Are You Seeing Me? (3 page)

Your brother doesn’t perform this little gem, but he’s got his own comedy going on. The witchlike cackle. The backstroke attempts in the bath. The projectile pee—one of which ended up hosing the neighbor’s cat as it was having a stickybeak on the windowsill. I almost couldn’t breathe I laughed so hard!

It’s nice to have a few howlers here and there. Now that I’m back at the factory, Mum’s on her own all day. She gets exhausted. Things would be much better if getting Perry to sleep—day or night—hadn’t been a real struggle the last month. Lots of tears and screams and not a lot of zees. Mum wants to let him cry it out, but I’m not keen. I don’t think it’s right. I mean, he’s crying for a reason, isn’t he? Probably the teeth coming through. I reckon once he’s over the worst of it, he’ll sleep like, well, a baby.

In the meantime, I’ve got my little tree frog to keep me entertained.

15 July 1991

Holy bloody hell! You just walked! You pulled yourself up onto your feet with the help of the coffee table, took one hand away, took the other hand away, and toddled across the living room! Wow! So proud of you!

Hopefully you can relive the moment when Mum gets back. I had a feeling she would miss a one-off like this. She’s been going out quite a bit lately, getting her “mental health time,” as she likes to call it.

Perry saw you walk. He was over by the azaleas, mucking around with his Cookie Monster cushion. When you got up, he stopped and turned his attention to you. He watched you all the way, until you plopped back down on your bum near the bookshelf. Then he made a noise and held his arms up, like he was cheering for you! Okay, maybe he wasn’t cheering, but he certainly took notice of your great work. Hope he took a few notes—he’s still motoring around the house on his knees. The books say it’s not uncommon for boys to reach milestones later than girls. He is saying a few words though: “dog” and “Dad” and “fan,” so that’s good. He’ll be all right, especially with his big sister showing the way.

20 November 1991

I might have had too many hits on the hard hat, but it seems to me Perry’s gone backward a bit of late. He’s doing some funny things with his toys. He’ll put his Tonka trucks all in a row and stare at them from this angle and that. Then he’ll turn them upside down and spin their wheels, over and over and over again. Also, he’s not saying the words he was saying a couple of months ago. And he won’t look at you anymore when you say his name. I wondered for a while if he might be deaf, but he never seemed to have any problems hearing a packet of gingersnaps being opened. Anyway, we got his ears checked and there were no problems.

Mum and I took him back to the clinic on Saturday (Grandma took care of you; she said, as per usual, you were an angel). Early on, the doc mentioned that it could be some sort of brain issue. She said it was too early to tell. Then she thought for a bit longer and shook her head. She said Perry having problems long-term was pretty unlikely and she wouldn’t want to put a label on him when, in all likelihood, he was just delayed in his development. After a time, some of these behaviors would go away and we’d see him start to catch up. Mum shook her hand like Robinson Crusoe meeting the captain of the rescue boat. In the car going home, she told me she’d known all along our boy was just a bit slow, and her job was tough enough without a husband getting worried for nothing. I’m not convinced.

I’m sorry I’m going on about Perry so much—this stuff should go into his journal, I suppose. I’m not writing in his book these days. It was just dribs and drabs for a while, but now I’ve stopped altogether. It seems unfair to be recording his moments right now when he’s standing still and you’re zooming ahead. But that doesn’t mean this journal should be filled with your brother’s troubles and your father’s worries.

This is your gift, your memories to look back on.

RETURNING DAD’S JOURNAL TO THE BAG, I find my phone jammed into the pages of my current read: a dog-eared, secondhand paperback of
Robinson Crusoe
. I extract the phone and begin scrolling through Marc’s messages. I linger on the most recent one:

Hope u made it through security ok. Have a gr8 trip. Can’t wait until u come back.
xo

“Can’t wait”—that phrase sums him up. Point blank and a perfect stranger, he asked me out for coffee in Woolies (frozen section, to be exact). I noted his basket contained a few favorites from my food pyramid: Tim Tams, Mount Franklin water, a ripe mango. His look had some favorites too. Blue eyes. Cropped beard. Soft, wistful face that hinted at James McAvoy in
Becoming Jane
. Long eyelashes.

“I have a brother at home and it’s just the two of us,” I told him. “His name is Perry. He has a brain condition that can cause him to feel anxious or upset in different places and circumstances. He has trouble with people—mixing with them and communicating with them—and it sometimes results in inappropriate behaviors. Still want to have coffee?”

“More than ever,” he replied.

I agreed to meet up.

We sipped espressos and split a Devonshire tea at Riverbend Books in Bulimba, and the discussion of which novels should never have been made into films went well enough to pencil in a second coffee date. He got down on one knee and proposed during that one. When I rejected him, laughing loud enough to disturb other tables, he told me he wasn’t serious. I suspect it was a half-truth.

We got to know each other a bit better over the next month—three dinners, two Sunday brunches, one movie (
Black Swan
—it was a tad awkward) and one sleepover at his shared house in New Farm. In February, he admitted he could see us living together sometime very soon. The time had arrived to properly introduce Master Disaster. I got down on one knee and proposed Marc join us for a barbecue at Chez Richter.

They went okay. Perry was quiet, not his usual talkative self. Marc tried hard, probably too hard. It was obvious a few of my brother’s chestnuts had him scrambling for rationales. When the hang-out was over, Marc reassured me I needn’t worry. He and Pez would be best mates before long. And future living arrangements? Those things would sort themselves out “in the fullness of time.” Six months on, Time is not merely full, it is fit to burst.

Marc told me at the departure gate he’d be fine if the plan changed after the trip; if I were to come back second-guessing Perry’s move out of home, he wouldn’t be averse to living with us if that was the easiest way forward. In the moment, the revelation seemed a bit desperate—arrhythmic beats of a heart-on-the-sleeve already feeling the squeeze of separation. But looking back on it now, I think Marc meant what he said. Sweet gesture, for sure. And totally unnecessary.

It’s not that Marc and Perry couldn’t handle the arrangement; Marc’s best-mates promise may not have been fulfilled, but a distance has been traveled. A small though solid foundation of shared experience now exists between them—bodysurfing at Rainbow Beach, pancake breakfasts, car washes, Mario Kart. Marc’s surprising knowledge and appreciation of Jackie Chan movies hasn’t hurt either. And a four-day camping trip to Girraween in June showed me the two of them were comfortable—with a small
c
—in close quarters.

No, it’s simply this: there isn’t going to be any backtracking on a decision already made. Two weeks on the other side of the world doesn’t alter the reality at home: Perry wants to move out, period. My wish for him to stay is just selfishness on my part, and I would never deny him what he truly desires. Not when the rest of “normal” society denies him so much already. And maybe he
needs
to move out. He can handle life at a supported residence. He is capable. More people, other people,
nice
people—not just his loving but imperfect twin—they can only be good for him.

Marc and his sweet gestures are still new to all this. A white knight riding in on his valiant steed is not what we need.

My final rummage through the bag is for the manila folder labeled
Perry’s New Adventure
. It contains a host of documents—maps, pictures, lists of services, resident testimonials. I lift a page from the pile:
Fair Go Community Village—Where Special Needs and Life Purpose Come Together
. A crisp, glossy flyer once upon a time, it’s now crumpled and stained. I know its content well. Regardless, I skim through the various sections, starting with “Our Mission for a Fair Go” and ending with “Contact Us Today—The Vision is Now!”

For the thousandth time, I try to trace the timeline in my head, but it remains elusive. I put the starting date in the initial weeks—perhaps days—after Dad’s diagnosis. Finding a safety net for his son once it was clear he himself was in free fall? Makes sense. Dad was nothing if not a realist. Over the month following, there must have been phone calls, emails. I remember he went out for a drive one day even though he looked like death warmed over. He got back around seven in the evening and refused to tell us where he’d been, despite my best efforts to get it out of him. Given Fair Go’s location—about an hour’s drive northwest of the Brisbane central business district—it’s reasonable to assume he spent the day there. A week or two later, maybe six weeks in total after the initial inquiry, Perry was assigned to the residential waiting list. If Dad was provided with documentation confirming this fact, I’ve never seen it.

Why did you never mention it to me, Dad? Or write it in
Tree Frog
? Taking this decision to the grave, relying on a reminder in the mail twelve months later—was that fair? Leaving the final follow-through in the hands of a kid—was that a good idea? And hear the truth, Dad: I
am
a kid. You always saw me as mature. You called me an “old soul” and “wise beyond my years.” I craved that praise. Making you proud—it allowed everything to be manageable, reasonable. But it couldn’t mask the truth: I was a kid. And then you went and bloody died, didn’t you? You took my sustenance away before I could grow up big and strong. No praise. No nourishing words. Just echoes in a journal and a document in the mail and a responsibility far too colossal for a make-believe adult.

I’ll never know what drove Dad to conceal it. What I do know is the sequence that followed. I showed Perry the form, explained what it meant as best I could and why it had come into our lives. I assured him it was totally his call to stay or go.

He thought about it for three days.

I cried.

Perry told me he wanted to go.

I cried some more.

Perry said I shouldn’t cry because living away from your twin wasn’t nearly as difficult as being the sole survivor of an earthquake.

Sleep is finally at hand. In keeping with tradition, the nighttime has offered hours of contemplation but no epiphany. I consider reading a few paragraphs of
Robinson Crusoe,
then reject the idea. Slaves, shipwrecks, cannibals, mutineers…Defoe’s tale was not designed to bring about rest. I check that the seat is as far back as the button will allow and pull the thin blanket up to my chin.

The last thing I am aware of before the black curtain falls is Perry’s position. He’s pivoted on his right shoulder so he’s facing me. I think he’s peeking through half-closed eyes.