Lisa Heidke

I venture outside and try my hand at weeding. I last four and a half minutes.
I rake dead brown leaves on the driveway. Two minutes.
The pool! The pool is green. It’s a big job, it’ll take at least an hour, maybe more. I start skimming leaves from the top and vaguely make out the slimy sediment and rotting leaves on the pool floor. Wish I had a barracuda, the pool cleaner, not the fish. Dom hated barracudas, Kreepy Kraulys. In fact, all pool vacuums . . . Thoughts of Dom assail me. Not surprising, really. Gloria’s suggestion last night has triggered lots of memories.
Dom and I hit it off straightaway when we first met. He was easy to be around, handsome, uncomplicated. We just clicked, even sharing the same sense of humour. For the three years we flatted together, I saw Dom almost every day. We knew everything about each other: likes, dislikes, pet hates, fantasies (well, some of them) and phobias - that’s how I know about his dislike of pool vacuums: the slurping noise drove him to distraction. I also heard about his family dramas going back to childhood, like the bust-up of Christmas 1986 when his mum stormed out after losing the annual Monopoly game.
And then . . . nothing. After Dom left for Europe, it was like he’d died. Any latent belief that we’d end up together gradually faded into the background, especially after Max came along.
Oh, why am I thinking about Dom?
Because my husband needs space! And I’m left feeling abandoned, washed-up.
It’d be hard to find two men more completely opposite to each other than Max and Dom. Whereas Dom took easygoing to ridiculous extremes, Max is brooding, sensitive and complicated. It’s almost like I went out of my way to choose a lover who could in no way remind me of Dom and what might have been.
But that’s ancient history.
Still, I can’t help but wonder where Dom’s settled now that he’s back in Australia. What’s he doing? Who’s he doing it with? His life has to be in better shape than mine.
* * *
When Sam and Bella get home from spending the night at Mum’s, Bella stomps around the building site that used to be our home. ‘I hate walking around with dust in my mouth all the time!’ she yells, then spends the best part of the afternoon cleaning and twitching - reviving memories of the clean-freak stage she went through when she was six.
‘Every time you pick up the phone,’ she tells Sam, ‘your mouth acts as a vacuum, inhaling germs, bacteria and other airborne diseases like tuberculosis. Do you know what tuberculosis is? It gets into your lungs so you can’t breathe.
Then you die.’ She snaps her fingers. ‘Just like that. These germs can live for days, breeding, multiplying. They’re out there, Sammy, waiting to pounce.’
Sam starts to cry and I realise I should intervene.
‘Bella, enough! Stop terrorising your brother.’
Where does she learn this stuff? When I was her age, I was staging song-and-dance extravaganzas for my bemused grandparents.
Sam wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘The germs are attacking. The germs are attacking!’

Day 15
First thing in the morning, I’m trying to separate frozen bread slices when the sharp, serrated knife slips. I wrap a tea towel around my bloody hand.
‘A likely story,’ says Mum who calls - checking up on me, no doubt. ‘Why didn’t you use the microwave?’
‘It’s difficult to reach, not to mention temperamental. Besides, no time.’
‘Takes ten seconds.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I say, and abandon the conversation. My hand’s throbbing. I hope I haven’t cut a tendon.
As I’m driving to school, blood drips down my hand onto my lap and Sam shrieks that I’m going to die. Bella tells him that if I was trying to kill myself, I stuffed up big time. She’s obviously been talking to Mum.
‘Bella, that’s it. No more Foxtel for you,’ I say, swerving slightly too close to the edge of the road.
‘I’m only joking,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘We’re learning all about diseases at school. You know, like how we cut up sheep brains the other day?’
‘What’s that got to do my hand?’
‘Well, unless you take a truckload of antibiotics, the germs will get in, your cut will get maggots and your hand will fall off.’
It’s a relief to drop them off and head for the doctor’s.
An hour later, I’m stitched up and ready to leave when my doctor, a no-nonsense Polish woman by the name of Lina, clears her throat and says, ‘About your hand, Lucy . . .’ She then fires off a series of questions about my state of mind. Seems Bella and Mum aren’t alone in their suspicions about my mental health.
Driving home, I can’t help but think that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t hired Spud. If the renovation hadn’t turned into a disaster, Max wouldn’t have got fed up and gone to Bali on a surfing holiday - without me.
If only he’d turn on his phone we could sort out this mess. He has to come back eventually. I just wish he’d hurry up about it. We have two children, for God’s sake. No matter what he’s going through right now, he can’t leave them hanging indefinitely. Things might be awkward for a while but I’m sure we’ll get back on track again. We always have before.
Patch shows me the new toilet for the ensuite bathroom. For something so extortionately expensive it looks very much like your run-of-the-mill, everyday toilet. I feel dizzy when he hands me a list of questions that need answers in the next couple of days, re flooring, kitchen benchtops, taps and sink.
‘What about the oven and dishwasher?’ I ask.
‘Later. What happened to your hand?’ he asks, nodding towards my bandage.
‘A very sharp knife.’
‘Accident?’
I shrug my shoulders.
‘Hurt?’
‘Yep, but a little pain never killed anyone,’ I say with a grin, glancing significantly at the Global knife block sitting on top of the washing machine. Turning my