Flesh & Blood Read online

  Sarah spent a few seconds considering what she’d heard. “’By Henry’s birthday’. When’s Henry’s birthday?”

  “July 19.”

  She sucked air through her teeth. “Whoa, that’s not far away.” After some further thought, she shrugged. “Well, you’re just going to have to figure out how you’re going to tell her about you.”

  I could have choked on my tea. “No,” I said firmly. “That would not help, she’s really conservative. As in, ‘best friends with the pastor’s wife’ conservative.”

  “Some Churches are really forward about this stuff,” Sarah pointed out.

  I shook my head resolutely. “Not Mum’s, and I’m an only child. She’s been planning my wedding since my conception. I can’t tell her, Sarah, she even sent me a wedding book for my birthday.”

  “Well, what’s the alternative, really? You can’t pretend you’re still with Henry if he’s not even talking to you. And you said yourself you can’t get back into those chick clothes, so, really, telling her is kind of your only option.”

  “Not if I can just figure out some way to convince her that everything is fine and she doesn’t need to see me.”

  Sarah gave me a tired look. “Min. I watched you march into a boardroom and roll right over two billionaire CEOs and the manager from hell, and you can’t tell your own mum that you’re transgender?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Just tell her,” Sarah enunciated. “You’re going to have to do it eventually, why not right now and save yourself all this stress? I’m sure her reaction isn’t going to be as bad as you think.”

  No, it’s probably going to be worse, I thought, my blood running cold at the thought of what she’d say. “I understand where you’re coming from, Sarah,” I began, “but it’s not as simple as you think. She grew up in the 1960s in Korea, and she moved to Australia for twenty years to raise me because she thought it would be better here. I can’t just go, ‘Hey, Mum, I’m not the daughter you left your friends and sacrificed twenty years of your life for, and now I’m going to do whatever the hell I want and I don't give a fuck about how it affects you’.”

  Sarah didn’t look completely convinced. “But if the result is you not feeling like you can be yourself, that’s so screwed up,” she said. “No one should get any sort of say in how you run your life except you, not even your parents. You don’t bring a child into the world so you can control it and live vicariously through it.”

  I couldn’t even imagine what Sarah’s family was like. Didn’t she care about what her parents wanted for her? “Sarah, she raised me by herself as a single mum and gave up so much to make sure I got everything she thought I needed. And I fucking hate it, trust me, I do, but her one dream is to see me happily married to someone like Henry and with a family of my own.”

  “And one day you’ll be happily married to someone like Bree with a family of your own?”

  I wasn’t sure how to explain it to someone with such a different upbringing, so I tried another angle. “She loves Henry. Like, she loves him. He even used to call her ‘Mum’ sometimes. I swear to god she spoke to him more than she speaks to me.”

  “Even more likely that she’s going to find out you’re not with him anymore,” Sarah said emphatically. “Min, seriously, where do you actually see this going if you don’t tell her?”

  “I don’t know!” I said, flopping my hands on the table. “I don’t know. I just want her to live happily up in South Korea in her little fantasy world where her daughter is marrying this great guy and everything is normal and fine and perfect, and I want to live my own life down here in Australia, not stressing Mum out because I’m nothing like the way she wants me to be!”

  I must have sounded pretty upset because Sarah’s look of determination faded to one of concern and she reached out and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Min, I’m on your side, I am,” she said, rubbing my arm warmly and then sitting back. “It’s just hard for me to understand, that’s all. I’m going to have kids in, I don’t know, a few years’ time, I guess. I can’t imagine being happy if my kids aren’t.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “Mum’s only going to be happy if I marry Henry.”

  “Are you sure about that?” she asked me, and it was a genuine question.

  I didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes,” I answered easily. “She even says exactly that. All the time, and she means it.”

  Sarah exhaled at length. “Well, shit,” she said. It was weird hearing her swear, but it absolutely articulated how I felt. “Okay, I see your point, but I still think this either ends with her finding out or you telling her.”

  “And that’s what’s stressing me out,” I said, sighing down at the tea in front of me. “I just wish I could figure out some way that neither of those things would have to happen.”

  “What will she do when she finds out, do you think? Will she just be very upset, or will she, I don't know, do something, or...?”

  I shook my head. That question. “I don't know, Sarah.”

  She watched me closely for a few seconds and then put her tea down. Her tone completely changed. “Okay, Toyboy,” she said. “That’s enough talk for tonight. You need to show me how to play that annoying shooting game you’re obsessed with.”

  I looked up. “What, you mean Call of Duty?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever it’s called. Teach me how to play it.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “But you hate video games.”

  She grimaced. “Hate is a bit of a strong word,” she said, and then patted my arm. “Come on.”

  I wasn’t going to say no to that, and not just because I hadn’t played for a while and I thought it might be fun, but because I knew why she was offering. We were crouched down by her television trying to figure out how to plug the PlayStation in when we clonked foreheads and sat back, laughing.

  I originally put an arm around her to apologise for head-butting her, but I ended up giving her a proper big hug. There was no way in which she hadn't been there for me in the last few months. “What the hell would I do without you?”

  She was rubbing her head and moaning. “Well, you’d have one less concussion,” she told me, but hugged me back. “Probably best not to praise me too much. I’m so high on cold and flu tablets right now that I’m actually starting to think I might be God.”

  We spent an hour or so playing video games – at least half of which was Sarah complaining she couldn’t remember the buttons – and then those tablets she’d taken began to wear off and she started to yawn and look really exhausted. I turned off the console while she staggered off to bed, and then I put our cups in the kitchen with the unopened bottle of champagne. I even managed to leave the bottle unopened, despite what was going on with Mum.

  I expected Bree to be sitting up in bed with the tablet when I retreated back to my room, but she’d tucked herself in and, predictably, had fallen asleep with her new sparkly tablet beside her on the pillow. I was grumpy at her not sticking to the timeline until I checked to see how close she’d gotten to the 50 pages she was supposed to have finished; she was up to 113.

  Smiling, I locked the tablet and went to put it on my desk beside my—

  —flashing phone. That stupid fucking light was going to give me a heart attack one of these days; I needed to figure out how to disable it. I swiped across the screen with a finger, expecting to see ‘Private Number’ in the call log, but that wasn’t it at all. ‘Missed call: Henry Lee 23:41PM no message left’ was scrolling across the display.

  I drew a sharp breath. Oh my god.

  I immediately grabbed my phone and stared down at it. Why was he calling me so late? Was something wrong? My heart lifted: maybe he was lying awake in bed and just wanted to talk to me?

  I chewed on my lip while I tried to guess why he might be calling. I couldn’t think about this here, though, I felt like my frenzied thinking would somehow disturb Bree. I tipto
ed out of the room, gently closed the door, and then went out onto the back porch where I could be pretty sure no one would hear me.

  I should call him, shouldn’t I? I thought, walking to the far end of the decking and staring down at my phone. 11:41 was—I checked—nearly an hour ago, but he was calling me so late anyway that he was probably still awake.

  Maybe it’s not that he wants to talk, I decided. Maybe Mum’s ringing him continuously and he wants me to make her stop.

  “But I did that,” I told the phone. “I already told her not to!”

  After a minute or two of painful deliberation, I decided to just call him. Maybe he did want to talk. I tapped the little green handset icon and put the phone up to my ear, closing my eyes for a second as it rang. I wasn’t sure which worried me more: him answering, or him not answering.

  He did answer. “Min,” he said, and with that one word a heavy flood of nostalgia hit me. His voice was so warm and so familiar, and it was so good to hear it again. I smiled ear-to-ear and opened my mouth to tell him exactly that, but he cut me off. “Sorry to call so late, I realise how unprofessional this is. I need to speak with you and I couldn’t do it at work.”

  Unprofessional? Okay… I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I found it unsettling. Why would it matter if he was unprofessional with me? Our whole relationship had been unprofessional. He was the HR manager, after all. “That’s okay,” I said, unsure about where this was going. “I’m obviously awake…”

  “Good,” he said. “Good. Listen, Min, last week we mailed you some information about a meeting that’s taking place and you haven’t responded to accept the invitation. I did something else highly unprofessional and notified management you’d accepted anyway, but I need to know if you’ll be attending or not, or if a representative of yours will be attending on your behalf.”

  I didn’t… “A meeting? I didn’t get anything in the post. Is this about the complaint?”

  “Yes,” he said, and then made a noise that sounded conflicted. “I shouldn’t be doing this from my work account. Here, I’ll email you a copy.”

  I could hear him tapping at his phone, and then mine dinged. I quickly checked it. ‘Directions Interview’, it was cryptically titled. I checked the mailing address on it and groaned. “It’s addressed to the hotel,” I pointed out. “Of course I didn’t get it, I’m living at Sarah’s now and I haven’t been back to collect my mail from there yet.” I swore. “I should have just had it redirected. I’ll do that tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. I didn’t want to change your address on record myself, I shouldn’t even be opening your file,” he told me. It sounded like he was outside somewhere, I could hear pretty strong wind. “Well, are you going to come to the meeting?”

  “Of course,” I said, thinking about the fact I’d promised Sarah I wouldn’t drop the complaint. “When is it?” I held my phone away from my face to check at the exact moment he told me.

  “First thing on Monday morning.”

  Shit. “Yeah, so I see. Thank you for not letting me miss it.” I wondered if the complaint would have been dropped in my non-attendance. “Really, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and it was all so painfully formal. “I recommend you bring representation if you’re not already doing so.”

  “Yeah, because I’ve got so much money lying around for a lawyer, especially since Frost hasn’t paid out on my entitlements yet.” I laughed, but he wasn’t laughing, so I stopped. “No, I’m coming by myself. Why?”

  “Because Sean Frost has flagged his attendance, and given that he’s my manager, I’m in no position to refuse him.”

  The smile that had been on my face faded. “Why?”

  “Because he’s an asshole, Min,” Henry said harshly, his professional voice lapsing for a second. It didn’t last long. “Anyway, thank you for confirming your attendance. The conciliator will meet you in the atrium at 9:45am and escort you inside.”

  That seemed to be the end of the conversation, but neither of us hung up straight away and a silence stretched between us. I couldn’t believe he would only have called to tell me that, especially given how late he was calling and how late he’d answered to me. I could hear he was holding his breath on the other end of the line, and the fact that he didn’t hang up straight away seemed important, so I thought I’d risk it. “Henry, I just want to let you know that—”

  “—Please, Min,” he cut me off stiffly. I could hear how tight his throat was. “Please, I’m sorry. Please don’t say it. I don’t—I just can’t hear it right now, please. I shouldn’t even be calling you, I’m so sorry. Good luck on Monday.” With that, he quickly hung up.

  “—I miss you,” I finished to the sound of an empty dial tone. I sighed. “And I’m sorry Mum keeps calling you, and I hope you’re okay. And, by the way, even though I cheated on you and completely broke your heart, would you mind helping me pretend I’m about to marry you anyway?”

  I flopped against the railing as my screen went dark. The same wind I could hear in Henry’s mic was rustling the trees in Sarah’s backyard; it was eerily quiet, otherwise. I wondered why he was outside after midnight, and had a really horrible vision of him sitting in the dark by his pool with its immaculately maintained child-proof fence. I wondered if he was drinking.

  I wanted to text him, and it took all of my fucking strength not to. I needed to give him space.

  What the hell was I going to do about Mum without him, though? He’d been helping me with her for so long. I leant heavily against Sarah’s porch railing until about 1am, stuck in an endless loop of worrying about Henry, missing him and wanting to talk to him, thinking I might be able to broach the subject of Mum with him after all, and then realising I couldn’t because Mum was no longer his problem. She was my problem. I was my problem. Everything was my own fucking problem, and no matter how much I wanted to call him back and talk through everything with him just like old times, I needed to leave him alone and let him heal by himself.

  “Min?” I twisted; Bree was standing in the doorway wearing only one of my t-shirts, and peering bleary-eyed around the frame. I could only imagine how I looked, standing outside in the dark at 1am. She didn’t say anything about it. She just mutely padded across the porch with her bare little feet, took my hand, and led me back so I could get ready for bed. I didn’t get to sleep for ages, though, even with Bree cuddled up peacefully in my arms.

  I kept remembering that there was no one to make pretentious green tea and play annoying shooting games with Henry, and there was no one to creep outside in one of Henry’s old t-shirts and lead him back in.

  FIVE

  When Henry and I started dating, I promised myself I’d never use the fact that he worked in HR for personal gain. It was probably even more important given that we’d just recently broken up, and yet here I was, trying to convince myself that what I was doing was completely fine.

  “Oh my god, you are so bad,” Bree said, giggling as I drove into the basement car park of my old hotel.

  “I will laugh at you if you get your wheels clamped,” Sarah told me as I twisted into a really strange position and did a beautiful reverse park job. “They’re going to know you don’t live here anymore. They’ll have your rego somewhere.”

  I put the car into park and turned off the engine. “Nope,” I said with expert certainty. “Henry told me they only check the long term area if it’s full, and…” I looked out the window: the floor was peppered with free spaces. “Looks like I just saved $60.” I grinned broadly at them and opened my door.

  The other two were slower out of the car than me; Bree because she was carrying a school bag that was nearly as big as she was, and Sarah because she was still suffering the effects of alternating between binge-drinking and cold and flu tablets. At least, that was my assessment, because I recognised those heavy bags under her eyes from having seen them so much in the mirror myself when I was working for Frost. She was better today than she’d been on Friday, thou
gh.

  “I can’t wait to see my teacher’s face when I hand in my essay on time today,” Bree was saying as she tried to find a comfortable way to carry her heavy bag so it didn’t threaten to topple her over. I held my hand out to offer, and she shook her head. “Nah, I’m used to it. Anyway, I haven’t, like, ever handed anything in on time, and I’m pretty sure she thinks I haven’t even read the book. I should secretly film her reaction and show you!”

  “You should film her reaction when she reads it instead,” I suggested. I’d helped Bree with that essay, and it was a work of fucking art. It contained enough Breeisms to obviously be written by her, but had the level of analysis I thought the teacher would be looking for.

  “I should film your reaction when you see what mark I get,” Bree told me, bouncing over to me so we could hold hands as we walked out of the car park. She was beaming up at me and the cold air had made her cheeks and nose pink. I didn’t realise I was gazing down at her until Sarah made a noise.

  “You should both film me dry-retching over how nauseating you two are,” she said, but she was smiling at us as we walked down the steep hill by the hotel.

  Even with a suit jacket, it was chilly this morning. People were rugged up in their trench coats and parkas, clutching their takeaway coffees close and breathing out in puffs of steam. It was all so familiar: the route we were walking, the buildings, the half-awake people in suits. I even found myself subconsciously avoiding cracks in the pavement despite the fact I wasn’t wearing stilettos anymore.

  Bree had completely bare thighs and didn’t seem to be bothered by the temperature at all, she was just trotting along beside me with a big smile on her face. I bent down to kiss her again as we said goodbye, and in doing so I noticed the pearl in her cleavage. I made her stand still while I did up all her buttons and fixed her tie so it was hidden.

  She made a choking noise. “It doesn’t need to be that tight!” she told me, trying in vain to loosen it and then waving goodbye to us. “I’ll tell you what my teacher says!”