Tracy

by Cosette de Lorenzo

Mum and I spend a lot of time talking to dirt. Well, I do the talking. She mostly sits stoic, Ned pulled into her chest, her eyelids drooped low.

It is a bit senseless, visiting Shane’s grave, considering it’s nothing more than a patch of earth. If Shane hasn’t already been torn to pieces by marine life, his bloated corpse is probably at the bottom of the Timor Sea. Curiosity took hold of me once, and I looked up pictures in a library book. I was rewarded with images that are now branded to my skull – translucent skin, flaking off soft bone. I don’t take baths anymore.

I should’ve known we’d spend Christmas Eve visiting the grave. Mum has spent the morning partially engulfed by the sofa. Tiny galaxies of dust mites eddy in the morning light, swirl around her legs. She’s staring at the padded beige carpet with such intensity I worry she’ll burn a hole straight through it. When I suggest the trip to the cemetery, she tears her gaze away and up, out the window, which is as good as a yes. These days, Mum communicates almost exclusively through gestures. Looking down is a no. Looking up, a confirmation. Looking at me – well, that’s a rarity.

We could have a good Christmas, us three, if Mum would let us. But it figures she’d want to go talk to Shane. My palm pricks and I unfurl my clenched fist, straighten out the gold chain inside. It’s adorned with a neat heart at the end, and if you apply pressure to the sides, it unlatches to reveal an image of your choosing. For the past six months, I’d risen before the sun, completing the paper route for a pitiful allowance to be able to afford it.

I slip it into my pocket and we pile into the car. I strap Ned into his seat, squeeze his chubby little hand. He gazes up at me, eyes as wide as planets. It prompts a twinge in my gut, a resolve to be the best big brother he could ask for. He can’t ask for much right now, only mama really. I’m trying to teach him Adam but each time the syllables take shape on his lips, they slip away just as quick. He’d exclaimed dada only once before, his too-big eyes sparkling, his meaty little fists grabbing at something that wasn’t there. Mum had dropped the glass of wine she’d been nursing and fled the room, leaving a blood stain splatter on the dense carpet – a huge pain to get out. Ned and I had been punished with more of the silent treatment and he’d never made that mistake again.

Typically, Christmas Eve is a day at home; the radio oozing festive ballads, Dad shelling prawns and Mum mixing the potato salad. Shane and I, dripping wet after running through the icy spray of the garden hose; a satisfying reprieve from the heat. Ned doesn’t do much, which I’m told is perfectly normal for a one-year-old. I’d perch in front of the oscillating fan and carefully pen a wish list, whichever books I hadn’t been able to find at the library.

Don’t you want something else, Adam? Dad would probe.

I’m sure his wish list read something like: Adam asks for a rugby ball, or a cricket bat, or anything other than a book.

There is no debate about who will drive. I’ve only had my permit for a year, but Shane had let me drive his car around the cul-de-sac a couple of times when he first got it so I’d had some practice, and Mum isn’t up to it these days.

I flip down the sun visor. I’ve got a picture tucked right by the mirror. It’s a grainy black and white image, barely a whisper on a scrap of card. If you squint a little, you can make out the sea hugging the shoreline, the skyscrapers that tower above. The Gold Coast. Dad had promised he’d take me there for my 17th birthday and teach me how to surf. I’m not athletic like Shane was, but I can skateboard decently, and I can’t imagine a surfboard would be too different. I don’t go in the water much right now, but I’ll get over that soon, I’m sure. Best of all, it’ll just be me and Dad. He needed some time away, after everything that happened, but my birthday’s the tail end of May, so I figure I’ve got five months until he’s back. By then, Mum will be better and Ned will have grown up and we’ll all get back to being a family.

The car chugs along the waterfront. Baubles dribble off palm fronds, lampposts are choked in tinsel. December is ruthless in Darwin, often bringing dark cloud bellies and an oppressive heat. The soupy air had seemed to thin out the days prior, a respite in time for Christmas.

I flick the dial on the radio, but Christmas carols have been replaced with storm warnings – a tune on repeat. Early December had brought threats of a cyclone, since christened Selma, which sent everyone into a panic. ‘Course, Selma had taken off to sea and we’d all felt a little foolish for wasting time worrying. Selma’s successor goes by Tracy. The consensus in Darwin is that she’ll go a similar way, cast out into the open water. The warning falls into the thrum of the AC.

There’s a gravel strip next to the cemetery, designated parking spaces outlined with chalk. Backing into a spot seems daunting, so I skip the lot and sidle in where the road slopes off into straw-coloured grass.

Shane wouldn’t have been scared to park. Fear wasn’t in his vocabulary. A few years back, we’d been worried he’d get sent off to ‘Nam to fight with the Americans. With the war now dwindling, it wouldn’t have happened, but we didn’t know that back then and yet Shane couldn’t have cared less.

“It might not happen, Adam,” he’d laughed at me. “Then you’ve worried for nothing.”

“But what if it does happen?”

“Then you’ll worry twice – once now and once when I’m over there. Pointless, right?”

And when he put it like that, it did seem pointless.

We make our way through the cemetery gates. Shane’s grave isn’t difficult to find. I know it by heart and I lead the way, Mum trailing behind, Ned perched on her hip.

I lay flowers for Shane, a dejected handful of daisies, a dull brown creeping along their edges. I had pried them out of the neighbour’s lawn, and even though Mrs Davison had spotted me from her kitchen window, she’d only smiled and waved. Just as well because I can’t afford an actual bouquet and would’ve felt like a proper idiot walking into a florist. I wouldn’t have wanted the cashier to ask questions. I wouldn’t have wanted to fumble with the answers. And I definitely wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see me and think they were for a girl.

I can’t imagine Shane would be too fussed about flowers anyway. If it were up to him, he’d have probably asked for a shiny new fishing rod, maybe a couple of lures.

Fishing consumed Shane, but casting a line off a dingy was child’s play for him. He might as well have been hanging the laundry out to dry, the amount of excitement he’d squeeze out of that. He’d spend his weekends scrambling over jagged rocks, hunting for something big. Sometimes he’d come back satisfied, brandishing a scaly trophy to Ned, who’d giggle, and Mum, who’d smother her concern with a smile bigger than she’d ever given me. Dad would clap him on the back and exclaim that we’d be eating fish for days.

My parents were both raised on cattle stations outside Darwin and had come to develop a deep appreciation for the land. I’d stopped asking for help with maths homework when I realised they barely knew basic multiplication, but with Shane, it was different. They always had something to talk about. An invisible thread seemed to tie them together, and I found myself achingly jealous that I couldn’t replicate that same connection with my parents.

Rock fishing is a vicious sport. As many times as he’d catch something, Shane would return from a trip with nothing to show for it but cuts and bruises. I’d persuaded him to bring me along one time, my pleas slowly eroding his refusal. He’d been swept off his feet by a wave that day too. He tried to play it off, but I still remember the shock marring his face, his limbs flailing as he scrambled to get up before being hurtled out to sea. I lost sight of him for a split second while the wave retreated, the whitewash obscuring his face, and my heart had seized. He was okay in the end, minus a few scrapes, but most days the memory haunts me like a ghost.

Last time he wasn’t so lucky.

I’d crouched at the top of the stairs while the police informed Mum and Dad, the disclosure carrying up to the second floor, their voices worn and wary. I sat frozen, my knees cramping up, my mind in free-fall. The ocean swell was strong, certainly strong enough that it would have battered the low-lying rocks. Shane probably wouldn’t have stood much of a chance, even if he had been wearing a life jacket, which as it happened was tucked neatly in the backseat of his car.

Mum clutches Ned to her chest while I mumble my way through a prayer we’d learnt at school. I had written it down to make sure I got it right, but I’d cut my hand deep a week prior and was bleeding through my bandages. It was stupid, really. I’d been cutting up potatoes for a shepherd’s pie – Mrs Davison had given me the recipe when I told her I’d started cooking – and the blade slid clean off the shiny wet spud, slicing straight through the flesh of my palm, sharp and hot. I was embarrassed I’d done it, and even more so to say it still hurt, and now, here at the cemetery, the blood is seeping onto the paper, leaving rust-coloured markings and blurred words. A flush creeps up my neck, stains my cheeks, and I stumble over the words. I skip a few lines and conclude the prayer, hoping Mum will still like it.

I look up and she’s transfixed, staring at the grave that Shane isn’t even in, and I can’t dull the sting in my chest. Competing with Shane was difficult enough when he was alive, but how am I supposed to outshine someone who’s already dead?

The thought poisons my mind. I already wish I could take it back.

Some brothers never fight. I wish I could say we were like that, but sometimes it was difficult to believe we even shared DNA. On one of our better days, Shane had taken me to a hill overlooking the sea, pointed out islands in the distance. I’d squinted and pretended I could see them. There was a well up there, and Shane had given me a five cent piece to make a wish. I don’t remember where it was. If I did, I’d go back with fistfuls of change.

The sun has sunk below the horizon. A dark canopy presses down on us. Fat droplets begin to fall: a warning. It’s time to leave. The dry grass flutters as we retreat to the car, the land turning on us. We make it back as the clouds crack open.

I grasp the car door, pulling it shut again and again. Each time it recoils in protest. The wind has grown teeth. It forces its way into the car, biting at my fingers. My palms are damp and I’m struggling to grip the door handle, but one final jerk and the door sticks.

My breath snakes out in shallow gasps. Mum’s eyes are heavy on me. I want to tell her I’ll fix the door properly when this is over, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to. I’m not smart in the way that Shane was. He could bring cars back to life, and tell the time relying only on the help of the sun. I was pushed up above my age group, taught quadratic equations a year earlier than my friends. I was proud at the time, but now, surrounded by nothing but the raw night, the skill seems laughable.

“When Dad gets back he can help fix-”

Mum laughs, a bitter sound. Her jaw clenches, her top lip pulls back. Her face contorts into something I don’t recognise. “He’s not coming back.”

I open my mouth to argue, but the words are getting tangled and there’s a lump lodged in my throat, thick as a clump of meat. My vision blurs, and before I can stop them, traitor tears spill down my cheeks. I wipe furiously at my face.

“Merry Christmas. I got you this,” I dig into my pocket, thrust the locket into her hands. It pops open, and Shane beams up at her. In this moment, I am so angry I can taste it.

The silence stretches between us. I swing onto the road and we backtrack along the shoreline. Palm trees lurch at violent angles. The car shudders. In the distance, the sea and sky blur into a midnight void. Waves throw themselves against the shoreline, flecks of saltwater spray the windscreen. A watery film forms and I fumble with the controls, trying to find a button or a handle that will bring the wipers to life. Mum reaches over, flicks the lever behind the steering wheel, and there they are, the spidery black arms forcing the water aside.

“What did you do to your hand?” Mum’s eyeing my bandage, her brows furrowed.

A response forms, then dissolves on my tongue. I’m gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles turn white. Something curdles inside my stomach, and I force it to stay down.

We can’t get into the house fast enough. Mum takes Ned this time, and I jab the key into the lock, the cool air chasing our heels. Ned is relegated to his highchair, Mum and I working to board up the windows and find flashlights.

We’re huddled in Mum’s bedroom, Ned sandwiched between the two of us, and Mum looks me straight in the eye.

“Thank you, Adam.” I’m not really sure what she’s thanking me for, so I don’t say anything back. The locket hangs around her neck, twinkles in the beam of the flashlight. “We’re going to be okay in here. You’re all good, Ned?” Mum gives Ned a little poke in the ribs and he gurgles, a toothless smile in response.

“He’s going to have to start to pull his weight, hey Adam?” The words come out in an exhale of air, as though she’s forced it out of herself. I stare at her for a second before I realise she’s joking.

“Yeah, he barely helped with the windows,” I let a stiff laugh escape me. “Can’t have him turning into a freeloader.”

Mum smiles tightly, squeezes my hand. And we are okay that night, us three.

***

Christmas morning is overcast; the city has been hollowed out. Our place is mostly unscathed, but in the centre of town lie skeletons of buildings. Possessions that were once cherished have been transformed into nothing more than piles of debris lining the streets. The storm itself dissolved quickly. I can barely believe it in the days that follow, waking up to a giddy sky, swirling pink and tangerine. Day by day, people just seem to get on with things. It was hard to forgive them for that, after Shane died. But when the grief knocks you down, you can’t stay there. You have to get up. But that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.

My Christmas cards were long since sent out, but there’s one stray one, swimming around the bottom of my backpack that I haven’t yet posted.

I tuck my picture of the Gold Coast safely into an envelope, scribble along the bottom.

I hope you aren’t feeling too down, Dad. And if you are, just come home. We’ll be right here, ready to pull you up again.