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Chapter 24
During this time I start to get to know my mother again by piecing together fragments of our lives, snippets of Ha
While I sit in the foyer of St. Vincent’s hospital, waiting for the receptionist to finish on the phone, I think of everything I have always wanted to say to my mother and how in the past twenty-four hours all of it has changed.
“You ready?” Griggs asks, coming back from ringing Santangelo.
I shake my head.
“How about I go up and ask?”
I look at him, trying to manage a smile.
“What are you thinking?” he asks. I’ve been piecing together tiny details about him as well. That he always asks that question because he has to see a counsellor every week at home and that’s what his counsellor asks him. And that sometimes he’s a bit shy, like he is at the moment and has been all morning. It makes me feel shy back. I wonder if everyone else is shy the morning after or whether they chat and laugh as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. I wonder if we’re u
“I’m thinking that after last night you shouldn’t have to spend your morning in a hospital finding out if my mother has tried to OD.”
“And I’m thinking that after last night I want to be anywhere you are and if that means being in a hospital asking about your mother, then so be it.”
But we know that we’re both thinking about much more than what we’re doing here now.
“Just say after Wednesday we never see each—”
“Don’t,” he says, angry.
“Jonah, you live six hundred kilometres away from me,” I argue.
“Between now and when we graduate next year there are at least ten weeks’ holiday and five random public holidays. There’s email and if you manage to get down to the town, there’s text messaging and mobile phone calls. If not, the five minutes you get to speak to me on your communal phone is better than nothing. There are the chess nerds who want to invite you to our school for the chess comp next March and there’s this town in the middle, pla
“Gees, Jonah,” I say in mock indignation. “I wish you’d put more thought into our relationship.”
“And then we make plans.”
“As long as you don’t have an affair with Lily, the girl next door.”
“Her name’s actually Gerty. She’s bigger than me and can beat me in an arm-wrestle. There is no way in this world that I will ever, ever go out with someone called Gerty because if I married her and she wanted to take my name, she’d be called Gerty Griggs.”
I laugh for the first time in days and then I take a deep breath and stand up. “I’m ready.”
We walk to the counter and I ask politely for Tate Markham, hoping she’s under that name. The receptionist looks on a written list in front of her and shakes her head.
“Are you sure she’s here?” she asks.
“No, but we were told she was.”
She taps her keyboard and I’m begi
“Is there a St. Vincent’s hospice around?”
“Next door.”
I breathe a sigh of relief and thank her before walking away.
“What’s the diff?” I ask him.
He shrugs.
When we walk into the hospice, I go through the same routine again. After a moment I can see the receptionist has come across the name and she peers at it closely. “She was here,” she says.
I feel Griggs’s arm around me. Was. What does was actually mean? The verb to be. Past tense of is. Does it mean that someone is no longer being?
“She checked out.”
The relief almost sends me over the counter to hug her. “Checked out? Like not a euphemism ‘checked out’ but a real one?”
The woman looks confused. “She checked out six weeks ago.”
Six weeks ago everything changed in my world. Ha
“What was the date?”
She looks at us and I can see the shutter go down. “We have privacy laws and we can’t just give out information….”
“Please,” I beg her, taking out my wallet and showing her my student card. “Our names are the same. I can show you a photo of her. She’s my mother and I haven’t seen her for six years.”
She looks at me and then at Griggs and I feel as if she’s going to get emotional as well but then she taps on her keyboard again.
“She was signed out on the sixteenth of September.”
I look at Griggs. “Last time I saw Ha
“Are you sure?”
“We have the Leadership Council on the fifteenth of September every year and I saw her the morning after. We had an argument.”
I turn back to the receptionist. “Did she sign herself out?” I ask.
“No,” she says, reading the screen.
“Did Ha
“No,” the receptionist peers closer at her screen. “Jude Scanlon did.”
“Jude,” I whisper, excited. “Oh my God, Jonah. I’m going to meet Jude.”
“Jude Scanlon?” Griggs says. “You never mentioned a Jude Scanlon.”
“Yeah I did,” I look up at the woman and smile. “Thanks.”
“Good luck,” she says.
“He’s the Cadet,” I explain as we walk away. “The one I told you about who planted the poppies.”
“Taylor,” he says, and I can tell by the look on his face that something is not right. “Jude Scanlon is not just the Cadet. He’s the Brigadier.”
I’m in shock but everything is starting to make sense. We go back to where we parked the car and it doesn’t start. While Griggs attempts to fix it, I sit on the kerb and use his phone to ring home. One of the year nines answers and she puts me through a mini third-degree, questioning me about where I am and when I’m coming back and if I’m coming back and something about Mr. Palmer and the Army man taking Jessa that morning. I ask her to give the phone to Raffy and a few seconds later I hear her familiar voice.
“Where are you?” she asks, and there are five different tones in her voice, including shittiness and concern and relief.
“What’s happening there?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she sighs. “Mr. Palmer and the Brigadier took Jessa this morning and they haven’t returned her. Please tell me they aren’t the serial killers.”
“No, they’re not. Promise me that you’ll never repeat that theory.”
“Promise me that you’re coming back.”
“Of course I am. Why have they taken Jessa? Can’t you find out through Chaz’s dad?”
“Chaz’s dad is furious. I mean big-time furious with a big fat F.”
“Did he find out that Chaz broke into the police station?”
I can see Griggs looking up from what he’s doing and waiting for the answer.
“Chaz is in so much trouble,” she says.
“What? In gaol or painting the town,” I try to joke.
“Taylor, his dad won’t talk to him.” I can tell that Raffy is in no mood for any kind of humour.
I look at Griggs and cover the mouthpiece. “Chaz’s dad isn’t talking to him. Did he tell you that?”
“Shit, no,” he says, shocked. “He’s not going to cope with that.”
I get back to Raffy who is still talking. “…and Chaz is really cut about it and worse still, he won’t tell them where you guys are so it’s like the Cold War over there. He says his father reckons he’ll never trust him again. Are you sure you’re okay?”