the overhead bin. Ross stares at me, eyebrows high on his forehead.

“It’s coming,” I say. “Takes him a little longer than the ones they trot out on
TV
.”

Perry closes the compartment and flops back down in his chair. He’s holding a calculator. “What were those numbers again, Ross?”

“I…I can’t remember.”

“Was it 1,491 times 6,218? Or was it 4,191 times 2,618?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Let’s try the first one.” Perry brings the calculator up very close to his chin and punches in the equation, emphasizing each digit entry with a small nod. When the sum is done, he thrusts the calculator at Ross’s face, causing him to rear back. “Is this the correct answer, Ross?”

“I’ve got no idea.”

“Oh. I thought you knew the answer.”

“You took the words out of my mouth, son.”

Perry wrestles with the meaning of this for a moment. He twists his lips this way and that, voices a quiet hum, then gives up. He stashes the calculator in the seat pocket, then starts playing with his touchscreen video monitor. I’m ready to provide some assistance, but he doesn’t need it. Within seconds he’s wearing earbuds and watching the opening sequences of a documentary on saltwater crocodiles.

I engage the couple with a clipped smile. “Perry has trouble with people—mixing with them and communicating with them—and it sometimes results in inappropriate behaviors. I appreciate your understanding and patience.”

“Reckon I might’ve been the one with the inappropriate behaviors, love,” says Ross.

“Make that two of us,” adds Jane.

I study their earnest faces. No need for further education here. Class is dismissed. “It’s fine,” I say. “All good.”

They breathe a sigh of relief. Jane asks Ross to sit back so she can see me. “Thank you,” she says. “It’s Justine, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Justine, if you don’t mind me asking, did you say you were Perry’s sister
and
caregiver?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mean just for your trip?”

“No, I’m his sister all the time.” A
badum-tish
follows. I announce that I’m here all week and ask that they don’t forget to tip the waitress. Jane blinks three times. “Sorry, my jokes aren’t as good as Perry’s. The answer to your question is no, I am the current full-time caregiver for my brother.”

Jane places a hand on her breast and tilts her head. “Oh, that must be so difficult for you.”

“Ow! That’s gotta hurt!” Perry mimics a crocodile’s lunge and snap with his hand. His focus remains on the small screen.

“It has its moments,” I reply.

“Wow. You must be an amazing person to do that, especially on your own. Do you have any help at all?”

The question loiters in the aisle like abandoned luggage. Then it’s in my lap, heavy and pointed. I’m overtaken by a desire to share it all with these people, these complete and decent strangers. To tell them how our mother left and we were raised by our father. How he did the best he could, better than he was obliged to do. Then he up and died two weeks shy of our eighteenth birthdays. And even though he swore on his deathbed I was ready—that my future was more than just being my brother’s keeper—the two years following made his words seem like a coin tossed into a wishing well.

Do I have any help? It’s coming. When this holiday is over and we touch down again in Brisbane Town, the balance my father wanted will be possible. “Home” will be elsewhere for Perry. “Dependence” will be measured by degrees. The wishing well will answer with the name Fair Go Community Village. Yes, help is coming, all right.

But the truth is, I never asked for it.

I want to tell these polite outsiders all of this and assure them of one last, important fact: I am
not
an amazing person. But the itch to unburden recedes when we’re interrupted by the pilot’s update. “Apologies, again, for the delay, folks. We are all set to go now. Shouldn’t be a problem making up for lost time.”

I shift my attention from Jane to Perry. He senses the rolling movement of the plane and removes his earbuds.

“We’re moving,” he announces. He digs around in the seat pocket and extracts the laminated safety card. He lifts it high so it is visible to the passengers behind him. “If we crash on takeoff, I can help save some of you! No lie, I have first-aid expertise!”

“Shoosh!” I rein Perry in with a tug on his forearm. Amid the crowd murmurings—some good-natured, others not so forgiving—I turn back to Jane. “Why would I need any help?”

2:12 AM, VANCOUVER TIME. The lights in the cabin have been dimmed and economy class is in various states of slumber. The burring jet engines are occasionally punctuated by a chunky snore or a muffled cough or a baby’s cry.

I lean over to check on Perry. He’s out. Head tilting right and forward, his eyelids flutter. The small, orb-shaped seismometer is cradled in his lap like a snuggling pet. His seat is bolt upright. My desire to press the armrest button and ease him back into a more reclined position pales next to the prospect of waking him up. He’s done well so far—he’s earned some uninterrupted rest. Hell, so have I.

“Worn out” doesn’t begin to describe my exhaustion. I rub my eyes until there are raw tears. Sleep won’t come for a while yet. The uncomfortable seat is partially guilty, but Perry’s the main culprit. Perry and the dark. For years as a child, I thought the nighttime knew secrets about my brother, that if I was close enough and awake enough, those secrets would be revealed in a sign or a vision or a whisper. Maybe I would learn the cause of his condition? A body toxin unidentified at birth. Some faulty genetic code spelled out in terms a science-shunning, literature-loving girl could understand. Maybe I’d be given the solution to his riddle? The power to bestow upon him all the unspoken language skills the rest of us take for granted? Or perhaps I’d be “made” like him for a few predawn hours; all the traits would be mine: the twitches, the ticks, the routines and the obsessions. I would think too fast and feel too much. I would try to be the same as everyone else in this world, and I would set the frustration and the anger and the despair free when it proved impossible. Then I would be Justine again, only new and improved, knowing my brother’s existence completely, working to bring about greater understanding in the “normal” world.

With those nocturnal revelations so tantalizingly close, deferring sleep became a habit when Perry was in the same space. It took hold when we were little kids, and was reinforced when we went camping or on holidays.

It came back in a big way after Dad died.

I need Dad now. I reach down and reef the bag out from under the seat in front. Amongst the contents is the weathered hardback I can identify by touch and smell alone. Red and purple roses on the cover. Faded, felt-pen title in block letters.
The Life and Times of a Tree Frog
—the journal my father faithfully kept for seventeen years and fifty weeks. I open it to page one and listen for his voice: a gentle and unhurried baritone, nothing like the wispy croak he had in his final days.

21 October 1990

Hello, Justine. If you’re reading this, it’s 21 October 2008 and you’ve just turned eighteen. Happy Birthday! I wanted to do something special for the two of you, starting on the day you were born. Well, that’s today. Mum gave birth to you this morning—you first at 11:26, Perry three minutes later—and this is the special something. A journal. One for you and one for your brother. Eighteen years in the making. I hope you like it.

Originally, I thought about doing some videos. Not like regular home movies of our holidays or Christmases. More personal ones, with stories and memories. Ones you could look back at and say, “That’s my dad, all right!” But I figured it would be difficult keeping it a secret when you guys were older. And all those tapes! How would I know if you had a Betamax recorder when you became an adult?

No, I decided I should do something different. A challenge. Something that needed a real commitment. Something I would never do for myself and something that I would only ever do for my two minnows (twinnows!).

I’m not much of a writer, but a journal seemed like a good idea…

29 October 1990

We’ve been home a few days and it’s bloody busy! Even though we’re flat out, my mind keeps going back to our first moment together. You were so beautiful when you came into the world. The doc lifted you out of your mother’s belly, the nurse wrapped you up…then you were in my arms. You were tiny, just under five pounds. Not bad for a preemie arriving six weeks early. You looked right at me with those big, dark eyes. It was as if you knew exactly who I was and what I was feeling inside.

Your brother’s exit wasn’t as smooth. I don’t think he knew what had hit him when he was taken out. He didn’t breathe straight away, but he got it done when he had to. A part of me likes to think he did it on purpose so he could get a little extra care and attention from those good sorts of nurses. He went to Mum first. She had trouble holding him because she was drugged to the eyeballs, so they handed him over to me. He didn’t open his eyes the way you did. He stayed asleep, as if the rest of the world didn’t matter.

4 May 1991

You’ve started doing something that gives me a good laugh. When you’re eating the apple mush that you seem to like better than anything else on the mush menu, you gulp a mouthful down and then poke your tongue out. Every time! Mum says it’s gross. I think it’s bloody brilliant! Like a green tree frog catching flies!