I see him now, leaning over the bar, making his order. He glances back at me and for an instant, our eyes meet.
‘Remind me again how you met him, Fern,’ Carmel says.
I open my mouth just as a game machine starts playing a tune, and the sound of collective victory and defeat from a couple of small boys rings in my ears.
‘She met him at the library,’ Gayle says. ‘Right, Fern?’
Nearby, the token machine releases a stack of tokens. Clink clink clink clink clink clink clink. I feel people moving closer to me, making space for a person in a wheelchair who is being wheeled past. ‘Um . . . what?’
‘You met Rocco in the library,’ Gayle repeats, louder.
Carmel and Linda keep asking me questions, even as the noise continues around me. It’s like a ride I can’t get off. I put my earplugs back in, close my eyes and start to rock gently, then more vigorously.
‘Fern,’ someone says. They must be speaking loudly to get through my earplugs.
I open my eyes again. They’re all looking at me, glancing at each other worriedly, and then looking back at me. Wally is nowhere to be found.
‘What?’ I say, but I must say it too loud or too quiet or in a strange voice, because they all appear rattled.
I rock harder. Disco music plays loudly enough for me to clearly make out the tune even with my earplugs in. Several people dance while they wait for their turn to bowl. My breath is high in my chest and my head is aching.
‘Drinks!’ Wally appears, smiling, carrying a tray of drinks.
I feel like I might scream. Perhaps I do scream, because all of a sudden everyone is gathered around me. It’s unbearable.
‘Move!’ I shout, and they all take a few steps back.
Wally places a hand on my wrist but I rip it away. He nods, then says, ‘Fern. Follow me.’
He waits for a moment to make sure he has my attention, then begins to walk. I follow him, a few paces back, through the gap he has created in the crowd, through the building and out the automatic doors into the cool, soothing air, then away from the entrance and out into the parking lot.
‘Are you all right?’ Wally asks, once we are away from the noise and the smells and the lights.
My heart is still thundering. ‘I thought I could do it,’ I say to Wally, or myself. ‘I thought it would be okay.’
Wally nods. ‘One thing I’ve learned about facing fear,’ he says, ‘is that sometimes, it’s just too scary.’
JOURNAL OF ROSE INGRID CASTLE
Yesterday Owen and I took the Eurostar to Paris. It was late when we checked into our hotel room on the Champs-Élysées and when I woke this morning, Owen was at my bedside with strawberries and proper French coffee. Today we spent the day strolling around the streets, eating and drinking and window shopping. There was a particularly sweet moment while we were climbing the stairs to the Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre. A little girl in a red coat had tripped up the stairs and Owen had scooped her up before she even hit the ground and popped her back on her feet. It had made me smile and ache all at once. That could be our little girl, I thought. If only I could give him a child.
I tried to put it out of my mind, and I did manage to for a while. But then another thought started to distract me. Fern. She hadn’t been answering my calls. She didn’t even answer when we agreed on a scheduled time. It was so unlike her. I know she is probably fine. But . . . what if she isn’t? That’s the tough part. If she were a child, I could call the cops and ask them to go over there and they would. But Fern isn’t a child. For heaven’s sake, I’m the one always advocating for her to be treated equally, as an adult. But in the real world, she’s not like other adults. And she’s my sister. And if I don’t protect her, who will?
My therapist says I’m a perfectionist, in all things, including sisterhood. That is true enough. Ever since I was a child, I’ve longed to be perfect.
If I could just be perfect, I used to think, everything would be okay. It became my life’s mission. Each night I would lie in bed and plan the perfect day, a day incapable of upsetting Mum. I’d get up early, make my own breakfast, clear the dishes quietly. I’d keep an eye out for things I could do to be helpful. Put on a load of laundry, sort the socks, bring Mum a cup of coffee. Mum loved it when I did things like that. She’d smile and say, ‘You’re a good girl, Rose.’
But no matter how hard I tried, I always got something wrong. If I put on the laundry before school, by the time I got home, it had sat there for too long and needed to be rewashed. If I made dinner, I’d accidentally use ingredients Mum had bought for another meal. If I tidied up, I’d always lose something important that Mum had left out intentionally.
It didn’t take long before Mum’s voice permanently took up residence in my mind. It was clear that something was very wrong with me. I was stupid, lazy, selfish. I didn’t pay enough attention to things; I didn’t look after my sister properly. I was bad. Sometimes I was bad even when I hadn’t done anything.
Before I was diagnosed a diabetic, even my health was a source of great irritation to Mum. I knew better than to complain about feeling thirsty or lightheaded, but there were things I couldn’t avoid. For example, occasionally I wet the bed. A classic symptom of juvenile diabetes, I found out later, but at the time we didn’t know that.
‘You wet the
