Chapter 3
Love Is A Bridge
“So what happened on Saturday afternoon?”
Kimberly asked me.
It was lunchtime on the following Monday.
The fourteen of us were in our corner of the grounds – the far corner of the
outdoor basketball court.
“I don’t
really want to talk about it,” I responded.
“Suit
yourself.” Kimberly started rummaging through her backpack.
“I didn’t
mean it in that sense!” I assured her. I caught Aisling’s eye. “Even if I don’t
really want to talk about it, I can still sign it.”
I slowly
signed what had been bugging me all weekend. “I’m going deaf. I’ll be
completely deaf by May, according to Dr. Nicholls.”
Aisling
nodded and smiled sympathetically.
“Hey,
Taylor, your birthday’s in six weeks,” Marie realised. “Got anything planned
yet?”
I nodded.
“Hell yeah! My brother’s coming up from Sydney, and we’re gonna go play
skirmish.”
“Sounds
like a lot of fun,” Crystal commented.
“It gets a hell of a lot better,” I continued. “All
you guys are invited. We’re having a guys against girls, all-out paintball
war.”
Kimberly
found what she was looking for. “Senior choir auditions start in a week,” she
informed us. “You guys thinking of signing up?”
“No way,” I disagreed. “I can’t sing.”
Marie threw
a handful of leaves at me. “And who
was the person who got up at my birthday last year and belted out REO
Speedwagon’s Take It On The Run?” she
questioned me.
“I was
drunk!” I argued, picking leaves out of my hair.
“You
weren’t that off your face,” Katie
disagreed. “You’d only had a couple of cranberry Ruskis.”
“It was
more like five,” I shot back. “That’s the only way you’d get me on a stage. If
I was absolutely off my face.”
Laughter
erupted. “Do your parents know you got drunk yet?” Daniel asked me.
I shook my
head. “Why should I tell them? Besides, I was completely sobered up by the time
I got home. They’ll never know.”
“Tayles,
you have an amazing voice,” Angie
informed me. “I mean it. You can
sing.”
I pointed
to my hearing aids. “Even if I could sing, which I can’t, I wouldn’t want to hear it. These make my voice sound
horrible.”
“Taylor,
Taylor, Taylor,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “When will you learn not to get
so down on yourself?”
I got to my feet. “When you guys stop
reminding me of my disability.” At that I walked off without another word.
- x -
That afternoon I got home later than usual.
I went straight up to my room and changed out of my uniform, into my jeans and
my long-sleeved Rip Curl shirt.
Before I
pulled my shirt over my head, I looked at my reflection in my bedroom mirror.
“That’s strange,” I murmured, running the fingers of my right hand down my
chest. There was a scar there that I’d never seen before. I supposed I must’ve
got it from somewhere, but whatever had happened I had no memory of it.
None whatsoever.
My bedroom
door opened, and Mum stuck her head in. “You got home late,” she commented.
“Where were you all afternoon?”
“At the
cove,” I replied. I stared at my bare-chested reflection. “How the hell did I
get this scar?” I asked.
Mum walked over and brushed my hair off my
forehead. “Tay, you were born with a congenital heart condition,” she explained
softly. “You had an operation when you were three months old, but it didn’t
exactly work. You had an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic.”
I pulled a
face.
“That’s
what I wanted to talk to you about, actually,” Mum continued. “You have two
problems. One interferes with your learning, the other is life-threatening. You
need to make a decision.”
I pulled my
shirt over my head and ran my fingers through my hair. “And what might that
be?” I asked.
“Whether
you live, or you die.”
I shivered.
“A bit ominous, don’t you think?”
Mum placed
her hands on my shoulders. “Taylor, your deafness is not life-threatening. It’s
only a hindrance. And you’ve learned to live with it.” She took my left hand
and placed it on my chest. “But this is.
And there is a good chance you may not live past the age of eighteen unless it
is corrected.”
I dropped
to the floor and started rocking back and forth. “No way,” I muttered over and
over. “It can’t be true.”
I looked up
at Mum. “I can’t be dying,” I said softly. “I just can’t be.”
- x -
“Hello?”
Aisling’s brother Kieran answered the
phone.
“Is Aisling
there?” I asked. “I need to talk to her.”
“Yeah,
sure. Hang on a tick.”
A different
voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Aisling.”
“Oh, hi
Taylor. What’s up?”
I couldn’t
say it. “Are you sitting down?” I asked, trying to stall for time.
“Well,
yeah. Come on, spill.”
I
swallowed. “My mum told me that I might not live for much longer. I’ve got a
life-threatening heart condition that I didn’t even know about.”
“And you
only just found out?”
“Well,
yeah.” I picked up a leather-bound photo album and opened it. It was
photographs from Year 11 study camp. “Look, I was just wondering if you had a
boyfriend yet.”
“I don’t
even date, Taylor. You of all people should know that.”
I turned to
a photograph of Aisling and I. “Well, I was wondering if you wanted to go out
with me. You know, as boyfriend and girlfriend.”
There was
silence for a short while. “You’re asking me to be your girlfriend?” Aisling
asked me.
“Yeah,
that’s the idea.”
She was
quiet. “Sure,” she finally answered. “I’d love to.”
“Really?”
Aisling
laughed. “Yes, really.”
“Cool.” I
looked at my watch, it was nearly ten-thirty. “I better get to bed, it’s late.”
“Okay.” She
paused. “I love you, Taylor.”
“I love you
too, Aisling.”
We hung up.
“Mum!” I yelled.
I heard
footsteps, and Mum stuck her head into my room. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,”
I said, smiling. “For once, something is actually right. I’ve got a
girlfriend.”
Mum smiled.
“Congratulations. Now, why don’t you get some sleep?”
I nodded.
“And I made my decision.”
“And what
might that decision be?”
I closed
the photo album. “I’m going to have that operation, once and for all. But I
want to wait until after my birthday.
I want to play skirmish with my friends.”
“It’s your
call. But I am very proud of you, regardless.”
She closed
the door. As I got ready for bed, I sang the chorus to Little River Band’s Love Is A Bridge. “Love is a bridge…that
links our hearts…keeping us close…when we’re apart…I always knew…right from the
start…love is a bridge that goes from heart to heart…”
Maybe Angie was right.
Maybe I could sing. Maybe my hearing
had nothing to do with it at all. But admitting I was wrong was not a strong
point of mine.
