The Great Between

Nana

Leo walks me up to the front door. He has to knock for me, that's how shaken up I am, how hollow I am. As we wait for Dad to open the door, Leo pokes me in the side.

'You have to breathe, Stella.' His smile doesn't reach his worry-clouded eyes.

'I am breathing.'

'Not enough. You look like you're going to pass out.'

I take a few exaggerated deep breaths and Leo nods approvingly.

Dad doesn't even blink when the door swings open and he sees Leo standing beside me. He just nods at Leo and gives me one of his we'll-discuss-this-later looks before pulling me inside. I half-wave at Leo before the door clicks shut behind me. He looks like a startled animal.

Mum and Gracie are curled around each other on the couch. Dad and I take the armchairs and I sit gingerly, as if sudden movement might crack Mum and Gracie. There's a tension in the air like a storm is brewing, but no one knows how long before it breaks.

'What happened?' I ask. My voice is barely more than a whisper.

Dad clears his throat and pulls his gaze away from Mum to look at the carpet as he talks. 'The Virus has got into Nana's nursing home.'

He glances up at me. His face is ashen.

'The Virus has got into Nana's nursing home and they won't tell us who is infected and who is safe.'

'Shit.'

Dad nods and exhales shakily. 'Yeah,' he says. '"Shit" just about covers it.'

My insides are a swirling storm of guilt and fear and uncertainty. While everyone else was sitting here, scared that Nana could be struggling for breath as the Virus invades her body, I was off soaking up the afternoon sun with Leo. I was breaking isolation rules, the same rules that are meant to protect people like Nana from this virus. I was worrying about a boy while Gracie was worrying about one of her favourite people on the planet facing death.

'What now?' I ask.

Dad shakes his head. No one can know what to do now. It's unprecedented. Do we mourn for our grandmother even if she might be in perfect health? Do we break into the nursing home to save her?

The thing about Nana's dementia is that she's been dying for a long time, fading in gradual increments. Grief is different when the dying happens over years. The numbness gets prolonged. But I thought I would have longer to spread out my goodbyes to Nana, to watch her slowly disappear into the fog of forgetting. I thought I'd get to say my goodbyes in person. The Virus would stop that.

Nana's dementia is at the level where if she gets the Virus now, she will remember her family enough to know that we're missing from the scene. She will be alone and she will know it. I can't think of anything more horrible than that. I really can't.

Mum must have had a similar thought because she is staring blankly at the carpet, the way Nana does on bad days when she doesn't register a single word Gracie says. My sister lifts her head from Mum's shoulder and blinks at me with watery eyes. Then she jolts like she's just remembered something important.

'Where's Max? You should see if Max is okay.'

I'm glad of an excuse to leave the room. The air is heavy with fear and I don't think I can handle it.

Max has made a nest on her bed, with the doona and pillows all scrunched up around her. She doesn't hear me come in over her bulky headphones and her red eyes are fixed on a thick book. It takes me a second to realise she's reading Gracie's book about Mars. I knock softly on the doorframe and she glances up, freezing like a cat caught doing something it's not meant to.