Stella Makes Good (25 page)

‘You, too, darling.’

Louisa picked up her bags and walked upstairs, still holding the pamphlet that promised to change women’s lives by helping them to
let go of guilt and fear and grow into our authentic selves
. She thought about Jesse’s doomed pregnancy and wondered what other secrets her sister might have.

Grandma Milly had taken possession of Louisa’s old room so she made her way into Jesse’s room instead, which now housed bunk beds for Ollie and Emily. Louisa had always thought Jesse had the better room because hers overlooked the paddocks and the horses. You could see for miles out the window, almost to the ocean. Although Louisa’s room was slightly bigger and had a built-in wardrobe, it overlooked the garage. Jesse’s was definitely the pick: it was so much lighter and further away from their parents’ room. Even now, she could see why, growing up, they’d fought about it.

Louisa unzipped her bag and peered inside. Just as she’d thought: she’d packed with her eyes closed. There weren’t many clothes, and nothing suitable for a Sydney summer. But she’d make do. There was no way she was borrowing any of her mother’s clothes. Or her grandmother’s, for that matter.

She flopped down on the bottom bunk and closed her eyes for five minutes before she had a shower. She wondered what Philippe was doing. He’d been so understanding when she’d called him, frantic after her father’s phone call about Jesse. He’d come straight over, calmed her down, arranged the flight to Sydney, and promised he’d take extra special care of Ziggy and her plants.

‘You’d do all that for me?’ she’d sobbed.

‘Of course,’ he’d replied. ‘I love you, babe.’

He’d stayed with her the next couple of days and nights, feeding her, loving her, until the time came to drive her to the airport. Any fool could see he was a keeper, but their age difference worried her. How could she fall in love with someone eleven years younger?

To her complete surprise, lying there on the bunk, Louisa began to cry again. Who was she kidding? She was in love with Philippe and had been since that crazy, frantic afternoon in her office. This wasn’t just an affair. She thought about him all the time. She loved him. He loved her.

She texted him.
Home. Jesse hanging on. Too sad. Miss you.

‘Could we drive past the accident site?’ Louisa asked her father half an hour later as they were getting ready to go back to the hospital.

‘I don’t know, Louisa. I’m not sure your mother and grandmother—’

‘We’ll have to face it sooner or later, Tom,’ said Dot. ‘It might as well be now.’

Tom shook his head. ‘It’s a bit grisly, don’t you think?’

Louisa completely understood her father’s reluctance. If you’d asked her two hours ago, she wouldn’t have wanted to go to the accident site either. But she felt she needed to see the place for herself to try to piece the jigsaw together.

‘It might give us some insight into what really happened,’ she said gently.

‘Louisa’s right, Tom,’ said Dot. ‘It’s time we looked for ourselves, rather than relying on second- and third-hand reports.’

‘But we promised the kids we’d stop in at Jesse’s and pick up some music for her,’ said Tom. ‘We’ll be late picking them up from school.’

‘We will not,’ said Dot irritably. ‘We’ll have plenty of time if we leave right now.’

It was a silent five-kilometre ride.

‘I don’t know why you want to do this,’ Tom grumbled as he parked near the crash site.

‘Just to see,’ Louisa said.

She got out and walked towards the gum tree. It was on a straight stretch of bitumen road, a single carriageway with a 70-kilometre per hour speed limit. No blind spots, and the tree itself was huge. Huge and in plain view. There was bush scrub and long grass all around, but no other trees. You could clearly see where the front of Jesse’s car had smashed into the trunk. The bark had been ripped away and there was broken glass and metal lying underneath and nearby.

Last week, when Jesse had had the accident, it was stormy, wet and windy, but today the sky was a brilliant blue, there was no wind and it was a pleasant twenty-five degrees. It didn’t seem real.

‘It’s impossible to tell if she braked,’ said Tom, after closely examining the grass for several minutes. He stood up and wiped his eyes.

‘I’m sure she did, Dad,’ Louisa reassured him. ‘I’m sure Jesse braked. It was just a terrible accident.’

Dot and Grandma Milly watched silently. Dot made the sign of the cross over her chest. It was the first time Louisa had ever experienced both of them being quiet for longer than five minutes.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Tom as they climbed back into the car. ‘Why had she stopped here in the first place? For her to accelerate into the tree, she had to be well off to the side of the road, on the grass.’

‘Jesse drives this road most days,’ said Dot. ‘She knows it blindfolded.’

‘When she wakes up, she’ll tell us everything we need to know,’ soothed Louisa. She had a thought. ‘What about a car malfunction? Brakes? There has to be a reason why she pulled over.’

‘We won’t know about the car until the police examiner gets back to us, and Steve said that could take a week or more,’ Tom said.

Jesse’s house looked so normal, suburban. The garden was messy and green; a couple of bikes lay haphazardly on the veranda. Staring at the bikes, it struck Louisa how much she’d missed in the last few years—birthdays, Christmases, school plays . . . The truth was, she didn’t know her own niece and nephew. They’d been scared of her when she’d seen them at the hospital. It was beyond sad.

As for Jesse, Louisa prayed it wasn’t too late to prove that they could be best friends again.

‘What are you waiting for?’ said Dot as Louisa hovered just inside the front door. ‘Come on.’

Louisa followed her mother down the hall into the kitchen. There was an open packet of bread, a tub of margarine and a jar of Vegemite sitting on the bench. She put them all in the fridge while Dot put dirty plates and cutlery into the dishwasher.

Louisa did a quick scan of the area. ‘Where do they keep the CDs?’

‘In the TV room,’ Dot replied, pointing to a room off to the side.

The top of the entertainment unit was covered with framed photographs of Jesse and the kids at various ages: Ollie in soccer garb, kicking a ball; Em in a black and white netball uniform lunging at the hoop. Jesse’s kids were so adorable . . . and far too young to lose their mother.

Outside, Tom beeped the car horn. Shaking off her fear, Louisa opened the cabinet doors and grabbed an armful of CDs.

Five minutes later, they were waiting at the school pick-up zone.

‘Let’s try to be happy for Ollie and Emily’s sake,’ Dot said when they saw the twins appear.

‘Are we going to see Mum now?’ Ollie asked as he and Emmy clambered into the back seat.

‘Sure are,’ Louisa said, putting on an exaggerated happy face. ‘And I picked up her favourite music, too.’

Dot attempted some chat about how the twins’ day had been, but neither was interested. Like the rest of them, they were anxious to get to the hospital and see Jesse.

As they drove, Louisa watched people going about their usual daily business: walking in and out of the butcher’s shop, the chemist, the newsagency. It seemed weird that for everyone else, life went on as normal. Meanwhile, their world had fallen to pieces. And they had questions . . . so many questions . . .

‘Nanna, what happens when you die?’ Emily asked as they walked through the hospital doors. ‘The kids at school say it’s like a big black hole that goes on forever.’

‘Who said that? What a load of rubbish. Heaven is a beautiful place, full of gardens and nature.’

‘What about hell?’ Ollie said as they rode the elevator to the third floor.

‘Hell’s only for bad people.’

‘Mum, how can you say that?’ Louisa said.

‘What? Hell is for bad people,’ Dot said, indignant. ‘I mean really bad people, Oliver. Like murderers, like Hitler—’

‘Not Mum?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Ollie,’ Louisa said, ‘I don’t think there is such a place as hell.’

‘Neither do I,’ Grandma Milly chimed in. ‘The afterlife is like one big holiday with lots of happy, smiling friends, lots of singing and everyone eating lollies and cake.’

‘Mother, really,’ said Dot.

‘What do you think, Auntie Louisa?’

Before she could answer, they’d reached Jesse’s room and everyone went quiet. The afternoon sun had made the room brighter and warmer than it had been this morning. Ollie was the first to approach Jesse. He took her hand and put his head down on the bed beside her. After a few moments, he turned around to Louisa. ‘Are you thinking about heaven?’

‘Oh,’ she said, choking back tears. ‘Yes . . . I think heaven must be a happy place where people who’ve died watch over and guide us.’

‘Like angels?’

‘Yes, just like angels.’

‘Do you think Mummy will be an angel soon?’

‘Goodness, I hope not. Maybe far, far in the future.’

‘What if you have a really bad person guiding you?’ Ollie continued.

‘There aren’t any bad people when you die,’ Louisa said.

‘Then where do all the bad people go?’ asked Emily.

‘Yeah,’ Ollie said. ‘We don’t want them hurting Mum.’

‘No one’s going to hurt your mum, Ollie. Besides, she’s not going to die.’

‘Do you know that for sure?’

Before Louisa could answer, Dot rushed in with, ‘Of course we do. Now, come on. Why don’t you tell your mum about your day at school? She’d love to hear all about that. Emily, you start.’

‘My class said prayers for Mummy . . . and I read a book. My teacher said I didn’t have to do any work today, but I wanted to.’

‘I drew Mummy some pictures,’ said Ollie. ‘But I left them in the car.’ He stroked Jesse’s hand and whispered, ‘Don’t be lonely, Mummy. I love you always. I do.’

Louisa could see the kids’ talk was upsetting her parents. Dot was sniffing back tears while Tom was blinking furiously in an effort to stem his.

‘Who wants to come with me down to the chapel?’ said Dot suddenly.

No one responded.

‘Emily? Ollie?’ Dot asked.

‘I want to stay with Mummy,’ said Ollie.

‘You come then, Emily,’ Dot said. ‘Grandma will come, too, won’t you?’

‘If I must,’ Milly replied.

‘Then we’ll put some fresh water in those vases, okay?’ Dot said to Emily as they walked out of the room together.

‘How about you put some music on, Louisa,’ said Tom moments later.

‘I was just thinking the same thing. Oliver, do you want to help me set up the CD player? Then you can choose some music you think Mum would like to listen to.’

Ollie’s eyes stayed firmly on Jesse.

‘I’ve got lots of CDs,’ Louisa went on. ‘Your mum sure likes Robbie Williams. She’s got a zillion of his CDs.’

‘Yeah, she loves him,’ he agreed distractedly.

Louisa showed him the plastic bag full of CDs. ‘Any one in particular?’

‘She likes them all. Maybe this one,’ he said, pulling it out. ‘I gave her this for her birthday. She says it’s her favourite.’

‘Great choice.’

She helped Ollie put the CD player on the table and popped the music in. ‘Your mum will love this,’ she said as Robbie Williams’s voice kicked in with ‘Better Man’.

Louisa and Tom sat in silence and listened to the music while Ollie rubbed his mother’s hand.

‘Mum wouldn’t leave me, not if she didn’t have to,’ Ollie said. ‘She loves me.’

‘Of course she does,’ said Louisa. ‘She loves you and Emily more than anything in the world.’

‘And you don’t leave somebody if you love them, right? You just don’t.’ Ollie stamped his right foot three times on the carpet.

Louisa and her dad glanced at each other.

‘You just . . . hey, did you see that? Mum just squeezed my hand. She squeezed my hand! She’s waking up!’ shouted Ollie, tears streaming down his red cheeks.

‘Quick. Call the doctor,’ Louisa said to Tom, but he was already out the door.

Within moments, Doctor Thompson and several other doctors and nurses appeared in the room and began examining the monitors around Jesse. Steve followed close behind. Louisa assumed he must have just arrived.

‘We’ll run some tests,’ Doctor Thompson said, ‘but before you get too excited, you need to know that sometimes a patient in a coma may exhibit behaviour that mimics conscious behaviour. For instance, they may turn their head towards a sound or squeeze someone’s hand. But it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a purposeful movement.’

Louisa could see that Ollie was looking more and more distressed as the reality dawned on him that Jesse wasn’t going to leap out of bed any time soon.

Steve saw it, too. ‘Ollie, let’s go and have a milkshake,’ he said.

The little boy’s eyes remained fixed on Jesse. ‘I want to stay here with Mum.’

‘Come on, let’s leave the doctors to check on Mummy and go for a walk. You can tell me about your day.’

Steve looked tired and, Louisa hated to admit it, sad.

‘Okay,’ Ollie said. He turned to Louisa. ‘You’ll look after her, Auntie Louisa?’

Louisa nodded. ‘Yes, Pop and I will.’

Ollie took Steve’s hand and they left together. Tom waited until they were out out of earshot before speaking.

‘So what exactly are you saying?’ he asked the doctor.

‘It’s certainly encouraging,’ Doctor Thompson said, ‘but I don’t want to give you false hope. Maybe her hand squeeze was purposeful, but it could also have been an involuntary movement that she had no control over.’

Louisa’s heart sank. ‘You’ll run more tests?’ she asked.

Doctor Thompson nodded. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ He left the room, the other doctors and nurses trailing behind him.

Tom shook his head and banged his fist on the table next to the CD player. ‘There must be something more we can do.’

Louisa reached out to hug him and he collapsed, sobbing, into her arms. She felt useless. This was so unfair.

‘Dad, I’m really sorry about everything,’ she said. ‘What I mean is—’

‘I know what you mean, Lou. I’m sorry, too. I could have handled the situation better.’

‘No—’

‘Yes, I could have. I’m your father. I treated you unfairly and I’m sorry.’