It's Not You, It's Me Read online

  ‘Julie’s going to do it,’ the mom was saying as they got out of the lift and walked down the corridor to a room with curtained cubicles. ‘She’s got a gentle touch. Best with the IVs.’

  It wasn’t Frances’s fault. Frances hadn’t wanted a baby in the first place. She’d fallen pregnant by accident. And she’d kept the baby – that had to mean something. She must have started out with good intentions. But the years must had drilled them down, grinding them to dust.

  ‘Julie, this is my daughter Trinity …’

  But now Holly had a chance to change things.

  Julie put a needle into her arm and hooked the plastic bag up to a pole to collect her rare blood. Golden blood. That was the sound of destiny, right there.

  4.41 pm

  Holly followed Trinity’s mom back down the corridor towards the lifts, heading for reception. She’d just given a pint of golden blood to her baby-self. It was enough to explode her head. She wished there was someone she could talk to about it, but there was no one. Not April or Susie Sioux or Lewis or any of them. Trinity’s mom? No. She couldn’t. Right from day one, she’d known no one in this world would believe her. She didn’t even need to run through the conversation inside her head to know how unbelievable it sounded. There was no way of framing it that wouldn’t lead to some pretty serious, concerned, sceptical faces.

  She wondered how baby-her was doing. Was she awake? Was she gurgling or crying, happy or anxious? Kicking her blankets off, gripping a finger, sucking her thumb, ready for a bath? Frances might be with her right this very moment. The thought of seeing the two of them together – mother and baby – made Holly’s heart lurch. A fresh start without all the history that was yet to come. Here she was, at the very beginning of it all. A once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity.

  ‘Can I go visit her?’

  ‘Visit who?’ the mom asked.

  ‘The baby. The one’s who’s getting my blood.’

  The mom looked as if she was going to say no, but then she shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not.’ She pushed the lift button to go up, not down.

  Holly’s breathing was shallow. She could feel the pulse of blood in her ears. She was unsure whether what she was feeling was extreme anxiety or extreme excitement. Probably both. How would it feel to look down upon herself as a baby?

  They walked into an anteroom where a long sink ran along one wall, a sign above the sink instructing every visitor to wash their hands thoroughly.

  She was early for her birthday lunch with Evie and had spent the wait time scrolling through news articles on her phone. Coronavirus had reached pandemic proportions in some countries. Everyone was being told to wash their hands thoroughly to stop the spread. Evie walked into the restaurant and the two of them bumped elbows as a joke, before hugging. It was hard to take it seriously in Australia. They were so far away.

  As Holly stood at the long sink, working the soap into the creases of her fingers, she felt a pang of anxiety about her actual future in 2020. She’d been so preoccupied with what was going on here in 1980, with what she’d missed out on as a child growing up, but what would happen to 2020-her if she interfered in her own past? If – as she was about to do – she met herself as a baby?

  She thought about all the time-travel movies she’d seen – Back to the Future and The Time Traveller’s Wife and even, maybe, 17 Again. You never wanted to come face to face with your future (or past) self. It might have dire consequences, cause some kind of rip in the space–time continuum.

  She shouldn’t have come. She should leave. She shouldn’t risk it. But through the doorway, tantalisingly close, she could see a single row of plastic humidicribs. Four of them. Baby-her was in one of them.

  The mom walked into the intensive care unit, and Holly followed behind, as if drawn by a magnet. The first humidicrib had a baby the size of a twig. The next crib held an enormous baby, barely fitting inside the plastic box. Another tiny little bird of a thing slept in the third one, and finally, in the last humidicrib in the row, was her baby-self.

  She was miniscule. A tube was up her nose, pumping oxygen straight into her lungs. Another tube ran down her throat, drip-feeding her. She was lying on her back, eyes closed, looking frail, breakable. Vulnerable. She wasn’t gurgling or kicking off blankets or sucking a thumb. She was too small, too premature, to be doing any of that.

  Sitting in the corner at her feet was Loolah’s Holly Hobbie doll.

  Holly watched baby-her’s chest rise and fall, rise and fall, and realised that she was breathing in synchronicity. A shiver ran down her back, and she noticed that baby-her shivered also. She felt tears welling, and baby-her started crying – not a fully-fledged baby cry, but a tiny squawk, as much as the tiny lungs could muster.

  ‘She’s the dearest little thing,’ the mom was saying, completely absorbed by the fragile human in the plastic box. ‘An absolute dot.’

  Holly put her palm flat against the outside of the humidicrib and watched as baby-her, eyes still closed, stretched out in a yawn, the tiniest hand, with five of the smallest fingers she’d ever seen, reaching towards her.

  Holly’s tears fell. The mom put an arm around her and whispered, ‘I know. I remember the first time I saw one of these little preemie babies.’ The word ‘preemie’ contrasted with the Australian ‘premmie’ that Holly had grown up hearing. ‘It seems impossible that a tot this small will survive. But they do. They’re strong. Just like you were. Ten weeks early, same as you. And look at you now: you’ve grown up to be so strong. You’re a fighter. And that’s a good thing. Sometimes I wish there was less of the fighting’ – a little joke – ‘but I guess I’ve got to take the good with the bad. I wouldn’t change a thing.’

  Holly turned towards this lovely woman and sobbed into her shoulder, Trinity’s mom shushing her gently – ‘You’re okay, you’re okay,’ over and over – until Holly absorbed the words and knew that actually, yes, she was okay.

  5.08 pm

  ‘I’ll call Dad and let him know you’ve finished,’ the mom said. ‘He’ll probably be here in twenty minutes, half an hour? And then I’ll pick you up from his place a little before nine.’ She gave Holly a hug goodbye. ‘Have a nice time.’

  Holly smiled and waved as the mom headed off down the corridor. As soon as the mom turned the corner, she dropped her arm and the smile. She didn’t have much time.

  Taking the lift to the ground floor, Holly headed over to reception. She was still grappling with the enormity of having seen her very own baby self. It had been incredible. For the first time, she had a real sense of how hard it must have been for Frances, to see that little baby lying there, raw-skinned and plugged into tubes and beeping monitors, and only being allowed to look, not touch. ‘They’re very vulnerable to infections,’ the mom had told her. ‘Until their skin is properly formed, we have to be careful. It’s hard for the moms, not being able to pick up and cuddle their babies. It makes it hard for them to bond.’

  ‘She called me from the hospital the day you were born, all the way over in LA,’ Grannie Aileen had told Holly, after Frances had died. ‘The doctors didn’t think you’d make it. And she’d just found out the terrible news about Nathan. The ski accident. She was so distressed. Told me she hadn’t even been able to do the most basic job of keeping her baby inside to full-term. I’m not making excuses for her, but I think that’s why she left you with me a lot. She felt she was no good at looking after you.’

  ‘Okay, yeah sure, maybe,’ Holly said. ‘But I survived. I grew up. You can’t blame me being prem, for her not being around to look after me.’

  Holly had always felt like it was her fault. But this was her chance to fix it. As soon as she got home, she’d write a letter and tell Trinity all about the golden blood and donating to her baby-self. Maybe Trinity would feel better knowing it was Holly’s life, not hers, that needed to be fixed, and that once she’d sorted out whatever it was she had to sort out, they’d be swapped back. At least, that was what Holly assumed. Hoped.


  The receptionist looked up at her. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’d like the room number for Frances Fitzgerald, thanks,’ Holly said. She wasn’t even sure if the receptionist would give it to her. Would she have to prove they had a relationship? Would the nurse ask for proof of ID?

  But the woman said nothing, simply checked a register – a typewritten sheet in a school folder – then looked back up at Holly. ‘Sorry, doll, she’s already been discharged.’

  Holly took a step back, as if pushed. ‘But that can’t be right,’ she said. ‘I saw her this afternoon. Her baby’s still here. Upstairs. I was just with her.’

  ‘Let’s see … yes. Baby’ll be here for another few weeks yet. The mom was discharged on …’ The receptionist consulted the register again. ‘Yesterday.’

  Holly’s entire throat plugged up. She should have grabbed Frances earlier when she saw her heading to the pay phone. That had been her one opportunity to fix things. Instead, she’d gone and donated blood, walked off like the obedient doormat she’d always been. It was cruel. The universe was playing a huge joke on her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ the receptionist asked.

  Holly didn’t even answer; instead she turned away and walked out the hospital entrance, feeling as distressed as Frances had looked earlier. She walked down the street, not even sure where she was heading.

  Which was when she saw her. Correction. Saw them.

  Frances. Her mum. With Nathan King. Her dad.

  The photo of the two of them in Morocco, their faces crinkled into smiles and their hands up to shield their eyes from the sun. That – along with the box under the stairs that held the letters they’d written to each other – was all Holly had of the two of them together.

  But he’d died on a ski trip in Canada before Frances had even landed in America. That was why Frances had gone into premature labour – from the shock of hearing he’d fallen off the balcony in Whistler. And yet here he was, opening the passenger-side door of a long, boaty American car for Frances.

  Holly ran over and stood there dumbly, staring at the two of them. She could feel her mouth opening, then closing, but no words came out. You lied, she felt like screaming at Frances. You said he died, but here he is. All she managed to squeeze out was, ‘It’s you. You’re here.’

  The two of them looked over at Holly.

  Nathan stared at her for one click, his face blank, before walking over to the driver’s side of the car and opening his door. But then he stopped and did a double-take; frowned, as if she was familiar to him.

  As if she was family.

  The flash of something like recognition strobed across his face for a moment before he shut it back down again.

  Questions flooded Holly’s brain: If he was alive, why had Frances left America on her own? Why had she told everyone he’d died? If he’d come to Australia, or Frances had stayed here in America, Holly’s life would have been so different. She would have had a mum and a dad.

  ‘I’m sorry. Do I know you?’ Frances said, shocking Holly with the realisation that while she knew Frances so well, Frances had no clue who she was.

  Look at me. I’m your daughter. You know me. You must recognise my soul, at the very least.

  ‘Have we met?’ Frances continued. She had her hand resting on the car door, as if she was teetering on the brink of getting in the car or staying there on the kerb and listening. It just depended on what Holly said next.

  ‘No, okay, so you don’t exactly know me … it’s complicated,’ Holly stammered, on the back foot. What was she supposed to say next? How was she to make them both listen? She hadn’t rehearsed this. She’d been picturing Frances. Not Frances and Nathan. She felt all akimbo, every thought blasted out of her head.

  Frances’s chin trembled slightly, like she was about to start crying. She assessed Holly, then made the decision to get into the car. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but today’s not a good day.’

  She went to shut the passenger door.

  ‘Wait!’ Holly said, desperate to hold them there. ‘I have things to tell you, things you should know.’ She hung onto the car door, preventing Frances from shutting it. From leaving her. She felt, rather than saw, Nathan suck in his cheeks and chew the inside of his bottom lip, his eyes fixed on Holly. She understood his confusion. Who could blame him?

  She searched for the clincher, the thing that would keep them there. But she came up empty-handed. She had nothing. Nathan had heard enough. He turned the key in the ignition and turned away from her, looking behind him to check for oncoming traffic.

  ‘Sorry,’ Frances repeated, third time lucky, then she pulled the car door out of Holly’s grasp and shut it.

  Nathan started pulling away from the kerb, away from Holly. Through the glass of the passenger-side window, Holly yelled at Frances. ‘Why don’t you love her?’ she yelled, emotion breaking her words apart as they left her mouth. She’d meant to say, You need to love her, but the other had come out instinctively. She pointed behind her towards the hospital. ‘She’s in there, waiting for you to love her. To take care of her.’

  If it hadn’t been awkward initially, which it had, it was definitely awkward now. Frances kept her eyes focused straight ahead, through the windscreen, looking at the road, pretending Holly wasn’t on the other side of the glass yelling at her.

  ‘She needs a father,’ she cried out, as Nathan made the break and entered the stream of traffic. ‘She deserves to be loved. By both of you. Please.’

  His tail-lights flared as he reached the intersection, then extinguished as he turned the corner. Away from her.

  And that, right there, taken from the point of view of changing one’s future for the better, would have to be considered a fail.

  6.13 pm

  The dad was cooking spaghetti bolognaise. Sauce out of a tin.

  Everything Frances had ever told her about her father was a lie. He hadn’t died in a skiing accident. He was here, alive, in Los Angeles, right now. And the two of them were together. Why had Frances lied? And such an enormous lie, too? At least if she’d known her dad was alive, Holly could have written to him. Could have had some kind of relationship with him.

  And to top it all off, she was about to eat spaghetti with tinned bolognaise sauce – exactly the same as last night. There was only so much one person could stand in a single day.

  ‘We had this last night,’ Holly said.

  ‘Makes sense,’ the dad said, keeping it light. ‘It’s a family favourite. How can they squeeze so much deliciousness into one can?’

  ‘Not wanting to state the obvious, but that’s two nights in a row,’ Holly said, her words thin and jagged, their edges sharp, like they, too, had been taken to with a can opener.

  The dad looked as if he wasn’t sure where to go with that, so opted to say nothing. This small kitchen with its two-burner cooktop and processed spaghetti sauce was so angry-making. Holly didn’t want it, any of it. And especially not bolognaise from a tin.

  ‘Well, I love it,’ said Loolah, defending her dad. Like Holly was rubbing his nose in the fact that he didn’t live with them anymore. ‘I could have it every single night and be happy,’ she announced.

  ‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you,’ Holly said, turning her can-opener-sharp words on Loolah. Loolah, sitting there so smug, like everything was right with the world, when it so clearly wasn’t.

  ‘Trinity!’ the dad said, the severity in his voice reining her in.

  And then, as suddenly as Holly’s rage had flared, it evaporated. This wasn’t about spaghetti sauce in a can. It was about Nathan and Frances. It was about Frances’s lies, all those years, every year of her life, lied to.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her shoulders slumping. ‘It wasn’t a good day today.’ She only realised once the words were out of her mouth that they’d subconsciously mirrored what Frances had said to her earlier.

  The dad put his arm around her shoulders and dragged her in close to him, his spoon still doi
ng the rounds of the saucepan, keeping the sauce from sticking and burning.

  ‘You doing okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, don’t take it out on us,’ Loolah said huffily.

  Holly grinned at the indignant little face staring up at her from the table.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Apology accepted,’ Loolah said, the formality of the words contrasting with the messiness of her hair, the dirt smear across her face, the shortness and sweetness of her.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Holly.

  ‘Don’t let it happen again,’ said Loolah.

  Holly laughed.

  And just like that, family made her feel better.

  9.41 pm

  Holly sat cross-legged on her bed, the Los Angeles telephone directory spread open in front of her on the quilt. There were pages of Kings – thousands, probably tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of them in the greater Los Angeles area. It was an impossible task. She groaned. All those Kings were mocking her from the tightly typed, tissue-thin pages, hiding the one King she needed to speak with.

  She walked over to the desk and placed her fingers on Brother Orange. The keys felt strangely warm, like someone else’s hands had just been there. She needed to talk to someone about her day, and Trinity was the only person who’d understand.

  You’re, she typed. She’d planned on You’re the only person who knows how I feel, but You’re was as far as she got.

  You’re wanting me to stay home? Hah! No way. I’ve been far too busy ruining your life. And let me tell you, today was a good one! Drove to school, maaaybe sideswiped a few cars. Only a bit of damage, but no fatalities, so that’s a good day, right? Reaction to your hair: classic! People literally stopped in the hallway to stare as I walked past. Or maybe it was the clothes I was wearing? These old overalls I found in the hall cupboard. Couldn’t find anything decent in your CRAPPED OUT wardrobe with all the RIPPED UP clothes. Oh and I gave all your classes the day off. Aiming for Teacher of the Year.