The Mimosa Tree (33 page)

‘You're going already?' I say.

Via taps at the watch on her wrist. ‘It's late. And I think you and your father need some time to yourselves. I'll be back tomorrow to see how you're going, okay? Siena are you ready?'

Siena nods and takes her place beside her sister. ‘Good night, you two. Get some rest, okay? You both need it. We'll be back in the morning.'

‘You'd better be here!' says Via shoving a podgy finger in my face. ‘If I come back and you're gone I'm going to kill you.
I mean it!
'

Then they slip through the door and Dad and I are alone.
Their leaving seems to take some of the room's warmth with it, and I can feel a cold breeze on my neck. I look at Dad, but he is head down and concentrating on serving up our food. He piles the plates up high, and when he's done he motions for me to sit down. I pull my chair from the table and the scraping sound seems to echo in the room. We sit down together and stare at our plates, but neither of us makes a move to eat. After a long time, my father puts his palms on the table and looks at me.

‘I'm not very hungry,' he says.

‘Me either.'

He nods his head.

‘I think I'm just going to go to bed,' I say standing up. I walk past him to the door.

‘Mira,' he says, and I wait to hear what he has to say. ‘Thank you.'

I turn around and Dad is looking at me with tears streaming down his cheeks, but before I can open my mouth to respond he wipes them away and walks towards the lounge room. He walks quickly, like he is trying to get away from me. I let him go. He switches on the TV, and I leave him to his misery and head quietly to my room.

I am too wired for sleep. It's been a big day, a big week, and know I need to give myself some time to wind down and relax. I sit on my bed and take a moment to look around my room. Everything is exactly as I left it. It's the same pink, girly things I have always hated, but now it occurs to me that my mother
bought these things for me, so in a way they are like messages from her about what kind of girl she dreamed I would be. I laugh out loud as I think about how different I turned out from what she imagined for me. She pictured lacy frocks, dances with handsome suitors and grandchildren behind white picket fences, but what did she get? Sullen, black-booted, antisocial me. If she was disappointed, she never let on.

I look through my bookshelf for something to read and here I find another message from my mother; the copy of
Little Women
she made me read once. She loved this book and she wanted me to love it too. I know there are lessons in the story she wanted me to learn, lessons about how to be a woman in the world. She wanted to tell me something about life through these pages. Reflecting on it now, I am not sure
Little Women
gave me the guidance I needed, but I like that she cared enough to try. I scan the books for something else, but there is nothing new on my shelf. I have read everything so many times that all I need to do is run my hand along the spines to recall the stories. In a few short minutes I have read a library. At the end of the row of books I find an old sketchbook, and beside this a packet of broken chalks. It's been a while since I have used either, and suddenly I feel like I want to.

I settle down at my desk and stare at the blank piece of paper. My mind is awhirl with images but the most prominent, the one that seems to loom above all the others, is the black and bubbling mushroom cloud. I pick up the charcoal and very softly begin to draw the edges of the cloud, smudging them into shape. When I go to fill it in, however, I can't seem to hold onto the chalk, can't seem to finish this image with what
should rightly be inside it. I open my fingers and the chalk tumbles onto the white carpet.

Then I feel my mother's hand in mine.

I stare at my hand, wiggle my fingers and marvel at how it can look like mine but feel like hers. Maybe I'm just tired, or maybe it's like Harm said, that some things you experience on acid can stay with you for weeks. Maybe this is where she's always been most alive: in my heart and my mind and by looking inside myself I can feel her again because having her as my mother has shaped who I am. Whatever, it doesn't matter. The point is that my mother is back, and she has her hand in mine and suddenly the room doesn't feel so cold. My hand, our hand, slides the bright yellow chalk from the packet. Carefully, slowly, we begin to draw. The small, repetitive strokes begin to take the form of a mimosa flower. Just one at first, and then more and more and more, until, instead of a cloud of smoky, radioactive fire and dust, I have a mushroom shaped explosion of millions of mimosa flowers, bursting up from the ground, tumbling and twirling in whirlpools of wind and suction, and filling my paper like tiny suns.

By the time I have finished, I am surprised to see the real sun rising in my window. I look up from the page feeling like I have just lifted myself out of a hole. I am spent, satiated. Down the hallway I can hear my father starting to wake. I lie on my bed, listen to the sounds of the mattress springs squeaking under his weight, the grunting sound he makes when he swings his legs off the bed, then a loud, rumbling fart; the kind you make when you think no one is listening. I laugh and I imagine my mother laughing too.

I reach over and turn on the radio, and it's playing the exact right song: ‘This is the Day' by The The. Every word seems to have been written just for me, and for this very moment. I hug my pillow and inside I feel my mother roll into me and begin to snore softly. There is no rush to get up. We can lie together for a while, just me and her, maybe have a little snooze. Because now I know that she could be gone in a flash, and while she is around I'm going to make sure I enjoy every second that we've got.

I would like to thank Fremantle Press and my publisher and editor Cate Sutherland, who seemed to ‘get' the book from the start and had all the right suggestions to make
The Mimosa Tree
much better than I imagined it could be.

I would also like to acknowledge all those family members and friends who suffered through earlier drafts of the novel and cheered me on regardless. Also special thanks to Lisa Litjens who was the first person outside of my personal circle to read, love and edit the book. Her suggestions helped rescue the third part of the novel, and her absolute certainty that it would be published helped me believe it to.

In particular I want to thank the love of my life, Stuart Durkin, who suffered more than most, and risked his life by being honest as well as encouraging. I may have written the book, but he was involved in every scene and every single word, as much a part of its vision as I was. Thank you, thank you. I really couldn't have done it without your love, support and guidance. You're a star.

Antonella Preto was born in Western Australia to Italian migrant parents. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English, with a major in Literature Language and Culture and a minor in Film and Television. Over the years she has worked on numerous film, music and writing projects. Professionally she has worked as a technical writer, trainer, graphic designer, gardener, ‘checkout-chick' and most recently a counsellor and psycho-educator.