Page 26 of Eva Reddy’s Trip of a Lifetime

I shrug. ‘It’s a nice photo. Thank you. My mother wanted me to recreate the famous Lady Di scene. I think she was trying to be funny. But do you know what? I can take a joke. I’m going to text it to her right now.’

I send the picture to my mother before I can change my mind. The reply comes almost immediately.

Well done, Eva. Are you loving India? I hope you managed to avoid those terrible protests in Delhi . And didn’t get sucked in by that dreadful ashram cult. My latest TikTok video has just dropped. I think you will really like this one!

My phone pings again.

Don’t forget to wear sunscreen. You don’t want any more wrinkles than you’ve already got. Remember, you’re not young anymore!

I let out a groan. My mother’s passive-aggressive approach to parenting is truly next level.

‘Did she tell you where she is?’ Utkarsh asks, dropping onto the bench beside me.

‘No. But she’s sent me a video clue, apparently.’

‘Your mother is playing hide and seek with you?’ He sounds confused. Clearly this is not how Indian mothers behave.

‘Something like that.’

I swipe away my mother’s unhelpful skincare advice and navigate to her TikTok account.

Utkarsh moves closer so that he can see the screen. Our bodies are almost touching and goosebumps trail down my arms, despite the rapidly rising temperature. I try to concentrate on the task at hand.

The Taj Mahal dominates the background of my mother’s TikTok post. In the foreground, just metres from where I sit, my parents stand, frozen in time, facing one another and holding hands.

They wear matching yellow, red and orange garlands.

My mother’s arms are covered in handwoven bracelets, enough to feed a young family for months.

Judging from the position of the sun and the flaming orange sky, it’s sunset, which means I’m twelve hours too late. My jaw clenches.

‘It’s like we’re Hansel and Gretel following breadcrumbs,’ Utkarsh says. His head is now almost resting on my shoulder. ‘Your mother is a lot of fun!’

‘Fun’ isn’t a word I would use to describe my mother at the best of times, and certainly not on this cat-and-mouse chase. But this is not the time to expound on my grievances. I have two out-of-control retirees to locate.

I shield my eyes from the sun’s glare and steel myself for whatever is about to come.

As the video plays, I realise I am watching a vow renewal ceremony.

Unsurprisingly, my mother delivers most of the lines.

My father is just a bit player. It’s his customary role whenever my mother is in the same frame.

I increase the volume on my phone until my mother’s voice is audible.

‘It’s been fifty years since we stood at the end of the aisle, many thousands of kilometres from this place, and promised to love, honour and obey one another for the rest of our lives.

I haven’t always been obedient. But today I honour our long and successful marriage.

And of course, I still love you, Dougie. ’

My father smiles gently. ‘I love you too, Debbie.’

‘Remember when we first met? Everyone said it wouldn’t last. I was too wild. You were too steady. But we made it work. Unlike Margaret and Reg. And maybe our daughter, if only she would come to her senses. I love you, Dougie.’

‘I love you too, Debbie.’

‘And we’ve had so many adventures together!

I think this one might be the most exciting of all.

It’s so much fun travelling without any plans.

We can go anywhere and do anything that comes into our heads.

Just think, today we’re in Agra—who knows where we’ll end up next?

Certainly not our daughter! I feel so free.

No one else would do this with me or for me. I love you, Dougie.’

‘I love you too, Debbie.’

‘Way back when we made our original vows, we promised that we’d be there for each other in sickness and in health.

We’ve had a pretty good run, you and me.

There was that pesky hip replacement of yours and my bunions have started playing up, but those are just teensy bumps in the road.

We’re now facing a far greater challenge.

The doctors tell me that one day soon, you won’t recognise me.

But I don’t care what they think they know.

We will always know each other in our hearts.

It’s going to be tough, but no matter what happens, I will be there for you.

And I will never give up on us. I love you, Dougie. ’

‘I love you too, Debbie.’

‘I love you, Dougie. I loved you then. I love you now. I will love you forever.’

‘And cut!’

I recognise the voice behind the camera as belonging to the man who had tried to take my photograph a few minutes earlier.

Trust my mother to turn a common scam into a legitimate job opportunity.

But to be fair, he did well. My parents remained in focus for the entire five minutes of the ceremony, despite my mother’s constant bobbing about.

I am surprised that poor old Dad kept to the script, if only in a supporting role.

But what is truly astonishing is that he seemed engaged with what was happening around him.

Gone was the vacant stare that has become his default expression.

There was even the hint of a spark in his eyes that reminded me of the man he’d been before his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

That is my mother’s superpower. She is Doug Reddy’s sole conduit between the real world and his honeycombed mind.

I watch as the video fades to black, my parents gazing at one another and smiling, their noses almost touching.

As much as I hate to admit it, they are the happiest couple I know.

Whatever their secret, my parents have something that eludes me.

Even in the earliest and happiest days of my marriage, Jonathan and I were no Doug and Debbie.

From the journals and miscellaneous paperwork of Eva Reddy (Age 16)

August 4th, 1988

I should have known something was up when my mother started skipping out of the house every other night, promising a big surprise.

I’ll admit it. I was complacent. Which is never a smart strategy when dealing with my mother.

But the last time she behaved mysteriously like this, it worked out fine.

She’d been attending art classes and the surprise was a painting of me sitting at a news desk.

She’d wanted to display it in the front entranceway but I convinced her to hang it in my bedroom to inspire me before I went to sleep at night; it can’t embarrass me there.

The only person who goes into my room is Rachael and she thinks my mother is cool.

And it can’t hurt to humour her. Unless the painting is cursed. Which wouldn’t surprise me.

So, I was expecting to be given a macrame dream catcher or an inspirational work of ceramics. Maybe even a memory quilt. I certainly wasn’t expecting what happened today.

I did notice that my mother was in a strange mood this morning.

She was skittish. Giddy, even. And her eyes sparked every which way like an excited child.

Or a rat. But I didn’t connect her odd behaviour with the school excursion to see a community theatre production of Hamlet .

Until the third scene. That’s when Ophelia—AKA my mother—swept onto the stage.

My classmates let out a collective gasp. A few snickered. I slid down in my seat, just wanting to disappear. Or die. I wasn’t fussed which.

There are twenty scenes in Hamlet and Ophelia only appears in five of them, but my mother made the most of every moment she was on that stage.

As Ophelia descended into madness, my mother’s performance became more and more manic.

And I became more and more convinced that I could never again show my face outside of my accelerated English class.

Jonathan even suggested I skip this weekend’s rugby game. He doesn’t want to put me in an uncomfortable position and the footy crowd would give me a hard time for sure. Plus, he’s worried that all the fuss will affect his performance.

I’ll decide what to do about that later.

Right now, I have a more immediate problem, because the day got worse. Much worse. My mother decided to pick me up after school, still in costume. At least she had the good sense to stay in the car.

She was jabbering away excitedly before I’d even pulled the car door closed.

‘So, what did you think? I really feel like I channelled Ophelia’s demons.

She’s such a wonderfully complex character.

The rest of the cast were very complimentary.

What amazing fun! It felt so wonderful to be out there, I’ve already signed up for their next production. ’

I waited until she stopped talking. And said nothing, letting the silence stretch. I was taught by the best after all. When I finally spoke, I laced my voice with a Nurse Ratched–like iciness.

‘What do I think? I think you humiliated me in front of the entire school. That’s what I think.’

My mother stared straight ahead at the road, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. She was obviously furious with me, but I didn’t care. I just kept going.

‘You embarrassed yourself. Everyone has been making fun of you. And because you are my mother, they’ve been making fun of me too. They all agree you can’t act. You’re a joke.’

That was a lie. Rachael thought my mother made a terrific Ophelia.

And quite a few classmates came up to me to say they were impressed.

Rodney Halvorsen suggested she was perfectly cast. Given she was playing a madwoman, I’m not sure that was a compliment.

But Rodney seemed sincere enough and he was absolutely right.

My mother’s performance had been a tour de force.

I just wished I hadn’t been there to witness it.

‘I was embarrassing?’ Her voice was small. Vulnerable.

I gave her wounded ego another hard kick. ‘You know you were. Everyone knows it.’

My mother narrowed her eyes and sniffed in my direction. But for once, I wasn’t frightened. I thought maybe she’d lost some of her power, but then I realised. She wasn’t angry—she was hurt. She’d never admit it, but I’m pretty sure she was trying to stop herself from crying.

We’d been back home a couple of hours when Dad knocked on my door. I’d spent most of the time sobbing on my bed, feeling sorry for myself. The humiliation of the day still stung. I was also regretting the way I’d spoken to Mum. I’d broken her somehow. And there was no pleasure in that.

Dad sat down at the end of the bed. Usually, his expression was one of amused benevolence. But as he pulled nervously at his collar, he looked sad.

‘I hear you and your mother had a fight.’

I nodded into the pillow I was hugging under my chin. It was streaked with wet mascara.

‘Did you really tell her that she embarrassed herself—that she was a joke? And that she humiliated you?’

I nodded again into the damp cotton, reapplying the mascara to my left cheek.

Dad waited for me to lift my head so he could see my eyes.

‘That was unkind, Eva. And I know that you are not an unkind person.’

I wanted to look away, but that would have been cowardly. And I didn’t want my father to think even more poorly of me.

‘Your mother was so excited about that play. She swore me to secrecy so that when you saw her, it would be a surprise. I didn’t realise she was going to perform for your school.

If I’d known that, I would have warned you.

But that’s no excuse. You belittled your mother for doing something she loves.

You stole her joy. And I’m disappointed in you. ’

I live for my father’s good opinion. When I do something that makes him proud, my spirits soar. But his disapproval wrecks me. There is no one in this world I love more, even Jonathan. And because of that, there is no one in this world who can crush me so entirely.

‘I’m so sorry. I never should have said those things. I didn’t know. I didn’t think.’ My voice trailed away into hiccupping sobs.

My father’s face softened. Unlike Mum, he can make his point and move on. He doesn’t need to keep his foot on my neck.

‘Eva, your mother isn’t always an easy woman to be around. She’s a whirlwind of chaos. A big, loud and unpredictable force of nature. You need to accept who she is and appreciate what she brings to our lives.’

He had a faraway look in his eyes, falling silent as he contemplated all the ways Debbie Reddy made his world richer. If my mother ever offered him a glass of Kool-Aid, he wouldn’t hesitate to drink it.

‘She lives life large. The moment she walks into a room, it turns from sepia into colour. She makes every day exciting. And when she’s in full flight, she is magnificent.

’ He stopped and shrugged, realising that I wasn’t familiar with the woman he was describing.

‘But I do get it. Sometimes her enthusiasm is wildly misdirected. And that makes things awkward, especially for you. She reminds me of the harbour on New Year’s Eve.

There’s the energy of the party and the spectacle of the fireworks but there’s always a mess to clean up. ’

I managed a feeble smile. I felt certain there was some compromise between my mother’s over-the-top antics and growing up in an Amish community, but I got Dad’s point.

My mother treated every day like an adventure and that’s a pretty cool way to live.

What I don’t understand is how he lets all the madness wash around and over him without getting caught up in it.

He’s like that one steady stepping stone in a fast-moving stream.

And why does a man whose sole eccentricity is wearing a bowtie to his lectures want to share his life with a nutcase like my mother?

I put my pillow to one side. I’d finally stopped crying.

‘How do you cope? How do you stay married to her? The two of you are so different.’

‘But that is exactly why it works, Eva. She complements me. Your mother makes my life eventful and exciting. My job is to keep her grounded. As best I can, anyway. And it is the great privilege of my life to be her anchor.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Now, young lady, you owe your mother an apology.’

Footnote: I just apologised to Mum. I also admitted that my friends thought she did an amazing job in her role as Ophelia.

When I told her that, she looked happy and sad all at once.

I think she’s already made the decision to retire from community theatre.

I’ve spoiled it for her. Sometimes you do things that can’t be undone.

Dad gave me a nod of approval as I left the lounge room. I still don’t get it. My father is such a kind and gentle soul. And my mother is … Well, I’m not sure what she is but she’s not that. And yet they’re blissfully happy together.