Page 14 of The Flowers of Bay C
Dr Chowdhury smiles. ‘Continue,’ he says. ‘Close. Ask her about her history.’
She blushes. ‘Of course. Sorry. Uh… Miss Fielding, can you tell me about how you were as a child? Have you been ill for a while?’
‘Since I was a child. About five or six.’ I stop to take a breath and they’re there, hanging on, as if my words will rescue them. ‘I caught whooping cough, and well, since then really things got worse.’
Things got worse. It sounds so understated, so run-of-the-mill, not like something that has blighted my life since in ever-increasing ways.
‘Is it chronic bronchitis?’ the clued-in girl says.
None of them have got it. None of them ever get it.
The consultant fills them in on what’s really wrong with me, the rare disease very few have heard of, then lays into them in his gentle yet deadly style. They should have introduced themselves to me, he says. Should have greeted me, asked me how I was feeling, treated me like a human being. They aremeek and hangdog, staring at the floor, cheeks flamed with their humiliation. Dr Chowdhury laughs at their confusion. ‘You’ll learn,’ he says, and I know they will, with him as their mentor.
Dr Chowdhury tells me the chest drain isn’t necessary after all, and relief washes over me. But I might need another manual drain tomorrow, depending on the fluid levels.
That’s fine, as long as he doesn’t ask one of his students to do it.
???
In afternoon visiting, Jake is here again and so are Amina’s sons, and her husband, too. I look at him and wonder how two such tiny people produced four such great big hulks of sons. One of them pulls the curtain, shutting off Violet, who tightens her mouth so much her lips might crack and shatter into tiny dried-out pieces. Jodie greets Jake like he is a long-lost friend, and Jake makes fun of her slippers. ‘Did you kill some poor bunnies for those?’
‘Funny.’
‘Is that useless boyfriend coming in?’ Jake says, and I stare daggers at him.
Jodie seems unruffled, as she does by most things. ‘He should be. And I’ll tell him you said that. He’ll have a right laugh about that.’
I bet he won’t.
Jake is morose today with me, flicking at crumbs on my bed and huffing and sighing.
‘What’s up with you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t lie, Jake. What is it?’
He rolls his eyes. ‘Nothing. Just leaveit.’
But I can’t leave it. You can never leave it, see, when you’re a mother and your child is in pain. You press and you push and sometimes you take it too far.
???
A muffled bang. It’s coming from Jake’s bedroom. And a sob. I drag myself upstairs, stomach churning. What’s wrong? He’s seemed withdrawn, lately, even more grumpy than usual, communicating in an ever-shortening series of grunts.
I push his door open. He is sitting on his bed, head in his hands, iPad sprawled on the floor with its cover half off and a crack creeping across the screen.
‘Did you… did you throw that?’
He shrugs.
I pick it up, noticing it’s still open to an Instagram post. He grabs it off me, slams it onto the bed face first. ‘Leave it, Mum.’
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’ His nothing is so packed with somethings it is glaringly obvious it is not nothing at all.
‘Jake? Tell me, love. I want to help.’
