Madisin

By Mion Ng

By the time they reach eighteen, Joni and Caycee have been best friends their entire livesgrowing up at each others houses, as close as sisters. But everything changes when Jonis grandmother, who raised her, dies, and Lewis comes to town. Within a few months, Joni has left to go to college hundreds of miles away without even saying goodbye to Caycee, who is left behind, bewildered, hurt, and aching with loneliness. Not even being married to Lewis and carrying his child can fill the hole left by Jonis mysterious departure and subsequent silence.

When their premature baby dies, Lewiss lack of love for Caycee and their very different reactions become clearand finding an infant girl named Madisin left on their doorstep only complicates matters further. In the same marriage and under the same roof, they live vastly different emotional lives. Only years later, when tragedy strikes Caycee and Lewis again and Joni is persuaded to return, is the truth about Jonis disappearance brought to light. She and Caycee are finally reconciled, but with consequences far greater than anyone could have imagined.

This novel, woven together in the voices of its five main characters, reveals the complexity of human nature in its portrayal of fierce love, searing grief, self-hatred, surprising tenderness, and attraction that survives even while it destroys. In the end, one question remains: in a world where intentions dont always have the expected outcomes, should the truth prevail in every situation, regardless of the cost?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Sep 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466930476

Mion Ng

Mion Ng spent a number of years in the corporate world before taking a sabbatical to pursue her love of writing. Although she has lived in many cities, she considers Kuala Lumpur her home. Madisin is her first book.

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Copyright 2012 Mion Ng.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-3045-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-3046-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-3047-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: xxxxxxxxxx

Trafford rev. 09/13/2012

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Contents

Part 1

1 Joni

2 Caycee

3 Lewis

4 Joni

5 Lewis

6 Bern

7 Caycee

8 Joni

9 Lewis

10 Caycee

11 Joni

12 Caycee

13 Lewis

Part 2

14 Madisin

15 Joni

16 Bern

17 Caycee

18 Madisin

19 Lewis

20 Joni

21 Caycee

22 Lewis

23 Bern

24 Joni

Foreword

There is an old saying: It is easier to do what you love than love what you do. At times, it is difficult to like what you do for a living. It is harder still to know what it is that you like to do and then carry on with it. Pursuing one’s dream may not pay the bills or put food on the table. But within the simplicity of a heart’s desire, I like what Walt Disney had to say about this: All dreams can come true, if (only) we have the courage to pursue them.

Writing a book has been a life-long dream of mine. But to do so requires sacrifices and as a great friend of mine puts it, fearless courage is needed. It is about taking action when you believe in something, even if there is a risk of failure. It is about not giving up and having the tenacity to see it till the very end. Just as in the book of Joshua, one of Bible’s great books on courage, it is about taking the step of faith and simply crossing over.

Then, all you can really do is sit back and wait for the adventures to begin!

Dedication

For my parents, who taught me that in life,

it is far more important to learn how to fish

and

For my goddaughters, who I pray will grow up learning to do the same

Prologue

She would always remember the morning beginning with the promise of a beautiful summer’s day, with the merest hint of fluffy white clouds against the big expanse of endless sky. How the day ended was entirely another matter. She simply could not remember. It wasn’t so much as surpressing the memory of that day as much as having no recollection of its ending whatsoever. She could recount with ease what happened the day after. But as for that day, the afternoon specifically, there was simply no memory; only what she was told subsequently.

It reminded her of the first time she went to the fairground. She’d been so excited about going on the rides that she ate so much pink candy floss beforehand and promptly threw up after. As she doubled over by the sidewalk, heaving with the leftover taste of bile, she stuck her tongue out and licked the sticky sugary remains of the floss from the corner of her mouth, but for just a split second, she completely had no recollection how the sweetness came about.

She felt like she’d been cheated with the loss of memory for that day. On the TV, she’d learnt that if she travelled around the planet, it would actually take longer than twenty-four hours. That’s one whole day. It’s like getting onto the plane, sleeping for the next eight hours, and waking up in another country that has a different time zone. Poof! One day of your life is gone just like that. You can’t talk about it and you can’t write about it because there is nothing to tell. Only that the colour black represents the state of unconsciousness as you traverse from one time zone to the next.

It was bad enough that she lost a part of her memory, but the thing that annoyed her most was everyone telling his own version of stories. She knew their stories were meant to jog her memory. The ending appeared the same, but the stories leading up to it were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, each story missing a vital piece, leaving the jigsaw incomplete and unfinished. Sure she could see what the jigsaw would end up being, but there was a noticeable gap where the missing piece should be. What good was a puzzle with a missing piece even if she could guess what the picture looked like in the end. More than anything, she wanted to tear the puzzle apart, put the remaining pieces in a box, and store it permanently away so that it would never resurface again.

But she knew better. The missing piece—she desperately needed to locate it. She needed to find it so that everyone could finally see the finished jigsaw. Only then could the truth be finally revealed. She needed to find the missing piece because she was afraid to rub the stickiness of the floss away until she remembered how it got there in the first place.

Then, another possibility occurred to her. Perhaps it was not because she had lost her memory, but she had simply chosen not to remember anything about that day. Perhaps for everyone concerned, it was for the best that nobody knew the awful truth. Or even if they knew, they might not believe her story anyway.

Because at the end of the day, there is nothing worse than actually telling the truth and then have no one believe you.

Part 1

1

Joni

As a young girl growing up in a small logging town, there wasn’t really much one did to pass time. Aspee was a nondescript community that sat divided on a couple of old railway tracks which carried the freight trains twice a day between Lostar in the north and Berwoth, located at the edge of River Tyne. Berwoth, at the time, was being developed as a fishing port, connecting the strait between the north of the country to the capital, Cayelle. Aspee, being at the periphery of the logging activities, simply thrived.

By all account, Aspee was a small town. A single main street, which was parallel to the railway tracks, ran the length of the town. Gram and I lived in one of the shophouses along the street. The town’s police station stood guard at one end and the local supermarket at the opposing end. A bakery, a car repairs shop, a haberdashery, a bank, and other daily convenient type-stores made up the balance. Residential streets ran perpendicular to the main street, and each evening, the town would come alive as people gathered outside to catch up with neighbours or to simply gossip. During the day, Aspee maintained a peaceful presence, the main income-generating activity located slightly on the outskirt of town where logging took place. Pretty much every one of my friends’ dads worked at the sawmill.

After school each day, Caycee, my best friend, and I would race each other down to the railway tracks. The school was located on the other side of the tracks where we both lived. The afternoon freight train, timed at 3.20 p.m., would pass the little crossing carelessly gated by a wooden frame, its hinges long separated from the metal bar. The school bell rang at quarter past three. We usually had a five-minute window to make the two-hundred-metre dash to the wooden gate and safely cross the tracks before the freight train barreled its way to Berwoth. I won most of the time.

Barging through the back door of our shophouse, Gram would always be there, both hands perched on her ample hips.

Oh! Just look at you! That’s not how I raise you, young lady, she grumbled while wiping the sweaty grime of my face with a wet cloth. Why is it that you won’t take the school bus like all the other kids. It wasn’t so much a question, more a statement of fact.

But I am not normal, Gram. You said I am special, and God gave me to you to look after, I chirped back and hugged her close to me. Gram always smelled of flour and tangy spices, and as I breathed the goodness of her in, I always held on just a little bit tighter and wished I never had to let her go.

That you are but not until you get yourself properly cleaned up. She would cluck away at me like a mother hen from the kitchen but not before she hugged me and quietly affirmed, You are indeed special.

I love you, Gram.

That was our routine. Although Gram continued to pay for the school bus throughout my years at primary school, I rode it home. I hated being boxed in with the rest of the kids, screaming and shouting. I’d much rather enjoy the freedom of racing down the hill and beating the freight train to the tracks. Caycee followed but not because she craved the freedom as I did but out of sheer loyalty to me for being her best friend our entire life.

Things changed the summer we turned thirteen. For my birthday the previous month, Gram bought me a shiny new red bicycle with a bell that went ding-ding-ding each time I wanted people to move out of my way. It was the most melodious sound ever, the sound of freedom as I could now ride to and from school. Caycee took the school bus home, and I would race right alongside while repeatedly clicking ding-ding-ding on the bell as the bus and I sped down the hill. I think she was secretly pleased to be inside the cocoon of the air-conditioned bus. Running wasn’t really an option any more, and although we didn’t want to admit it, our adolescent breasts were beginning to feel sore and uncomfortable as they rubbed against the school pinafore. So while Caycee shouted and waved to me inside the confine and comfort of the bus, I’d chased alongside in my swanky new red bicycle. The brown earth would churn around the wheels of the bus before splashing on my face and my school pinafore, but I didn’t give a damn. I was free.

The first time I got home from school on the bicycle, I had never seen Gram look more livid.

Joni Satch, just look at you! Don’t you dare step into the house until you have hosed yourself down outside! She waved the baking spatula frantically at me, and with all her four feet eleven inches, she pushed me and the red bicycle (which by then had turned into the colour of brown rust) outside the house and into the backyard.

No . . . No . . . Gram . . . No! The next thing I felt was a jet of icy cold water, stunning me back to reality. I stood there as the brown water dripped down and puddled around my white sneakered feet. Then I laughed.

Don’t you come near me! Gram shrieked as I grabbed the hose and began to chase her around the backyard. Soon we were both drenched wet. I did only what I had always done after school each day, I pulled Gram in and gave her a big tight hug.

I still love you, Gram.

What am I going to do with you, Joni Satch? Gram sighed.

It wasn’t always just Gram and me. My granddad, whom I’d not met, died before I was even born. I am not sure what I would’ve called him if he was still alive. Perhaps Pop. That’s what Caycee called her granddad. So it would have been Gram and Pop. I liked the sound of that. Gram carried a picture of Pop inside the pocket of her apron every day. I had seen her take the picture out, now and then, and smiled at it wistfully. I never mentioned it to her. Something should just remain private between her and Pop.

I didn’t know much about my parents either. I used to ask Gram about them, but she would only get teary eyed and waved me away. This much I did know: my mother was Gram’s and Pop’s only child, and she died six months after I was born. My father left me in Gram’s care a few months after. He left a note on the kitchen table one morning, and that’s the last time Gram ever heard from him. The only picture I have of my parents was on their wedding day. Gram said it was only right that I kept it.

Caycee came from a big family. She was the youngest of five children. Her dad said she was a welcome mistake. Her older siblings were all boys, and by the time she came along, there was a good eight years separating Caycee and her fourth brother, Matt. In fact, Caycee was born in the same year as her eldest niece, Sue-Ellen. Tasha and Mark (Caycee’s oldest brother) were expecting their firstborn when Caycee’s parents welcomed their last child and only daughter into the family. Caycee’s mum had always wanted a princess and in one year she had two—a daughter and a granddaughter.

Caycee’s parents might have wanted a princess, but her behaviour mirrored that of her brothers. Unfortunately, she also had me as her best friend. Gram and Aunty Nunn (that’s Caycee’s mum) used to despair together. As young girls, we disdained dolls, preferring trees and being covered in mud. Aside from the school pinafore, Caycee and I seldom wore dresses. Perhaps if Caycee didn’t have her brothers or me in her life, she would have turned out like a princess. That wasn’t the case with me. I was born spirited and carefree, needing to see how high I could climb and how far I could run. I was always curious about being on the other side. In our friendship, I led. Caycee was the faithful friend and follower.

There is a saying that all good things must come to an end. Nothing could be truer. Aspee continued to boom and thrive as logging activities intensified throughout my high school years. The brown dirt road which connected the school and our homes was replaced by asphalt. Soon the school bus sped down the hill faster than my legs could pedal on the bicycle. New shops opened on either side of the railway tracks. The broken wooden gate was replaced with a shiny stainless steel bar and traffic lights got installed. We now had to wait until the light turned green before we could cross over. More cars came through our once small town and new homes and families sprouted overnight. The idyllic chaos was no more.

If I had been allowed to just float along the current of