Your luck has to run out sometime.
What’s that awful statistic? One in two people will develop some form of cancer at some point in their life. It’s her turn.
She finds herself thinking about their honeymoon. Not exactly glamorous. They drove to the Seal Rocks Caravan Park in Max’s ute. It was all they could afford at the time. Her sons would never consider anything less than a tropical resort for a honeymoon. That’s how it goes. Each new generation has higher expectations. Goodness knows what the grandchildren will expect for their honeymoons. A trip to the moon! Funny. She won’t be there. She won’t see them grow up. She got to see the kids grow up. Some people don’t get that.
Gosh, though, how could their honeymoon have been any better? Salty skin and the smell of frying bacon and the sound of the waves and the stars twinkling down at them through the caravan skylight. Laughing in bed. They’ve always done a lot of laughing in bed.
She realizes she is thinking about their honeymoon because she and Max woke up each morning on their honeymoon at this time, when the light had this exact dreamlike quality, and they’d have dreamlike sex, and then fall back to sleep again.
Not that she feels like sex now, of course. God. She couldn’t think of anything worse.
She reaches for her phone on the nightstand and checks the Death Lady Facebook page again. Maybe there will finally be good news.
A passenger has posted a photo of the lady. She has one arm outstretched, ballerina straight, her mouth open, as if she is making an accusation. She looks noble. Like Joan of Arc. Sue doesn’t remember her seeming noble. She remembers how she thought the lady seemed nice and ordinary, like someone she would know from her aqua aerobics class. Clearly, she’s not an ordinary person. Clearly, she has extraordinary, terrifying, supernatural powers.
The caption says: PLEASE SHARE. DO YOU KNOW THE DEATH LADY??
There are multiple comments underneath.
She looks like my first boss at the Commonwealth Bank. Mrs. Burnett. Back when we didn’t use first names in the workplace! I actually thought she’d died years ago but it’s possible I’m wrong.
I know her. That’s SALLY VANDENBURG. She was my local pharmacist when I lived in Hurstville. A very nice lady. Surprised she got into this line of work.
That’s my former Math Teacher’s wife! Or her identical twin! Can’t remember her name, sorry. Scary experience for those of you on the flight but she is obviously a fraud, don’t let it upset you, get on with your lives, nobody knows what tomorrow may bring.
Pretty sure I know her. She threw a spring roll at me when I lived in Perth many years ago. For no apparent reason! Can’t remember her name. Very rude hysterical person.
Can’t help with identity of the Death Lady but my business partner and I met on that flight and came up with the idea for a new protein shake business. Follow the link for more details about Phil & Pete’s Protein Shakes!
She reminds me of a woman who read my palm many years ago and told me I’d leave my marriage and find happiness. She turned out to be right. I’m sorry I don’t remember her name and it may not even be her.
I am a psychic medium and spirit guide with over thirty years’ experience. This is not the behavior of a genuine medium. Here is my link if you are interested in dealing with a professional.
—
Sue puts the phone back down. The nausea rises. She’s reminded of labor pains.
“Sue?” Max wakes. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m sick,” she says. “I’m feeling really sick.”
Max is out of bed in one swift movement. He puts his hand to her forehead.
“Need the—”
“Got it.” He’s back, lightning fast, with the infamous yellow bucket that has been used for decades of tummy bugs and too much party food and teenage boys making their first disastrous experiments with alcohol.
He is calm. He can’t handle the anticipation of a crisis, but once the crisis is happening, he deals with it. Both his grandfathers were war heroes. Her darling husband has heroism in his blood.
He adjusts the quilt over her shoulders, brushes her hair out of her eyes. Her husband the plumber is actually an excellent nurse. She always forgets this because she is so rarely ill.
“I’m very sick,” she says pitifully.
She also always forgets that she, the nurse, is a terrible patient: needy, whiny, not at all brave. She groans, puts her head into the bucket, and feels the comforting pressure of his hand on her back.
“I know, darling,” he says. “We’ll get you better.”
He sounds so assured and confident, Sue almost believes him.
Chapter 89
The first year of my marriage to David Smith was blissfully happy!
You know, I really didn’t see all that much of him.
He worked long hours and there was also his new passion for scuba diving: a time-consuming hobby. All that left time for was sex, and we always excelled in that department.
We lived in David’s house, now also my house, in Wahroonga: a lush, leafy, cool, and shady parkland-like village, with trees that soared like skyscrapers and better-dressed, better-paid people than in Hornsby. Hornsby seemed a little scrubby to me now when I went back home. Wahroonga is actually only two train stops away from Hornsby, but you would think I had moved from a country town to a thriving metropolis.
The house was the color of clotted cream, a small, charming Edwardian-style bungalow with polished floorboards, ceiling roses, and bay windows. Mum and Auntie Pat were always in raptures over the abundant blue hydrangeas that lined the curved path to my front door. I considered them old-lady flowers, but I loved feeling grown-up and gracious as I gave them each a bunch with the stems wrapped in aluminum foil to take home with them.
It breaks my heart to remember the pleasure and seriousness with which I arranged and rearranged our wedding gifts in my clotted-cream house, like a child playing with her toys. Oh, Cherry, I think, you dear little idiot. I can still remember the weight and heft of a crystal bowl with no discernible purpose, the new cutlery so shiny I could see my face in the dessert spoons, the twelve-place dinner set: giant plates, smaller plates, side plates, so many, many plates upon which to serve so many different types of food! Each item seemed to anchor and validate me. I was a handsome surgeon’s wife with a double degree and an interesting job that no one had suggested I needed to give up just now I was married (I was a career woman!), a twelve-piece dinner set, and a fantastic sex life. I owned place mats and saucepans. I wore a diamond ring. I had it all worked out. One day I would host a dinner party for twelve. Not yet, of course. First I would improve my cooking skills.
David’s parents, who had, by the way, helped him buy the house, lived directly across the road from us. Neither of these two facts was mentioned by David in the early days of our relationship.
“I predict trouble,” said my mother when she discovered the extremely close proximity of my in-laws.
“I don’t remember making an appointment, Madame Mae,” I said.
