An Astronaut's Life by Sonja Dechian Read Free Book Online Page B

from his wife to the muted TV
where a reporter was interviewing a politician. The man on the phone was a doctor,
he said. The man said he was Leisel’s doctor, but there had to be some mistake.
    ‘So why is she asking for you now?’
    They hadn’t spoken in fifteen, maybe twenty years.
    ‘She must be in love with you,’ his wife said. ‘Or making amends? Maybe she’s dying
and wants to reconnect. Or she’s an addict—what if it’s part of her treatment?’
    The architect didn’t share his wife’s enthusiasm for theories, and since the doctor
hadn’t made clear what Leisel’s illness was, all he could offer was that the doctor
might have mentioned some kind of accident. Or had he said incident? Either way,
it might have been a euphemism.
    He tried to tell his wife what he remembered about Leisel, the way they used to skip
school and hide out in the old caravan behind her mum’s place. How they’d papered
the walls with drawings of the house he would one day design. By the end of their
first year together they must have had fifty or sixty different versions of their
future home: houses on stilts, houses dug into hillsides, houses seventeen-storeys
high. How they’d lost their virginity looking up at those sketches of their future.
They’d been inseparable. And then she broke it off, without warning as far as he
could recall—but, God, that was years ago now.
    It was his wife who suggested the visit. He might as well drive over later in the
week, what did he have to lose? Leisel was ill, and she’d been asking for him.
    In person, the doctor wasn’t so intimidating. He was sober but friendly, with narrow
shoulders that gave him a defeated appearance. The hospital wasn’t what the architect
expected, either. His wife had hugged him that morning and they’d shared their misgivings.
They’d pictured barred windows and human distress, but in reality it was all automatic
doors whooshing open as he was led to a bright meeting room.
    The doctor explained Leisel had forgotten a lot of things.
    ‘Try not to inundate her with too much information,’ he said.
    ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea for me to be here?’
    ‘Just don’t expect her to talk too much—she’ll get confused if you push her. We must
be patient.’
    ‘And this will help?’
    The doctor led the architect down a long corridor and into a locked ward. He warned
that Leisel was still adjusting to life in hospital and to large amounts of medication—which
would probably not cure her, but might help numb her anxiety.
    ‘Her delusion might be permanent.’
    The architect retraced the steps he’d taken since his life had diverged with Leisel’s
and he tried to imagine where the reversal of all that time might have left him.
The doctor said Leisel believed she was still seventeen.
    He saw her from behind. Even with her hair cut to her shoulders, he recognised her.
Leisel must have known he was coming because when he entered the TV room she smiled
without surprise.
    She was thin, perhaps thinner than she’d been sixteen years ago, and that made her
cheekbones more pronounced and her face drawn. The architect was hesitant to come
too close, but Leisel swivelled in her armchair and reached to hug him. The faded
cotton of her red T-shirt was soft under his fingers. He could feel her shoulder
blades, though when she pulled away her eyes were distant.
    Leisel motioned for him to sit.
    ‘Mum says I’ll only be here a few days,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s so embarrassing.’
    The architect shook his head. ‘No, it’s fine.’
    ‘Want to come for a walk?’
    He nodded and Leisel reached for his hand. She smiled and creases marked the skin
near her eyes.
    The architect was glad he’d come; it wasn’t as strange as he’d expected. He imagined
telling his wife, ‘I don’t know what we were so worried about.’
    Their first visit didn’t last long. Leisel was tired after a short walk around the
ward, so he helped her back to her room