Twiceborn (27 page)

Garth stopped behind two sheltering bushes and yanked on the handbrake. He scrabbled at my feet for his tyre iron, then hopped out.

“Wait till they’re level,” he instructed, leaning his bulk back into the car to speak, eyes gleaming with a feral light, “then ram them. I’ll come up on them from the other side and take out the driver while they’re focused on you. Then it’ll be the two of us against Nada.”

He eased the door closed and ducked away, bent low. I scrambled awkwardly over the gear stick into the driver’s seat, heart pounding. First driving without a licence, now ramming other cars. What a day.

The big black car turned into the road which would take it past me. I put the car into gear and waited, every muscle tensed, the urge to rush out and reclaim the channel stone almost overpowering reason. Garth was hidden somewhere among the dark trees opposite.
Don’t think about the boy. Or the damn stone. Concentrate.

Steady … not too soon … I stepped on the accelerator and the car rocketed forward, just as the boy’s thin face appeared at the window of the other car. A pale oval in the darkness, it looked straight at me. My heart lurched and I stomped on the brake.

The black car swept past mere inches in front of my bumper bar, that heart-shaped little face staring back at me. I put my head down on the steering wheel and sobbed.

Garth wrenched open my door. “What are you doing? You let them get away!” Then, in a slightly gentler tone: “Are you hurt? What the hell are you crying for?”

He hoisted me out of the car and I fell against his chest, howling like a madwoman. For a moment he froze, then his arms came round me in an awkward embrace.

“That kid could have been Lachie’s
twin
,” I sobbed. “It was him! It was Lachie, it was, it was …”

God, I really was mad. Lachie had died in May, a few weeks short of his tenth birthday. I
knew
that. But that boy! That beloved little face. Had my obsession with the channel stone played tricks on my mind, made me see something that wasn’t really there? But how could a mother mistake her own child’s face? My heart was breaking all over again.

Gradually I calmed enough to explain to Garth, sniffling and wiping away tears with the back of my hand—enough for him to get the gist anyway. For once he didn’t snark, but he did sigh and look down the now-empty drive.

“Well, they’ll be halfway to Mosman by now. Let’s go get ourselves something to eat. I can’t think on an empty stomach.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I hadn’t stayed at taekwondo that night because I had a headache. It was one of Jason’s nights to have Lachie, so I left him there with the other mini martial artists, his yellow belt carefully knotted over his baggy white uniform, glad to forgo the yelling and kicking for once.

“Maybe you should stay, Mum,” he said, his brown eyes serious. “What if you’re not ready for grading in time?”

Grading was in three weeks. I was going for a high brown belt; Lachie was trying for some green tips to his yellow.

“I think I’ll be okay,” I said. “Besides, I haven’t got my uniform on. Have fun, and I’ll see you tomorrow night. Be good for Dad.”

“I always am,” he said, a trifle indignant. “Love you, Mum.”

“Love you too, Monster.”

I drove home, hoping for a quiet night, but there was no guarantee I wouldn’t be getting a call in an hour from one of the other mums saying Jason hadn’t showed. He’d said he’d be finished work in time to pick Lachie up, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d let me down. Since the divorce we’d arrived at an uneasy truce, but battle could break out again any time. They’d invented the word “infuriating” for Jason. Also “unreliable”, “dishonest” and many others along the same lines.

We spoke when we had to, and only about Lachie. I’d forgiven one affair during our tumultuous marriage, but I drew the line at two. Even before we officially split, we’d basically been living separate lives. He travelled a lot with work, or so he said, and quite frankly, life without him was so much more peaceful I couldn’t care less what he got up to. It was no way to live, for Lachie or me, so I’d pulled the plug. Though single motherhood could be hard, I’d never regretted it.

An hour passed, and then another, without a call, so Jason must have kept his word for once. I was curled up on the lounge reading—I could even tell you which book it was, the events of that night are so burnt into my brain. I never did finish that book. I had to throw it away. Even seeing it in a bookshop afterwards would bring back a wave of such grief and pain I’d have to walk out.

The phone rang, and I remember looking at the clock, thinking
well, at least it won’t be Jason.

“Kate?” It was a man’s voice, but all weird and high-pitched, as if someone were squeezing his throat. He sounded so strange it took me a long moment to realise it
was
Jason. “There’s been an accident.”

Terror lanced through me, swift and sudden, and the book slipped from my fingers. “Is Lachie all right?”

“We’re at Westmead. The Children’s Hospital.” My heart lurched. “You’d better get down here.”

“What’s wrong?” I could barely breathe. “Is he hurt?”

“It’s not good.” And then he hung up.

“Jason? Jason!” I punched in his number with shaking hands, but it went straight through to message bank.

My imagination went into overdrive, picturing all the terrible ways my baby could be hurt, his little body broken. I dropped the phone on the floor and didn’t even notice.

I flew to the car, the driveway rough under my bare feet. It never occurred to me to stop for shoes. My hands shook so badly it took me three tries to get the key into the ignition.

All the way to the hospital I prayed, a terrified litany of
please God please God please God.
The dark roads flicked by in a blur, until I found myself in the car park of The Children’s Hospital, unaware of how I’d got there.

I must have looked a sight, running into Emergency barefoot and wild-eyed, without even a handbag to put my car keys in. I clenched them in my fist, so tight they left deep grooves in my fingers.

“My son’s here,” I gasped to one of the nurses on duty behind the glass partition. “Lachlan Hepburn. My ex said there’d been an accident.”

My voice broke on the last word.

“Come round to the door and I’ll buzz you in.”

After a short delay she met me at the door, an older man at her side. They both looked so serious.

“Is he badly hurt?”
Please God please God
. “Is he in surgery? What’s happened?”

The man stepped forward, his face drawn into tired lines. Behind his glasses his eyes were full of sympathy. “Mrs Hepburn, I’m Dr Rawson. Let me take you to your husband.”

“It’s O’Connor,” I said, my lips forming words on their own. I marvelled that I could sound so normal. It was like listening to someone else speak. “We’re divorced.”

“This way, Ms O’Connor.” With a gentle hand on my back he guided me through the corridors of Emergency. They smelled of antiseptic, and blood and pain. The way seemed long and empty, lit by the harsh glare of fluorescent lights. My panicked heart stuttered with fear.

“We have a private room for you.” He opened the door to a tiny box of a room, but I wasn’t listening. Jason sat on the couch, head in his hands. He looked up as the door opened, his face haggard, eyes red from weeping, and I knew.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, coming towards me. “I’m so, so sorry.”

I caught my breath, hands covering my mouth. I think I staggered. It felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. I knew, but still I refused to believe. I cast a wild look back at Dr Rawson in the doorway. Nothing but sorrow in his lined face.

“If there’s anything I can get you …” he said.

“Where is he?” My throat was so dry I had to force each word out, voice trembling with the effort. I had to see for myself. “I want to see my son.”

Jason took my hand and Dr Rawson led us back out into the bright corridors of Emergency. They were full of noise—children crying, voices raised in argument, the beeping of machines and the constant tap of footsteps as busy nurses hurried by. It seemed another world, and I moved through it as if any minute I’d wake up and find this was all a nightmare.

Dr Rawson opened the door of another little box room and stood back for us to enter. It was dark and very cold—someone had the air conditioning on full blast. Monitors, their screens blank, huddled around a hospital bed that dominated the small space. At first I thought it was empty.

Then I realised a slight form lay under the cool white sheet.

“Why is his face covered?” I choked out. “He wouldn’t like that.”

I reached out, but Dr Rawson’s hand on my arm stopped me. “I must warn you, Ms O’Connor, he was badly hurt in the accident. You may prefer to remember him as he was.”

I caught my bottom lip in my teeth to keep it from trembling and waited, eyes welling with slow tears, until he removed his hand. Then I stepped forward and pulled the sheet away, tucking it carefully around his thin shoulders.

The doctor had been right to warn me, but I had to see for myself. The left side of his head was pulped beyond recognition, his beautiful face destroyed. I gasped in a couple of quick breaths and squeezed my eyes shut against the horror of that mutilated flesh. After a moment I leaned forward to kiss his smooth right cheek. A tear fell on his eyelid, sparkling in his long dark lashes, and I wiped it carefully away.

Lachie.
My vision narrowed, till all I could see was that one closed eye, the lashes nestled on the soft curve of his cheek. Someone had obviously made an attempt to clean him up. A single drop of blood they’d missed lay among the freckles there.
Wake up, Monster.

“Did he … did he suffer?” My whole body shook as I fought for control. I needed to know.

“I’m sure he didn’t,” said Dr Rawson. “Death would have been instantaneous.”

That was something. I swallowed hard, my throat constricted with pain.
Death was instantaneous
.

To be grateful for such a thing was unbearable. How could I live in a world where
death was instantaneous
was a good thing? How was it right that I still lived but my baby was dead?

He wasn’t even ten. I had a box of Lego stashed away at home ready for his birthday in a few weeks. We’d already sent out the party invitations.

I stroked his hair, trying to sweep it off his forehead the way he liked, but it was stiff with dried blood and wouldn’t move. In the corridor outside a baby wailed and a woman’s voice murmured soothing noises. Outside the world continued.

In this cold room, surrounded by silent machines, my world lay shattered.

Goodbye, Monster.

I lay my face next to his cold cheek and howled my agony into the pillow.

***

“Shit,” said Garth, when I’d finished. “That’s pretty rough.”

I nodded, throat still choked with tears. We were at McDonald’s, at an outside table near the brightly coloured playground. Even now, at eleven-thirty at night, two children played among the tubes and slides, their high-pitched squeals shearing through the noise of cars coming and going from the car park.

Sweat prickled down my spine. The night air lay heavy with humidity on my bare skin. I’d washed up in the tiny bathroom, but I still reeked of smoke. Garth smelled as bad, but his visit to the men’s had removed most of the blood, so he looked a lot less frightening. His appearance had freaked out the teenagers serving behind the counter when we walked in. For a moment it looked as though they’d refuse to serve us, but they must have decided it was safer to give us what we wanted than try throwing us out. Even out here people gave our table a wide berth.

Garth was on his third Big Mac, and eyed my half-eaten burger with interest. Guess it took a lot to fuel those werewolf muscles, though it would’ve helped if he’d had more than a bowl full of sugar and air for breakfast. Still, breakfast was a long time ago. A long, long time ago. I was so tired I could have slept for a week. God, what a day.

I took another sip of coffee. Strong and black, but you couldn’t say much else for it. It bore about as much resemblance to real coffee as McDonald’s hamburgers did to real burgers. But it gave me something to do with my hands and gradually calmed my jangling nerves.

“I heard Jason’s kid had died,” said Garth, cheeks bulging with the last of his burger, “but it was just before he left us for Valeria, and I never found out how it happened. He was drunk, you reckon?”

I blew my nose on a paper napkin. “By the time the police tested him he was under the limit, but what else could it be? There was nothing wrong with the car, and there were no other vehicles involved. You don’t slam into a tree for no reason at all.”

And I would never ever forgive him.

“I’m sorry.” Then he nodded at the remains of my dinner. “You going to eat that?”

Wordlessly I pushed it across the plastic table. He tore into it with as much enthusiasm as if it were his first burger instead of his fourth, bits of lettuce flying everywhere. Did he eat so messily as a wolf? Probably best not to know.

“I feel … as if I’ve seen a ghost.” Completely gutted—again. When would I stop doing this to myself? Suddenly suspicious, I asked, “Ghosts aren’t real too, are they?”

He shook his head, mouth too full to speak.

“Who was that boy? What was Nada doing with him?” Nothing good, that’s for sure. But he must be important, for her to miss the action at Alicia’s place in search of him. And why had Jason wanted me to stop her taking him? For I felt sure now that was what he’d meant. There’d been real fear in his eyes.

And it all added up to something that made me sick with hope and terror. Something so outlandish I couldn’t bring myself to speak it out loud, for fear it might not be true. Just my heart playing its latest and most hurtful trick.

It
couldn’t
be true. I was a grieving mother clutching at fantasies. But I’d seen some crazy stuff in the last few days. Was this any crazier?

Garth wiped his mouth then leaned back, arms folded. His eyes were a clear grey, the yellow of the wolf safely hidden, and the expression in them was kinder than I was used to seeing there. “You think it was him, don’t you? You think that really was Lachie.”