Page 124 of Here One Moment

Mum got her test results a few days later. It was not good news, but of course you already know this. We all knew it. She’d left it too late. The silly diets had not been the cause of her digestive problems. The silly diets had masked the true cause.

“Six months,” they said. “A year at the most.”

Chapter 100

“So I understand you have a rather significant birthday coming up, Leo?” says Lilith brightly, as if she were speaking to a kindergarten kid excited to be turning six.

Her pantsuit today is the pale green of a not-quite-ripe avocado.

“I’m turning forty-three in November,” says Leo. He knows where this is going. It’s gotten crazy. Since the YouTuber’s death, everyone at work seems to be talking about the prediction. The jokes have gotten out of hand. People give him a wide berth, even if he’s in the office. They’re joking. Or maybe they’re not.

“You didn’t think to let me know about this psychic prediction of a workplace accident?” says his boss now. She sits at her desk opposite him. There is a silver framed photo of Lilith with her husband and two children on her desk, angled so the person on the other side can see it. Presumably they are real people, but the husband has never accompanied Lilith to a work function, and their smiles are so plastically bright Leo sometimes wonders if she photoshopped herself into one of those photos that comes with the frame.

“I didn’t take it seriously.” Leo pinches his nostrils shut. Lilith’s perfume is especially overpowering today. It’s Calvin Klein Secret Obsession. He knows this because once he was in a department store with Neve and she was spraying perfume onto cardboard strips, and when she waved one in front of his nose he reacted with visceral horror. “Euww, Lilith!”

“But you made an announcement about it at a meeting.” Lilith taps a fingernail on her desk.

“I was joking,” says Leo, “you know, along the lines of ‘so let’s make sure we take workplace safety seriously’!”

“Which we certainly do,” says Lilith.

“We certainly do,” agrees Leo.

Lilith says, “So I’m thinking we keep you off-site as soon as you turn forty-three.”

Leo’s mouth drops. “I need to be on-site to do my job effectively.”

“You can work around it,” says Lilith. “FaceTime and so on.” She waves an airy hand. “It’s the only way. The feeling is that you’re kind of, you know, cursed.”

“Right,” says Leo. “Well, that’s kind of you.” It doesn’t feel kind, it feels like people believe his mere presence will cause an accident. “I guess.”

“Obviously, we’ll have to look at your key performance indicators in light of this new flexibility, discuss your utilization rate and so on.”

“Obviously,” says Leo. She means he will be expected to work longer hours. She means she intends to squeeze him and squeeze him like a damp cloth until every drop of him is gone and he’s bone dry.

Leo says, “My wife wants me to give up work for a year.”

Lilith smirks. “I assume you’ve told Neve that’s not financially viable.”

What does she know about their financial situation? He also doesn’t like the way she always uses Neve’s name in that strangely patronizing way.

“What’s your husband’s name, Lilith?” he asks on impulse. He gestures at the photo. “I’ve never met him, have I?”

Lilith pushes the photo frame so it’s facing her. “John.”

John! Likely story! He wonders if Lilith is an alien, imagines her going home each night and peeling off her face.

(Just one phone call with Rod and he can feel another younger, more lighthearted version of himself coming creakily back to life.)

(It makes him so happy.)

Last night Neve did an impressive presentation to the family about moving to Tasmania and Leo becoming a stay-at-home dad while Neve works at a new job with the Tasmanian Department of Education, a job she hasn’t yet applied for but is bizarrely confident she can get. Where does she get that crazy optimism? The public service regularly places ads for jobs that have already been filled. Everyone knows that! The presentation included music and special effects. There were pictures of possible rental homes and nearby schools. One slide was devoted to “fun activities” the whole family would enjoy in Tasmania, along with spectacular pictures of bushwalks and beaches. (His soft Sydney kids have no idea about the icy temperature of that water.) One slide was called “Nana” with a picture of Leo’s mother looking sad and hopeful. Emotional blackmail. The children didn’t say yes, but they didn’t say no either. Leo suspects his mother’s bribes may have been offered and accepted. Also, and this wasn’t covered in the presentation, but the children are smart: they know Leo “staying home” would avoid the possibility of a workplace accident, which was much worse emotional blackmail they’d probably tell their therapists about one day.

Leo said he would think about it.

“Think about it fast,” said Neve.

She’s been playing an old country song on repeat, called “Take This Job and Shove It.” It’s not exactly a subliminal message. Could he really change his whole life because of a psychic’s prediction? One he doesn’t really believe?

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