Хелен Браун - Bono

“Has he had his pill?” I asked. Without his daily antipsychotic medication, our cat screams nonstop, shreds the house to pieces, and (if all else fails) goes on a spraying jag.

Philip is the resident expert at pill dispensing. Jonah lies like a baby in his arms while he drops the capsule deftly in the back of the feline’s throat. Whenever Philip’s away and I’m forced to man the pill, the patient wriggles, spits the thing out, and snubs me for hours.

“I gave it to him just now,” he said. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No, I’m quite hot, actually. Well, I used to be. I was thinking. . .”

“Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll bring this in to you.”

“I’m thinking . . . I’ve got to go to New York.”

The words came out with the elegance of a cat coughing up a hair ball.

“What for?”

“They want me there to promote the new book,” I said.

My husband took a yellow dishcloth from the bench top and wiped the red tear dribbling down the side of the jam jar.

“The ants are back,” he said after a long silence.

I was so over the ants. They swarmed Jonah’s food bowls every night. He’s terrified of ants, which is undignified for a cat who relished the idea of taking on a rat, or even a small dog. We’d tried every type of trap and poison, but our ants just ignored them and went on with their plans to take over the world.

Drowning ants was my job. I went to the laundry, where the food bowls had transformed overnight into hillocks of writhing life. I filled the yellow bucket from the cold tap and plunged the bowls into the water. Somber with guilt, I watched their bodies form dark swirls as they spiraled down the drain.

“So how long do you want to be away for?” Philip called out.

I returned to the kitchen, where he presented me with a plate of toast.

“I’m not sure,” I said, sinking my teeth into the crust.

Philip said nothing.

“Why don’t you come along?” I asked. “You could take a year off.”

I knew what the answer would be. He could hardly expect the firm to keep his job open while he gallivanted around the world with me for twelve months. Aside from the fact he was too young to retire, our nest egg was barely fertilized.

I waited for him to negotiate my absence down to two weeks, or maybe three. Instead, he put the jam jar in the fridge where the ants couldn’t get it and padded upstairs toward his study.

“Where are you going?” I asked, feeling a stab of alarm.

“To see what flights I can get you on,” he called over his shoulder. “How long do you want to be away for, did you say?”

How much time would it take to stop feeling this empty and confused? A month, a year . . . forever?

“Depends how much stuff they need me to do over there,” I shouted up the stairs. “Maybe keep the return flight flexible?”

His response was so measured and obliging, I wondered if he was demonstrating how his unconditional love extended to helping me carve my dreams into reality. Alternatively, and more understandable in the circumstances, there was every chance he was welcoming the opportunity to have a break from me.

As days melted into weeks, my excitement simmered like lava. There was so much I wanted to see and do in the insomniac city. Not that I’d sunk so low as to call it a bucket list. No way was I about to tick off the Empire State Building and Central Park like items on a funereal shopping list. And I had no ambition to “do” New York, either. In fact, the only thing worse than bucket lists is people “doing places.” I wanted to surrender to the city and let it claim me with its gritty vitality. New York was going to “do” me.

To anyone one who would listen, I tried not to gush about my impending trip. The man-bunned barista at our neighborhood café beamed approval over my takeout latte. My good friend Greg was less impressed.

“What’s happened, darling?” he said, disdain dripping through the phone line from London. “Are you having one of those brain hiccoughs people get at our age?”

Greg and I first met in the dress-up corner back in preschool. Even then I trusted his judgment. He persuaded me the milkmaid’s outfit suited me to a tee, which freed up the fairy queen’s gown for him.

“But it’s the world’s greatest city.”

“That’s just a logo New Yorkers invented to make themselves feel better about living in the world’s worst hell hole,” he said. “Stay away from those yellow taxis, whatever you do. The drivers murder people.”

The vehemence of his reaction was unexpected.

“You’re not jealous, are you?” I asked.

“How could I be? I’d much rather stay in a place where the beggars don’t carry guns.”

“New York beggars are armed?”

“Anyway, what are you doing leaving that gorgeous husband of yours?”

Greg had always been besotted with Philip.

“Do I smell a hint of divorce?” he added hopefully.

I didn’t have answers to either of his questions. All I knew was my knee was sore and my neck ached. Since the kids had left home it wasn’t as if I needed to hang around for them.

Son Rob and his wife Chantelle were up to their armpits in house renovations, their jobs, and their adorable daughters. My granny guilt meter went off the scale imagining Grandparents Day at Annie and Stella’s preschool and the empty seat where I should be. All the other grannies who’d hobbled along on their walkers would refrain from asking where I was in case I’d taken a shortcut to the cemetery. Our younger daughter Kath was immune to my activities. She was off to college and in a parallel universe that involved dressing up as an elf and fighting Orcs in a park near the university. There was only one more person to break the news to.

Our older daughter, Lydia, seemed surprised the afternoon I called to suggest we take a walk in Victoria Gardens, the dog park just down the road from our place.

As we watched a man toss a ball for an arthritic Alsatian, I fought the urge to tell her how much prettier she looked since she’d stopped shaving her head, and how happy I was she’d become a secular Buddhist and braved a speed dating night to acquire a boyfriend. Living in a shared house with hipsters clearly suited her.

“How’s Ramon?” I asked.

She emitted a dry cough. Only a mother would notice the way her hands were forming the shape of fists at her side. She didn’t need to be defensive. I was hardly going to suggest we roll out a picnic rug and google bridal gowns. That said I liked Ramon immensely. Half Sri Lankan and raised Catholic, he had a whimsical sense of humor that was an ideal foil to her serious nature.

“Fine,” she said, watching a skateboarder trundle toward the gates in the distance.

We were both bruised from our harrowing battles around the time of my breast cancer. I’d been hurt and furious when she’d taken off to Sri Lanka to become a Buddhist nun instead of staying home to provide emotional support through the mastectomy. In turn, she’d been perplexed and affronted by my lack of understanding of her need for spiritual growth.

Though our relationship had improved since she’d returned to Australia to complete her psychology studies, we still tended to circle each other like cats in a basement.

We found a bench under a tree and settled in the leafy shade.

“I’m going to New York.” The statement sounded clumsy, and oddly shocking.

A golden retriever galloped in front of us, its tongue waving like a dishcloth. A bird trilled the opening notes of a jazz number. Lydia remained silent.

“I know, you think I’m crazy wanting to go there, you must think it’s a dump, but . . .” I searched for the right words. “I really want to see The Book of Mormon . You know, the musical about the Mormon boys sent to convert people in Uganda. It’s hilarious.”