Her Quiet Legacy

Chapter 5

Means by which an artist communicates ideas and emotionsArmy life filled my dreams. Despite my mother’s frustration, lack of a label enabled me to enlist on my seventeenth birthday. I forged my social worker’s signature and left two months later, bound for Waiouru Army base and twelve weeks of intensive training. I loved it. Structure and routine filled my world from dawn to dusk and all the other hours on either side of them. I did everything they asked. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I woke from sleep with my fingers twitching. During my dream, I’d stripped, cleaned and rebuilt a 7.62 Minimi, the army’s light support weapon of choice. No one yet had beaten my record.

Birds rustled in the trees near my window, calling to each other with an irritating shrillness. My wristwatch displayed the time as just after nine, but my aching body begged to stay in bed. I rose, using my stomach muscles and planted my feet square on the floorboards. The coolness of the wood grounded my first thoughts of the day with their solidity. An urge to paint sneaked into my mind like thread veins and I stretched my arms above my head, enjoying the satisfying c***k of my joints.

The stairs creaked as I took them two at a time. Thursday demanded I step only on the odd ones and I gripped the banister rail to make sure I didn’t screw up the first five minutes of my day. Two more commissions demanded my attention, and I didn’t have the energy to go back to bed seven more times.

For breakfast, I ate three wheat biscuits. On less busy days, I favoured rice pops, but only when time allowed me to count out three hundred into a bowl. Today was not that day. I sat at the counter to eat, rejecting the stained milk once I’d pushed the last spoon of wheat strands into my mouth. Flecks dotted the milk’s surface and reminded me of the debris floating in Hamilton’s Rotoroa Lake. Nausea bubbled into my throat and I ran the bowl under the tap seven times before dumping it on the top rack of the dishwasher. Rain pelted the kitchen window, mist drifting from the mountain to engulf the house in its precipitous embrace. Foreboding squeezed my heart, and I glanced at my watch. Mother would phone in less than half an hour.

I retrieved my phone from the laundry and checked the camera at the front gate. The black and white static of a snowstorm betrayed a fault which appeared in the night. Tutting, I walked to the fuse box and flicked the switch back up into position. The system reset and the camera flickered to life, displaying a clear image of the space in front of my gate. Sheet rain spread across the asphalt road beyond it, the hiss of a passing vehicle exacerbated by the echo through the speaker. I continued my journey upstairs, dodging the even steps. Eleven missed calls from an unknown number had depleted its charge and I plugged it in after deleting Julia’s five texts. I shampooed my hair and soaped my body in the shower, eager for my Thursday ritual to begin. A successful start would cement a satisfactory day, one in which I could paint without distraction.

My phone screen lit up as I shaved off the rough beard, which grew during the previous week. I stopped the electric razor and stared at the number strobing across the display. My watch showed I had five minutes remaining until Mother called, so I ignored it and hoped they stopped. A text message told me the engineer had been the unknown caller and that he’d replaced the green dome and reconnected the wiring. I wrinkled my nose and winced. Good manners dictated I text back to thank him.

Wearing the aftershave Mother gave me five Christmases earlier, and a shirt and trousers she liked, I settled on the reclaimed pew in the lobby and waited for her weekly call to the landline. A blue and white checked cravat hid the scar and stopped the curious questions, which burst like staccato gunfire from the lips of strangers. The aftershave held a strange, funky scent. It had arrived a few days before Christmas with a card in Mother’s handwriting. It seemed rude to question its composition when she’d gone to so much trouble to procure it. I’d Googled the term prison aftershave and not liked the conclusions.

My phone had gleaned a thirty percent charge, and I bounced my knee in time with the flashing dots from the digital clock. With less than a minute to go, I forced my body into a state of calm to avoid jiggling the device onto the rug. At one minute past ten and twenty-three seconds, the receiver for the landline rang. I snatched it up and held it against my ear, holding my breath and waiting for her gentle cadence to sweep over me.

But the voice wasn’t hers. Anger surged in my chest like a flash of fire and I pulled the receiver away from me to stare at the smooth brown plastic. The old analogue phone couldn’t show me the identity of the caller. “Don’t hang up!” the voice urged, loud enough to carry from the device and boom into the empty hallway. “She said you might.”

I forced my dry throat to swallow and lifted the phone to my ear. “Jack Jethro.” The change in routine had thrown me for a loop and I resorted to the familiar, beginning again at the start.

“Mr Jethro, my name is Doctor Tyndale and I work at Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility. I’m calling on behalf of Alexandra Jenssen. I understand she’s your mother?”

An invisible hand glued my teeth closed, and I struggled to grunt a reply. The demons in my head threw paint and brushes in the air, screaming about disaster as the doctor destroyed my routine in less time than it took me to climb the eleven odd steps up to my bedroom. He continued as though I’d acknowledged him. “Your mother’s health is a little worse this week. She doesn’t remember why she’s here. The Alzheimer’s has accelerated, and it’s possible she suffered a stroke in the night.” His tone changed to one of consolation. “But she remembers you and that she needed to call you at ten o’clock this morning. I’ve tried your mobile number a few times but couldn’t reach you. She insisted I use this number at ten o’clock.”

My teeth ground in my head, my mind empty of answers. I’d never managed passing conversation or meaningless chatter and no words arrived to assist me. “Mother?” I asked for her, a plea in my voice.

“Okay.” He admitted defeat. A cacophony of sounds carried through the connection as he bumped the handset with the clank of a wedding ring and whispered just out of earshot.

Breathing filled my ear and my head. “Jack.” Her voice sounded strained and odd, as though she spat the word through only half her mouth. “Gain,” she managed, the word hissing with force. “Ain.”

I swallowed and pursed my lips. “Mother? I wanted to ask you about a man at the bar last night.” I launched into the conversation I’d planned, not able to cope with the thought it might not happen.

The doctor cut off my sentence, his voice louder than Mother’s and more jarring. “We’ll transfer her to Auckland General mid-morning for tests. You’ll need to contact the prison governor for permission to visit her. It shouldn’t be a problem.” The call ended without giving me the chance to reply. The phone hung limp in my fingers as the coiled cord swung as though pushed by an unseen hand. I closed my eyes to block out the sensation of floating on the river like flotsam, but the sinking feeling grew worse.

This wasn’t how Thursdays must begin.

Chapter 6