“She’s been helping me move, but I haven’t seen her since Thursday. She hurt her ankle,” announces Aunty Crystal.
“Oh, say more.”
I step around stacks of clothes, tools and make-up. Vodka bottles and opened jars of pickled ginger obscure the kitchen benches. Aunty Crystal has been tidying for over a week.
“She was ordering one of her male helpers to put a wardrobe out for hard rubbish, and she tripped on the curb and landed badly. Well, she was crying in agony. They took her to Emergency, and I thought, ‘Good, I’ll call ahead and ask the mental health service team to examine her.’”
“Oh wow.”
“Several hours later, they see her. It’s a hairline fracture. They call and ask if she has been taking her medicine. I say ‘No, she’s been delusional, saying her hands are turning black; people are breaking in, moving things.’ She’s sitting in Emergency and the nurse says,
‘Yes, I’m watching her now, she’s picking at the lights, and seems to be hallucinating.’
They won’t admit her; she’s not hurting anybody. So they give her a cast, some crutches and send her away with a script for codeine and more antipsychotics. She won’t take them.”
“Wow.”
“She must have slept rough Wednesday, in her car I suppose, because she managed to get the cast wet and took it off.”
We fill plastic rubbish bags with salvageable items and leave them in tidy piles for Aria to view on Saturday.

I walk to the open gate, past a beige porcelain tub filled with scrap wood, and a blackened pile of coal and springs. It’s not raining today. Clouds cover the sun.
“Hello?”
Aria ambles from behind the skip. Her hair is a haunted beehive of outgrown extensions. One hand holds up the men’s sweatpants she’s wearing, the drawstring bottlenecking like a curtain rod at her hips. A faded crop top covers her boobs. She usually looks like combat Barbie, today she looks run over.
“Hi.” Her tone is low and wounded, like her gaze.
“Hey, good to see you.”
“Yeah, what are you doing here?” She shuffles and winces; one foot has a moon boot to her calf. The other is bare.
“I thought I could help.”
Aria’s tone darkens into a bruising storm cloud.
“I don’t know what’s going on. Like, why is all my shit in the skip? It’s my stuff. I didn’t put it there.” She hops around on the spot, leaning forward to pick up a brush.
“Ow-ow-ow! I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Aria, I can help get Centrelink sorted,” I say carefully. She nods.
“Who’s been touching my stuff?”
A man pulls up on a bike.
“Aria! You’re in a moon boot? Ah, you went through the creek. Can’t get that wet. Where are your crutches?”
Aria huffs and looks around, not wanting to let go of the skip.
“I don’t know. I put them down when I got in the car yesterday.”
“You put them down out the front?” He inspects the rubbish.
“Did you pay a deposit?” He yells from the road.
“Yeah, sixty bucks!” Aria shouts back.
“Well, they’re not here.”
Aria’s shoulders slump.
“God. They’re vultures.”
I let her lean on me. She delicately presents me her swollen ankle like a cooked lobster, her nails painted soft peach.
“Take some breaths. Did you get a script? I’ll take you to the chemist and get it filled.”
Aria softens and nods. It’s not like her to agree with me.
“I have some guys coming to take the rest of your stuff. I got a trailer out front,” calls the man. He might be a client.

I bring the car around so Aria can get in. She sits in the back. We don’t speak. I tune the radio to the local dance music station. We had some mutual friends host shows in the past. The script is for pain relief and antipsychotics. When we arrive at the chemist, I leave the keys in, radio on.
“You’ll be okay, right? I’ll get you some water.” Aria nods, leans back.
“Hurry,” she says.
It’s Saturday afternoon and busy at the chemist. I walk to the back of the store, passing jars of vitamins and supplements. Evening Primrose Oil catches my eye, and I wonder how naming something an evening version of itself, makes it any more effective. The wait is an hour, but the chemist is excited to take my script. I head to the front, find some pink nutritional water and a chocolate protein bar, buy them and walk back to the car. I see Aria. She’s out of the car, her hips leaning against a trolley return rail. She looks upward, towards the sky. I take a breath and tell myself it’s going to be okay. I get to the car and coax her back in. She looks hungry.
“About half an hour,” I lie. Aria moans and bites the protein bar. She cringes, screwing up her face.
“What stinks?” She asks, holding her nose. I don’t reply. We listen to the local nightclub ads on Fresh FM. David Guetta’s Sexy Bitch featuring Akoncomes on. It’s comforting, this thing we have in common.

I take out my phone. To pass the time, I scroll through photos of our family. Maybe it will trigger her to ask questions.
“Have you seen the latest ones of Serena? She’s getting bigger.”
I show her the phone so we can both see the picture before swiping to the next. It’s a photo of a photo, an image of us as kids. I let her see, then swipe again.
“Um. Wait. Go back.”
I return to the image.
“Do you see that? The sides. What is that?” She’s frowning and squinting. She takes the phone from me. Moves it in angles so the light catches it differently.
“It’s the frame of the original picture. I took a photo of it,” I say, as calmly as possible.
“No. It’s not real.”
“Well it’s not AI,” I say back.
“What’s AI?”
A trap, and I know to retreat. This is not the time to trigger her tech phobias, but I can’t dismiss her. I cough it up.
“Artificial Intelligence. It’s tech that can answer the world’s biggest questions because it’s banked info from the Internet.”
She looks at me, mouth open, and gives the phone back.
“It’s a nice picture,” I say, salvaging some of the moment.
She rests her head on the glass and groans.
“How long?”
“Not yet.”
We sit. I watch her casually from the rear-view mirror. Eyes wide open, facing out the window. She suddenly tenses all her muscles and releases, shivering. I wonder if she will have a fit.
“I love you, Mia,” she says.
“I love you too. And hey, you’ll get through this. I’m here with you.”

I see her pick up the wrapper from the protein bar. She squints into it, looking for something, trying to get the light to reflect on it. Then she tries shining it at me. I pretend not to see. She sits whispering, but not to me.
“Try to get some sleep if you can. It’ll be good for your ankle.”

We get in and out of the car several times before it’s time to check the script.
“I love you and if you let me help, I’ll make sure you understand what’s going on.”
I hug her. I realise this might be the last time I spend with her. She pulls back and looks in my eyes.
“You’re not gonna cry are you?” she cackles dryly, scowling at me.
I have seconds to reel in my hurt.
“No. I’m just here,” I mumble.
We wait under the silvery gum tree, its oily leaves dropping, littering the asphalt, and we listen to the traffic drone. I try to convince her to get in the car again.
“I need sun.” She aches, leaning away.  

The hour is almost up. I leave her and enter the chemist.
“Five minutes,” he says. The other chemist tells a lady to email the business and tell them they need more staff on weekends.

I buy the medicine. I get Aria back into the car and sit next to her. The antipsychotics are tiny and peach coloured, like her toenails. I make sure she has her pink water. I crack a pill into her palm. I know to sit with her, to watch and make sure. She puts it in her mouth, and then somehow spills water over her face, spluttering. I wait. She pulls the tablet from her mouth and blames it for her spilling the water.
“Chuck it on the floor.” I say, and she does. Then I pop another into her hand. Head goes back, she drinks, and spills water on herself again. I let her sit. If I weren’t so determined, this slapstick routine would be comical. She appears to swallow.
“Okay, good. Show me.”
She looks at me sideways.
“Pull your lips back.” I say, ready to be convinced. She does. A miniscule, flesh coloured pill sits in her gum.
“You have to swallow it,” I say, pleading. 
“You don’t understand!”
“Take it out. Throw it on the floor!” I am getting desperate.
“Aria, you have to take one tiny pill. Please help me.”
 She turns away, looking out the window for someone else, to distract her from this moment.
“Aria, now.”
She comes back and I give her a new pill. She puts it in her mouth and drinks the remaining pink water. She pouts and baulks and groans like a child. She opens her mouth and lifts her tongue.