An Ex-Con and a Lady

I was lying in hospital recovering from my third suicide attempt in six months when I first met Therese.

She was a volunteer with the dog rescue that was currently caring for my two dogs, although I didn't know that at the time. She doesn't look like the sort of woman who'd volunteer at a rescue. I'd later learn she was forty-five, of Italian heritage, divorced and the mother of two adult kids. She's well groomed in an understated, classy sort of way. A touch overweight but certainly not fat, with nicely styled dark brown hair and make-up that you notice but aren't overwhelmed by.

Not the sort of woman I've ever had anything to do with.

'Hi,' she said worriedly, standing at the curtain. 'Are you Rhys Corbett?'

'I am.' I lifted my head off the pillow and put my phone to the side. 'Are you the shrink?'

'No,' she shook her head. 'I'm with the dog rescue. I've got Betty and Boof at my house. I thought you might want to know how they're going.'

'Oh, sure.' I sat up, and gestured for her to come in. 'Thanks. I really appreciate you taking them in.'

My first suicide attempt involved driving my ute into a concrete pylon. My car was a write-off, but although I was almost entirely physically unharmed, when the ambo's arrived I was a blubbering mess. Between my condition and the witness statements, the paramedics realised the accident hadn't been accidental, and I was carted off to hospital for a mental health stay.

I spent my first two days in hospital panicking about my dogs. I hadn't thought about them when I planned my death, but they suddenly became all I could think about. I called the local council but when I admitted Betty might bite an intruder, they suggested I find an 'alternative option'.

Well, the whole fucking reason I was in my current predicament was because I had no one to call, so in desperation I left messages for a few local dog rescues. Only one was willing to go around. They said that if the dogs were aggressive, they'd put a bowl of food and bucket of water over the fence twice a day, and keep me updated. If the dogs were placid, they'd take them to one of their carer's houses, and have them looked after.

Betty and Boof had been alone for over two days when the lady from the rescue arrived. They let her into the yard without a fuss, and after she'd given them each a feed, they happily followed her out to her car. 'Perfect' was how she described them. I picked them up two days later and gave the rescue a donation that they said was more than generous, but seemed insignificant in the circumstances.

I called the same rescue just minutes after my second, failed, suicide attempt. I'd tried slashing my wrists, but I couldn't quite cut deep enough, and I'd realised I was going to have to mark it down as a second botched attempt. They arrived just as the ambulance was taking me to hospital.

The third time, I emailed the rescue at the time of my suicide attempt, figuring it would take them a while to respond. It didn't. They were online at the time I emailed, and immediately called 000. The paramedics were at my house in record time, and after a shot of Narcan my life was no longer in danger.

Say what you will about dog people, these ones had earned my undying loyalty. And given that nobody else was visiting me in hospital, I was secretly happy to have a visitor.

'I'm Therese, by the way,' she introduced, as she flicked through her phone. 'Your dogs are lovely. Really gentle souls. They scared me a bit at first, because I'm more used to little white fluffy things, but I've been impressed by their lack of ego. Nothing fazes them.'

Betty and Boof came from a pound in New South Wales. I'd had a week's very, very well paid work in a rural town and on my second last day, one of the men I was working with announced the local pound was full 'again'. His girlfriend worked at the facility, and told him that five dogs had to go or they'd be put to sleep the next day.

I've never felt wanted. A bastard kid, born to an addict, shit life, you know the deal. I thought to myself, well, if I was a dog, I reckon that'd be me; in the pound, waiting to die. So I went around to see about adopting one, and was somehow convinced to buy two, which is the most my local government will allow me to keep on my property. Betty got desexed, Boof lost his nuts, and a few days later the three of us made our way to Queensland.

Neither are designer dogs. Betty's a cattle dog cross Mastiff, and Boof's a Staffordshire bull terrier cross. Both appear intimidating, and frankly, like Therese, I'd waited for them to reveal an aggressive or nasty side, but both have proven to be great dogs. A little too fond of destroying shit, sure, but no health issues, no behavioural issues, no nothing.

Therese showed me photos of the dogs playing, sleeping, digging in a sandpit, and generally acting as if they didn't have a care in the world.

'They dug up your gardens?' I guessed, taking a close look at the background of one of the shots.

Therese half-grimaced, half-smiled. 'A little.' She's an attractive woman, but you get the impression that she's one of those women who had to grow into her face. The sort who wasn't as pretty as her peers in her twenties, but is killing them in the looks stakes now she's in her forties.

'I'll pay for the damage,' I said.

'They didn't so much damage anything, so much as they made a mess,' she corrected. 'My fault. I used rooster poo fertiliser and I guess the smell was too appealing.'

'Tell me what the cost is to get it tidied up. Or I'll come around and fix it when I get out. You pick.'

The second offer concerned her. I could see her flinch slightly, and that's when I remembered that apparently I look like a scary cunt. Not to myself, of course. When I catch sight of myself in the mirror I just see a dropkick, but I'm cynical as fuck and was raised in the school of hard knocks, which was follow up with a university level course in crime courtesy of several periods of incarceration, and the end result is that I don't look friendly.

I hadn't shaved in a few days, not having had access to a razor, so the goatee probably looked more like a beard, and my head, which I normally kept shaved - not because I'm going bald, because I'm not, but because going to a barber makes my skin crawl - was no doubt looking like an overgrown lawn. Add in a shitload of tatts and a thick scar on my forehead from a fight in which I came out second best, and I knew I wasn't presenting half as nicely as Therese was.

People will literally cross the street to avoid me. Parents with children give me a wide berth. Cops fucking zero in on me, knowing that I've been inside, and all too happy to check up on me and ensure I'm not doing anything that will give them the excuse they need to put me away again.

'I'll organise a gardener,' I corrected.

'There's no need. I've already fixed it.' She smiled at me, a forced smile. 'Are you hungry? Every time I've been in hospital I've been hungry. They never feed me as much as I normally eat. Would you like me to get you a burger?'

She made a fair point, and I was in fact hungry; I'd just been ignoring it. I spent a lot of my childhood hungry. There was never much food in the house, so I was used to asking the teachers at school to make me a vegemite sandwich because I'd 'left mine at home', and when I was eight or nine, I'd hang around the local supermarket and follow families with heavily laden trolleys out to the carpark, asking if they had any spare food I could eat. Shoplifting and trying to scam takeaways by claiming they gave me food poisoning became routine as I got older, as did stealing money from other kids to buy myself as much food as I could with their pocket change.

I don't know why I hadn't already gone to one the cafes in the foyer of the hospital, or to the vending machine in the hallway, to buy myself something. No idea at all. But when Therese suggested a burger, I started salivating, and she kindly asked the nurses if I was allowed to leave the ward, and when she promised to return me safe and sound, they let me go.

'Do you smoke?' she asked.

'No, not anymore. You?'

She shook her head. 'No. I just saw groups of people out the front of the hospital, smoking, as I made my way in and thought I should ask.'

'I quit when the prices went up for the millionth time. There's only so much tax I'm willing to pay.'

Therese laughed, genuinely this time. 'You sound like my father. That's exactly the sort of comment he would have made.'

'I take it from that comment he's no longer with us?'

'No, he died a few years ago. He and my mother are both gone. They died, my husband formally inherited their business, he divorced me, and here we are,' she said ruefully. 'My kids are grown up and I spend my days working at a courier company and minding dogs.'

She didn't sound unhappy, more bemused that her life had turned out in a way she hadn't expected. I was quietly impressed with her attitude. A lot of people, myself included, would have become bitter after that chain of events, but Therese evidently hadn't.

'What do your kids do with themselves?' I asked.

'Alex is in China, teaching English, and Leah's in Townsville, studying at James Cook University. She's going to become a surgeon.'

'You must be pretty happy with that.'

'I am. They're good kids.'

After a small argument, she let me buy her a coffee and slice of cake, and we sat down at a booth to eat. Several people were staring at us, obviously wondering what the fuck she was doing with me, but I ignored them and concentrated on Therese.

I can tell you without any sense of hesitation that it was over my burger that I fell in love with this woman. She was very friendly, very warm and I liked her attitude to life. She didn't need to be here. She didn't need to be kind to me, to take the time to come in and reassure me that the dogs were fine, or to keep me company in the café.

When I thanked her for everything, though, she just shrugged and said she'd been where I was.

'Only when I tried to commit suicide, I didn't even make it to hospital,' she said. 'I'd taken every drug in the house, but I ended up vomiting the whole lot up. I was sick as a dog, but still alive, and too embarrassed to tell anyone about it.'

'I'm sorry to hear that.' I took a sip of my Coke. 'Was it after your divorce?'

'The day my husband announced he was leaving me,' she agreed. 'I'd lost my parents, and the thought of losing him, too, was unbearable. But things hadn't been happy for a long time. I guess he saw inheriting my father's business as compensation for putting up with things, so he waited until he got his 'payment', before he announced he was off.'

She snorted. 'The silly idiot. He thought he was entitled to the lot. He wasn't, of course. You can't just walk away with an inheritance all to yourself. My father only let him the company because he was my husband. There was an intention that the proceeds would benefit both of us. Greg just didn't realise that. He got a bit of a shock when his lawyer sat him down and told him some home truths.'

'Good thing you didn't die,' I remarked. 'He would have ended up with the lot.'

Therese laughed. 'That's one way of looking at it, isn't it?'

'How did your children react to their father acting like a prick?'

'I kept my mouth shut and only opened it to tell them that everything would be alright. Their father liked to tell them that I was taking all his money, and how unfair everything was, but I tried not to buy into it.'

'I don't know if I could've done that,' I admitted.

She shrugged. 'It wasn't easy, but what else could I do? I couldn't live with myself if I forced them to take sides. Besides, Greg had a new girlfriend, so I knew he'd want to settle everything as quickly as he could, and in the end, it only took two months to reach an agreement.'

'Did you find another partner?'

I got the brightest smile to date from her at that. 'No,' she laughed. 'I'm too old for that.'

She was too good for me, of course. Just about every woman is too fucking good for me, for reasons I'll go into later. But I loved her all the same.

~~~~~~~~

When I was four years old, the Queensland Department of Housing provided my mother, my two siblings and myself, a housing commission house at Beenleigh.

Living next door was a couple in their forties, Bill and Maggie. They'd tried to have kids in their younger years, but had been unable to conceive, and after a failed adoption in which the mother reclaimed the baby, they decided to give up on the idea of children. I lived next door to them for eight years, during which my mother had another three kids, necessitating a move to a bigger house, but I will never stop being grateful for my time as their neighbour.

They fed us when they saw we were hungry, bought us tracksuits in winter so we wouldn't be cold, and let us come into their yard to play with their little terrier, and to crack open the Macadamia nuts that fell from their trees. Of all the children, I was the one that spent the most time at their house.

Bill worked for the local council as a handyman, and he had a shed that was like a candy store to a child like me. He let me saw, hammer, glue, sand, paint and drill my heart out. I entered my high school manual arts program so ahead of everyone else my teachers didn't quite know what to do with me.

On the flipside, I could barely read and maths was a mystery. My attendance was dismal at best. I only had the one uniform, and because we didn't have a washing machine at home and we'd just moved away from Bill and Margaret, who in the past would have taken care of these things for me, I generally smelt.

What a shit fucking existence it was. I'll never understand why our government is so keen to help deathly poor people, with drug habits and no parenting ability, to raise their own kids. Once upon a time my mother wouldn't have been financially rewarded for keeping me. She would have had to have me adopted out at birth, to a couple like Margaret and Bill, who had the means and desire to raise a child. Now, for whatever fucked up reason, times have changed.

Of course I ended up getting myself into trouble. Nothing major, just shoplifting, riding trains without paying for tickets (no money, but had to get to school somehow), graffiti, being caught riding in stolen cars, possession of marijuana and alcohol... the usual shit. I cycled in and out of juvenile detention, and it was shortly after one stint that my mother told me not to bother coming home. With nowhere else to go, I called Margaret. She told me to come around.

I lived with them for the next few years. I wish I could say that I fixed things, and that I got my life on track, but I didn't. Having fallen off the wagon, I found it impossible to get and stay back on the right path. I found work easy enough, being good with my hands and having a stable place to live, but I was also good at finding trouble. Every time I seemed to be making a fresh start, I'd run into an old friend, or one of my siblings would ask me to 'just mind a few things' or 'just take this parcel there' and there I'd be, back in the thick of it. In the end, Bill and Margaret got sick of me and told me to move out, which I did.

I might have continued on that path forever, had Bill and Margaret not gotten sick. I was thirty-two at the time, and Bill cut me a deal; I could move back in, but I'd be required to help out around the house. There would be no 'shenanigans'. No more chances if I fucked up.

They'd gone a long way downhill since I'd seen them a year or two ago, and something inside me snapped. These people had given and given and given, had tried to help me umpteen times, and I'd thrown it all away. Now they needed help, and I knew I had to smarten my shit up and help them. I told everyone from my old life to give me space. No asking for favours. No coming around. No casual 'catch-ups'. Nothing. I needed to cut ties and repay my debt to Bill and Margaret.

The following five years were the happiest of my life, hands down. I worked, I helped them fix up their house, I took them to the bowls club. We travelled throughout Australia. We went on cruises. We ticked everything off their bucket lists. Five years and two months I spent with them. Five years and two months of normality.

Then Bill died, and six months later, Margaret followed.

All of a sudden, I had a fairly decent inheritance - entirely unexpected, I should say - but I was in a worse place than ever before. This time I knew I was truly on my own. The only 'family' I had was anything but. The day after Margaret's funeral, my mother sent her dealer around to my house, having told him I'd happily settle her debt. Mum had figured that now I was in the money, she figured she was entitled to a cut. After all, she'd put all that time and effort into raising me, hadn't she?

I told the dealer to fuck off, and later that night, tried to drive my ute into a pylon.

~~~~~~~~

I went back to work the day I was released from hospital after my third suicide attempt. May as well jump into it, right? And the boss was none too happy about the fact that I was gone a week as it was. He kept me working back as late as he could, until he was satisfied he'd proven whatever point it was he was trying to make.

I arrived back at my house to find Therese waiting for me. She apologised for being early. The traffic was better than she'd expected.

'I appreciate you dropping them off,' I said, as the dogs bounded around the yard excitedly. Glad to be home, no doubt. I was glad to have them here. 'Thanks. Really. Come inside and I'll give you the money.'

'Money?' she was confused.

'I always make a donation after...'

Therese frowned. 'I'm not sure... Maybe you should call Janelle... sort it out with her. Though if you don't mind, could I come inside and use your bathroom before I leave?'

'Sure, sure,' I agreed, unlocking the door. 'Come in.'

The dogs barged inside before either of us could take a step inside. They ran all the way down the hallway, checking everything out and sniffing for signs of God knows what, before making their way back and jumping up excitedly.

Therese was wearing her work uniform; a black skirt and blouse, and when she bent over to pat Boof, the material pulled tight, revealing a nice, round arse. I've never understood the appeal of anal sex, but all the same, I appreciate a nice bum on a woman, something to grab onto, and to swat as she walks by.

I've always liked women, liked them a lot. The softness of their bodies, the way they always smell nice, the gentleness, the way that when you're balls deep in one, your legs in between hers, you can let go of all of your worries and just enjoy yourself. It'd been the better part of ten years since I'd had a girlfriend, and although I was keeping my interactions with women solely professional (and by that, I mean I was paying for sex), I still enjoyed looking and thinking and dreaming about the 'what if, one day...'

Therese ended up staying for dinner. We ordered pizza and sat at the kitchen table, eating and talking and trying not to feed the dogs too much of our food, despite their ever-present, pleading eyes.

I knew I should have told her to go. I shouldn't have encouraged her, because I'm not being vain when I say this, but I could tell that she liked me. I have a decent enough body, I suppose, and I'm a lot nicer to women than I am to men. I tend to think they're better human beings, and if that sounds biased, too bad. You can only base your judgements on what you yourself have experienced.

'Your house is great,' she remarked.

'I'm a painter by trade,' I shrugged, even though I was pleased. A lot of hard work had gone into the house. 'I guess it kind of goes with the territory.'