Three Hours Late E-Book

Nicole Trope

• Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 368

Beschreibung

Once, so very long ago, she had watched him like this when he came to pick her up from a date. Her stomach fluttered and burned with infatuation and desire. She would watch him walk up the path and think, 'This must be love.' But that was so very long ago. Now Liz is wary and afraid. She has made a terrible mistake and it cannot be undone. Alex believes that today will be the day she comes back to him. Today will be the day his wife and young son finally come home. Today they will be a family again. But Liz knows that some things can never be mended. Some marriages are too broken. Some people are too damaged. Now the most important thing in her life is her son, Luke, and she will do anything in her power to protect him. So when Alex is a few minutes late bringing Luke back Liz begins to worry and when he is an hour late her concern grows and when he is later still she can feel her whole life changing because: what if Alex is not just late?

Leseprobe

Nicole

TROPE

Three Hours Late

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

First published in 2013

Copyright © Nicole Trope 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: [phone] Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com/uk

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australiawww.trove.nla.gov.au ISBN 978 1 74331 315 2

E-book ISBN 978 1 92557 607 8

For Mom, Dad, Lyn and Elwin—my personal cheerleading squad

In dreams there are flashes of his face.

Kaleidoscope light touches his hair.

His arms reach out.

In dreams his hand touches mine.

We twirl and dance touched by light and shade, spinning

Contents

Three Hours Late

1

2

3

4

Twenty minutes late

5

6

One hour late

7

8

9

One hour and twenty-five minutes late

10

11

12

13

Two hours late

14

15

Three hours and ten minutes late

16

17

Three hours and forty minutes late

18

Epilogue

Other books by Nicole Trope

Acknowledgements

Three hours late

‘Aiden, we’ve been around this block twice already. Don’t you think that if the guy was here we would’ve found him?’ asked Julie.

‘I know, I know,’ said Aiden. ‘But it just feels . . . I can’t explain it, Jules. Maybe it’s a little of that police instinct we’re all supposed to have. Besides, the last call he made came from this tower.’

‘Yeah, but that was an hour ago. The choppers have been over this park at least twice. They would’ve seen the car if he was here. Let’s go check out some of the shopping centres. He told his wife he’d taken the kid to an arcade earlier today. Maybe he went back there. Shopping centres are a great place to hide. Let’s start at the first one we come to and go from there. We’re wasting time here.’

‘I don’t know, Jules. I think this guy will be closer to home.’

Julie pushed some blonde curls back behind her ear. ‘I think he’s hidden away in the dark somewhere far from prying eyes, just like the rat he is.’

‘Don’t make me pull rank, Jules,’ said Aiden.

Julie and Aiden hadn’t been partners long but they had clicked from the beginning. Julie never needed to be told who was in charge.

Now she looked at Aiden, hurt by the rebuke, but relaxed when she saw he was smiling.

‘Fine, but this is the last time, okay? Go around once more and then we’ll start on the shopping centres.’

The police cruiser crawled past the park again.

‘I know it looks deserted but I just want to check out the bush at the back,’ said Aiden. He pulled off the road into the dust and stone area that served as a car park and the two police officers climbed out of the car. In the dying light of the afternoon the empty swing moved back and forth as if waiting for a small body and pumping legs. The slight creak of the metal chains sent a shiver down Julie’s spine. Even as a kid she’d never been a fan of the park. There were too many big kids, too many unknowns.

‘There’s nothing here,’ said Julie, wrapping her arms around herself.

‘Looks that way,’ said Aiden. The bushland surrounding the park looked undisturbed.

White lines chased each other around the freshly marked oval. There were three schools close by that were probably getting ready for their sports carnivals. Aiden glanced across the empty stone steps that served as stands for watching parents. He didn’t understand his certainty that the guy was here. It would be a stupid place to hide. It was too close to the house where the kid lived. The guy was probably hiding out in a giant car park where he would be almost impossible to find. Or maybe just maybe he was long gone by now. He could be on the highway heading out of Sydney on the way to Queensland. Or he could be hiding out in some small country town already. He could be anywhere.

‘So why do I think he’s here?’ muttered Aiden.

He closed his eyes and tried to work out what was bothering him. He felt like there was something he was missing. But whatever it was it remained out of reach. He opened his eyes with a sigh.

The park had a small play area off to the side but was dominated by the oval in the middle. All around houses stood on sentry duty in the quiet Saturday afternoon. It was a little cold now for kids to be out but even so the park was eerily empty.

He turned to walk back to the car as the sun dipped a little lower on the horizon and then he caught something in his peripheral vision. He turned around and waited for it again. And there it was: a flash as the last rays of the sun hit something metal. There was something in the bush.

Aiden started walking towards the place where he’d seen the flash. Crossing the oval, he noticed tyre tracks. He broke into a run.

He knew what he would find when he got to the cluster of gum trees, banksias and tangled undergrowth. He knew they would be there.

As he drew closer he saw the outline of the car, a blue Toyota sedan. He knew that when he checked the licence plate it would be WVX 217.

His heart was pumping now and despite the cold he was beginning to sweat. He slowed down and made himself a cat. If they were still in the car he didn’t want to startle the man into doing anything stupid, and if they were outside the car he didn’t want to alert the guy to his presence.

He crept forward, trying to avoid hidden twigs; cursing the gold-red fall of leaves that carpeted the ground.

The car’s engine was running, just purring gently. Aiden wondered how long it had been running for. How long could a tank of petrol last if the car was parked?

He grabbed his taser from its holder. A gun would freak the kid out but he wouldn’t know what a taser was.

He stepped forward and peered through the rear window. When he couldn’t see anything he moved around to one of the back passenger windows.

If the kid was in the back seat Aiden would have to signal to him to keep quiet. He already had his finger against his lips. Hopefully the kid would be more curious than terrified by the sight of a police officer looking through his window.

The man would probably be in the front seat and wouldn’t see him. Unless of course they were both in the front seat and neither was in a position to see him. Unless neither of them was in a position to see anything.

Aiden looked back at the oval and saw Julie jogging across to meet him. He put his hand up, indicating that she should stop; the last thing he needed was more noise. Julie obliged and became a statue. She wouldn’t move again until he told her to.

He refocused on the window. He saw a booster seat covered in pictures of Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends. Eeyore stared out the window at Aiden, his tail drooping and face resigned. There was no sign of the boy.

The park and the car sat together in the silence of the day. Aiden stepped forward again, straining his muscles to keep his body light on the ground. Holding his breath, he looked into the front seat.

He put his taser back into its holder.

He stood up straight and waved at Julie.

She resumed her run across the oval.

1

Liz watched Alex make his way up the front path.

His progress was visible from the living room window with only a slight twitch of the curtains.

Alex stood deliberately on every crack he saw, sometimes moving to the other side of the path to make sure he didn’t miss one.

His hair was slicked down with water and even from her position at the window she could see he was freshly shaved.

Once, so very long ago, she had watched him like this when he came to pick her up for a date.

Then she had watched him with the delicious anticipation of the night ahead. She would stand at the window with her heart hammering and her cheeks burning, just waiting for him to ring the bell. Her hair would be perfectly curled and styled and her toes would already be pinched by her too-high heels. Her body would react to his presence even before she looked into his eyes. Her stomach fluttered and burned with infatuation and desire. She would watch him walk up the front path and think, ‘This must be love.’

It had been love.

Once it had been love.

Now she watched him to gauge his mood, to figure out what her best opening line would be. Now her stomach burned with dread.

This morning she was wearing an old maternity tracksuit and her hair was pulled back with odd-coloured clips. Her breath still smelled of her breakfast coffee.

She hoped he would not want to look at her. She hoped he would simply take his son and leave. Today, she needed him to see only that she was unkempt and ugly. ‘Don’t look at me!’ she wanted to yell.

Logically she knew that she could have been dressed in a garbage bag and there would still be no way he would just leave without forcing her to make herself understood again. No way would he just take Luke and go. Logically she knew that, but she also knew that when it came to Alex, the rules of the universe only applied sometimes. So this morning she had nursed her cup of coffee and prayed, because you never know your luck.

But now that she had seen him she knew he would want to stay. The dark green shirt he was wearing still held traces of crisp fold lines from when he had bought it. Liz had never seen it before. He would want to talk. He would not let her off lightly. Not after last night.

Shit—last night.

Liz didn’t want to think about last night. She wasn’t ready to deal with her mistake but Alex would not be dismissed. She could see from the way he walked and the way he dressed that he believed something had changed last night.

In the morning light that was always so cruel she would have to make the facts clear again. She would have to tell him yet again that their marriage was finished.

She watched as he smoothed his hair down and then, just before he lifted his hand to ring the bell, she stepped forward to open the door.

He smiled when he saw her.

She looked down at her cold bare feet. Her nail polish was mostly chipped away.

It was a charming smile. It included his eyes and encouraged a return gesture.

Liz looked up but stared past him.

‘Hi,’ she said.

He nodded in reply.

Liz angled her body away from him and called, ‘Luke, Daddy’s here. Come on—get your backpack.’

‘Daddy, Daddy, yay, yay!’ Luke yelled from the other room.

Liz knew that Luke would leave the television on and dart into the living room and it was possible that in the chaos of his excited greeting Alex would forget about Liz and just leave with his son.

‘That’s right, Daddy’s here. Come on, don’t keep him waiting. You and Daddy are going to have so much fun.’

‘Yeah, me and Dad are gonna have fun! Hey, Dad, what did you bring me?’

Liz rubbed her hands through her son’s fine blond hair, smoothing it back off his face. His eyes were lit up with the joy of seeing his father, his arms already outstretched in anticipation of a hug.

‘Ah, it’s in the car, little man, but can you give me a minute? I just need to talk to Mum about something.’

It was possible he would just leave, but it was not probable.

‘Do we have to do this now, Alex?’ She said. She made sure her voice was light and high. She made sure to keep out any note of impatience. It was his choice to make after all. It was always his choice. But which choice would he make? Who was Alex today? Which Alex was standing in front of her in his crisp new shirt? Liz rubbed at her bunched neck muscles.

After his greeting smile his face had set to neutral, hiding his mood. Her stomach churned and she recognised a feeling she had put aside in the last few months, except when she was talking to him. It came rushing back now, closing in on her.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, we do need to do it now. Go and find Nana, Luke. Mum and I need to talk.’

Luke heard the catch in his father’s voice but he was only three. He hadn’t yet learned when to keep quiet.

‘But, Dad . . .’

Liz jumped in quickly when she saw Alex’s eyes flash. He had never hurt Luke, never even laid a hand on him, but she could foresee a time when the boy would be a continual challenge to his father, and then who knew what would happen?

Alex didn’t like to be challenged.

‘It’s okay, Luke. Do what Dad says. Go and find Nana. And your blankie, Luke—don’t forget your blankie.’

‘Why does he need to drag that thing around, Liz? He’s three years old already. Isn’t it time he gave it up?’

‘I think he’s been through a lot, Alex. His blanket is his security.’

‘He wouldn’t need it anymore if his whole life hadn’t been thrown into chaos.’

And behind those words were so many years of blame that Liz didn’t even need to acknowledge them. Instead she dipped her head a little and weaselled her way out of the confrontation.

‘Just give him a few more months and we’ll sort it out, Alex. He’s only a little boy.’ She was aware that her voice had taken on a pleading whine. She hated the way she sounded.

Alex shook his head at her and stood up straighter, nearly reaching her height. He could always tell when he had the upper hand.

‘So what did you want to discuss?’ she said, buying time to allow herself a moment to try and find the right words to appease him. She needed words that would keep him calm and words that would help her maintain her distance. Her head filled up with white noise. There were no right words.

‘You know what I want to discuss, babe. I want to talk about last night.’

Now his voice had an edge of sexual fire. The tone crept inside her, warming her whole body.

Her cheeks flushed. She was mortified by last night. If only because of the way her body responded. If only because of the way her body responded right now, clinging to the memory. It was treason.

She sighed, wondering if it would be better just to say that last night had made everything all right and they were going to be one big happy family again. She knew she could pacify him now and then get her father to come over and explain the facts again when Luke was due to be dropped home. Alex understood her father’s size and the possibility of him using his fists. Liz had thought about calling in her father more than once, more than ten times, but she never had.

Jack Searle towered above Alex and Liz could see Alex diminished every time they were in the same room. But Jack didn’t like to use his fists; he sank into silence instead. He simply left the wife he couldn’t deal with. He just left and though Liz felt, even now, that she would never recover from being discarded like that along with her mother, she knew there were worse things you could do than just leave.

She thought hard about what she could say to Alex now but her mind was stubbonly blank. She had to be conciliatory but firm at the same time. She needed to keep him happy but make herself clear. Talking to Alex was exhausting.

Liz realised she should just have left it to her mother to hand Luke over to Alex. She should have stayed in bed until she had figured out what to say to him. She had been doing that for months already—being somewhere else when he came to pick up Luke—so why had she opened the door for him today?

She tried to find some placating words, but the small part of her that was recovering from being married to him took over her mouth and she said, ‘Oh, Alex, last night was a mistake. It was nothing. I’m sorry I let it go so far, but you have to know that there’s really nothing to discuss.’

‘I don’t know that, Liz. It was not nothing. I’m not nothing.’ Alex bit down on his lip. He knew her mother was in the house. Then he rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘We were so good together,’ he said, bringing out his smile again. ‘Surely you can see that. We were always so good together.’

She shook her head and looked at her feet again. The nail polish had been a bright blue. It was called Caribbean Dream.

Alex changed tack. ‘Come on, babe, give it another go. I can have you and Luke back home and unpacked in an hour. It will be so good for him to have us together again.’

His voice was warm and smooth like melted chocolate. She hated what he became when they discussed the possibility of getting back together again. She hated the way he darted back and forth between charm and aggression. She knew how quickly it could all go back the way it had been. In darker moments, when she thought her future would be spent in her mother’s house watching the world go by and waiting for her son to grow up, she had to force herself to acknowledge what would happen—after a few honeymoon days—if she returned.

She had to remember how much it hurt to be hit with an open hand and a closed fist and how hard it was to always be trying to figure out the right thing to say. She was always on guard. Even in her sleep she had needed to be vigilant, worrying through her fitful dreams about accidently waking him. Now she only felt like that when he came over to see Luke.

‘Alex, I can’t talk about this now. I have things to do and you don’t have much time today. He needs to be back by two.’

Alex’s brown eyes darkened almost to black.

‘You can be such a bitch, Elizabeth. I’m not going to let you just dismiss me. I know what I felt last night wasn’t just me.’

Liz felt the sting of the word ‘bitch’. The part of her that had recovered a little from being with Alex, the Liz who wanted to step out of the shadows, opened her mouth. She hated being called by her full name.

‘God, Alex, leave it alone, will you. You got what you wanted last night but it was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again. I was just . . .’

‘You were just what?’

‘Lonely, I guess. I was just lonely.’

‘I can change that, babe. I’ve been lonely too and I can make sure that you never feel that way again. We can do it, Liz. We can try again.’

‘We’re better apart than together, Alex. Please, let’s just not discuss this now.’

‘I can change, Liz. If you just give me a chance I can do better.’

‘You always say that, Alex. Every time it happens you tell me it won’t happen again, but it keeps happening. Maybe you need to take some time out and get some help.’

‘Fuck that, Liz. I don’t need some shrink telling me what’s wrong with me.’

Liz had heard it all before—once, twice, two hundred times.

Every now and again he would agree to go to counselling and then back out at the last minute, claiming it was all ‘just bullshit about what your mother did wrong, and you and I both know I never had a mother for most of my life’. His mother’s desertion was his favourite excuse for his behaviour, and his last resort when he wanted Liz’s sympathy. ‘My mother left when I was five. One day I went to school and when I got home she was gone and I’ve never seen her again.’

‘Look, Alex, we’ll talk later, okay? Just bring him home at two and I’ll put him down for his nap and we can talk.’

‘Can we talk about getting back together? Can we talk about ending this bullshit?’

‘Look . . . just . . . we’ll talk, okay?’

‘Yeah, we’ll talk, but it’ll be about what you want. It’s always about what you want. I’m not some boy you can lead around by the nose, Liz.’

‘Please, Alex . . . not again.’

Alex clenched his fists and Liz could see that even standing at the front door of her mother’s house she was still not safe. His silent fury filled up the space between them. Liz felt it choke her and she slowly moved one foot back so that she could turn and run.

Luke came bounding back into the room then. A puppy full of bounce.

Suddenly there was more light and Liz felt like she could fill her lungs again.

‘Is it time to go, Dad? Are you done? Can we go, Mum? Can we go, Dad? Let’s go, Dad, let’s go!’

‘We’re done,’ said Liz, and she looked only at Luke.

‘Bye, Mum.’

‘Bye, Luke. Give me a kiss.’

‘Nah, kisses are squishy.’

‘Okay . . . no squishy kisses. How about a hug?’

‘’Kay. Love you, Mum.’

‘Love you, Luke.’ She turned to Alex. ‘Have him back by two, please.’

Liz watched Alex.

‘Maybe today’s not the best day for you two to go out,’ she said.

‘Awww . . . Mum,’ said Luke.

‘We’re going out. Just Luke and me—two boys out on the town,’ said Alex and his voice had relaxed again.

Luke giggled.

‘Well just . . . just call me if you need me, okay,’ she said.

Alex made no reply.

‘Bye, Mum, love you, Mum, bye, Mum.’

Liz waved then closed the door on Alex and his sad accusing stare. She wanted him gone and now he was gone.

She felt a surge of triumph. She had stood her ground. She had not been pushed into saying something that she would regret.

‘Standing your ground’ was one of the first things Rebecca tried to teach them.

Rebecca was the psychologist in charge of the sad little group that Liz attended once a week. Thursdays from ten am to twelve pm—coffee and tea provided. There she sat in a circle with all the other bruised and broken women trying to find a way out of the lives they had somehow stumbled into.

Rebecca liked to make them stamp their feet and shout ‘no’ to show them all that they had the strength and the power to defend themselves. They stamped and shouted as loud as they could, laughing and enjoying their raised voices. But they were stamping and shouting at each other in the safe confines of the group. Outside the group it was an entirely different story.

‘If you can just change the way you respond to the abuser you have a chance to change your relationship. If you can stand your ground in a safe environment where you have others around to protect you, you can force the abuser to see you as a person who has their own power,’ Rebecca said.

‘What crap,’ Glenda said. ‘That’ll just make him more pissed off than before. Then he’ll lie awake at night trying to figure out how to slit my throat.’

‘Obviously you have to make a decision based on your own individual circumstances,’ said Rebecca.

‘Yeah,’ laughed Glenda. ‘Our own individual circumstances. Individually, each and every one of us is a bit fucked.’

Liz had only gone to the community centre because her mother insisted. The ad for the domestic violence support group had been up on the noticeboard right outside the shopping centre. It was next to an ad for lessons on flower arranging, like there was a choice. Her mother had pointed it out.

‘Just give it a couple of goes, Liz. You never know—it might help.’

Liz just sniffed. ‘I don’t need to witter on about what Alex did. I’ve left him, haven’t I?’

‘Liz, he was here nearly every day last week. You may have moved out but you definitely haven’t left him.’

‘Like you would know.’

Ellen had sighed. ‘You need to do something, Liz, so go or I’m giving your father a call and he can figure out what to do about Alex.’

‘Aren’t I too old to be treated like a child?’

‘You’re never too old to be treated with concern, Liz. You need to talk to someone.’

Liz took down the number and shoved it into her bag where it stayed for weeks. She waited for her mother to just drop the issue but Ellen was surprisingly dogmatic about her getting some help.

‘I never got any help after your father left and I’m not saying this is the same thing but you can’t hide from your pain, Liz. I did it and basically checked out for years after he left. I know I did.’

Liz didn’t say anything. She waited for her mother to finish talking.

‘Thanks for agreeing with me, my darling,’ said Ellen.

‘What exactly would you like me to say? Do you want me to say it didn’t happen? Because we both know it did.’

‘Liz, I can apologise all I like but I can’t give you back those years. So all I can do is try to prevent you from making the same mistakes. You have Luke to think about and I know you want to do better than I did. You need help. You need to talk to other women and try to figure out how to move your relationship past the point where he has any hold over you.’

‘Like Alcoholics Anonymous but for domestic abuse?’

‘Yes,’ laughed Ellen. ‘Like that.’

After she heard the car start up Liz leaned her head against the front door. If she was honest with herself, she knew that she hadn’t really achieved anything.

All the voices ran round and round in her head and it was getting harder to know who she should listen to. This morning she had managed to keep some control of the situation, but she knew that when Alex brought Luke back this afternoon he would find a way to make her feel like it was her fault he raised his hands to her. Her fault they were unhappy, her fault they were shuffling Luke between the two of them.

Her mother and father believed it was her fault for staying, Alex believed it was her fault for leaving, and the only thing Liz really knew for sure was that it was all her fault.

Scenes from the night before flashed through her mind again, forcing her to shut her eyes and wish them away. Things had been getting better. It had been easier to keep Alex at a distance. He was responding to emails, accepting that she would leave messages for him rather than speak to him, and the conversations about their failed marriage had been getting shorter. But then there was last night.

And Liz knew, with the same intuition that told her when she was going to be hurt, that last night had made things worse. She could see herself at the bottom of the hill and she didn’t know if she had the strength to push the rock all the way to the top once more.

2

Afterwards she had twisted herself up in her sheets for hours cursing her stupidity. There was no way she should have let it happen but the tender touch of his hands was the one thing she did miss about him. They could be gentle, those hands; they could be so many other things, but they could also be gentle.

He had called late in the afternoon, ‘I want to come over and kiss Luke goodnight. I want to do the whole bath time and story thing. Is that okay with you?’

His voice was so soft, so sad, that it broke her heart. He was asking to see his son. He wasn’t ranting or demanding, he was just asking.

‘Stay away from the abuser as much as possible,’ said Rebecca. ‘Avoid the places he goes and the friends he likes to hang out with.’

‘How can I stay away?’ asked Liz. It was the first time she had opened her mouth. ‘He has to see his son. How can I stay away when I have to keep inviting him in?’

‘You have to get a lawyer and tell the police,’ said Rebecca.

‘And then?’ asked Liz.

‘And then you’ll still have to let the bastard see the kid because he’s never laid a hand on him and fathers have rights, don’tcha know,’ said Rhonda, who had been in the group for a whole year and still hadn’t worked out how to maintain a proper distance from the love of her life, who liked to hit when he’d had a few.

Liz nodded at what Rhonda had said and in that moment accepted what she already knew to be true. She and Alex were tied together forever.

They were tied together by Luke.

‘Can I come over, Liz—please?’

That voice made her weak. It brought back the way he would curl up next to her and plead, ‘Don’t ever leave me, Liz, don’t ever leave,’ like a little boy.

The voice tugged at her. He sounded so alone and one word from her could change that—for one night at least.

She had promised to stay forever. High on his adoration she would have agreed to anything, and now she had left and made him sad. She understood his despair was her fault. She had left to save herself but he couldn’t see that. He seemed genuinely bewildered by her behaviour.

So when she had heard that voice, the voice that drew her in and softened her heart, Liz couldn’t say no.

It was just story time and bath time. It was a reasonable request, wasn’t it? He was always exhorting her to be reasonable. ‘Look at it from my point of view, Liz. You have to see that this cannot be just about me.’ The trouble was that when she did look at it from his point of view she forgot her own perspective. Alex was very good at making her brush her own feelings aside.

But he had called and asked so politely, so softly and so sadly, that she forgot to think about herself. All she thought was, ‘He’s a good dad and he just wants to see his kid.’ She ignored the voice inside that told her to protect the small steps she had taken with boundaries and limitations, and gave in again.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘My mum will be out with friends so I guess I could use the help.’

Her therapy group was filled with women who took two steps forward and three steps back.

Sometimes they laughed about that over coffee and cigarettes. It was good to have a laugh. They turned away bruised faces and held their cups carefully with broken wrists and laughed. Rhonda thought it was something chemical. ‘It’s like they change the way our brains work as soon as we’re around them. We know that if we could just stay away it would be better for everyone, but then they come over and you can’t stop them from seeing their kids. They come over and their voices get low and soft and maybe it’s a smell or something but we can’t help ourselves.’

The other women nodded in agreement. You could get addicted to that small flip of your heart, to that warmth between your legs when they came near you. You could get as addicted as the poor sad bloke on a bench with a bottle of cheap whisky for breakfast.

‘There should be a special clinic we can go where they wean us off them,’ Liz said and Glenda had laughed so much she spilled her coffee.

‘Great, I’ll see you soon,’ Alex had replied.

He had turned up right on time as he had always done and Luke’s eyes were the best reward for any stupid choices she made.

‘My dad’s here, Mum, my dad’s here! Did you see him, Mum? My dad’s here! Mummy, Mummy, Mum, Mum.’

Bath time became an adventure and three stories had to be read and Liz felt her heart break just a little at the thought of how Luke would ask for his father the next day.

She had explained it carefully. She had explained it the way the psychologist had told her to explain it, but Luke still couldn’t quite understand.

‘But why can’t Dad live with us at Nana’s house?’

‘Just because, Luke.’

‘Because why?’

‘Luke, it’s time for bed,’ she would say, or, ‘How about we play a game?’ or ‘Let’s go and get a treat,’ because she couldn’t tell him the truth. It was not a truth anyone would ever want to hear.

Luke knew something. He had seen things and even though he couldn’t yet connect the dots he did know that there were reasons why his mother and father lived apart. It didn’t stop him wanting them back together, of course. Liz was an adult with a child of her own and she still sometimes fantasised about a reunion for her own parents.

Liz watched Alex read to Luke and her heart was stung by the loss of the possibility of a picture-perfect family. They sat together on the bed and Luke was all warm and sleepy and Alex had his head on the pillow and she could see the colour Luke’s hair would become as he got older. Liz had seen pictures of Alex at the same age and it was difficult to tell the difference between them. Luke looked so like his father it was funny. Same nose, same chin, same smile.

It was like a scene from a movie. It was a scene from a postcard. Somewhere inside, she wanted it to last forever.

‘My boys,’ she thought, and she should have known right then and there just to shut down, but it was hard always being on the lookout. It took work to maintain distance and repress emotions.

‘Do you want a drink?’ she asked when Luke’s thumb was firmly in his mouth, his blankie held tightly in his other hand.

‘Don’t encourage them to stay after they’ve seen the children,’ Rebecca said, and all the women in the group had looked around the room or at the back wall where happy family paintings from the preschool covered the bricks.

‘Sometimes there’s stuff to fix,’ said Rhonda.

‘Yeah, you need a man around the house every now and again,’ said Glenda.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Rebecca. ‘Say goodbye and show them to the door. Don’t let them stay, don’t give them the chance.’

Some nights the loneliness sucked Liz into an abyss and she had to lie on her hands, knowing that if she just picked up the phone he would come running and he would put his arms around her and chase the shadows away.

‘Yeah . . . yeah sure, a drink would be good. Wine if you’ve got some.’

He didn’t say, ‘Why now when you’ve been such a bitch?’ and he didn’t say, ‘I have better things to do and other people to see,’ and he didn’t say, ‘I think we should keep things simple right now until the divorce is finalised.’ He didn’t even give her a questioning look. He smiled at her like he had been waiting for the invitation and let her lead the way and she forgot herself. She forgot everything.

She had poured red wine and made pasta and afterwards she wished that her mother had arrived home earlier.

They sat in dim light in the lounge room and talked about Luke and how cute he was and how funny he was and what they thought he would be when he grew up.

They opened a second bottle of wine and watched the fire, built properly by Alex the way she and her mother could never build it, and she had felt her skin glow with pleasure. This was how it was supposed to be.

They ate and drank and laughed and all through it her own little voice was trying to get her attention. But the Alex that she had fallen in love with was on show and he was hard to resist.

They cleared the dishes and when he kissed her she knew she could stop him but that old chemical reaction came back and when he touched her breasts she was lost. The room was in a light spin and the pasta sat heavily in her stomach and her limbs slid down to the floor.

It was her fault. Even as it was happening she knew she was letting it happen, she knew that.

When it was over Alex had curled his body around hers and stroked her hair while he talked, and she listened.

‘God, I’ve missed you, Liz. I’ve missed us so much. We need to be a family again. We’re so good together. You can see that, can’t you?’

They were lying on the floor of the kitchen and the cold from the slate tiles was beginning to seep into her skin.

Regret was a stone on her chest.

‘Alex, I think . . . I think . . .’ She got up and pulled on her clothes, smoothing her long black hair back into its neat ponytail.

‘Don’t think, my love. You think too much. Just come home and bring my boy back. Just let us be a family again.’

‘Alex, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let this happen. Look, I think this was a mistake. We can’t be together again, Alex. We’re better off apart. It’s better for Luke. You have to see that.’ She crossed her arms over her chest for protection and backed away.

He stepped forward, forcing her to step back against a wall.

‘The worst marriage is better than the best divorce, Liz. We’ll scar him for life. How come you can’t see that? He’ll grow up the same way we did. Didn’t we want better for him? Isn’t that what we said? You need to come back home. You need to come back to me.’

‘I can’t, Alex. Please. I’m sorry about this but I just can’t—I . . . I need more time.’

He nodded his head like it was the first time she had ever offered him that excuse. He knew what she was saying. He knew what she meant but he nodded his head as though he imagined that Liz would eventually have had enough time and she could then go back to being his wife and sharing a house and a bed with him. Liz smiled a little to convince him that what she said was true.

‘Yeah, that’s right, you need more time,’ he said. ‘Think it over tonight and we can talk when I pick Luke up tomorrow morning. I’m going crazy without my kid, Liz. I’m going crazy without you.’

‘You go pretty crazy when we’re there,’ Liz thought, but she knew those words would never leave her mouth.

‘Alex, it may not be the best id—’

‘Fuck that, Liz. Fuck the best idea. I need you home. I need Luke with me. I need to see my child every day. He’s my child, Liz. Mine. How would you feel if you couldn’t see him every day? How the fuck would you feel?’

The wine had turned to acid in her stomach now and the nausea rose inside her.

‘You can see him whenever you want to. You know that.’

‘It’s not the same, Liz. I want to be there all the time. This is killing me, you know. I sit at home and try to figure out how to make it right. How come you aren’t doing the same thing? Don’t you miss me?’

‘I just think . . .’

‘Spare me, Liz. I know what you think. Christ, you’re so cold.’ Alex took another step forward. He was close now, too close, but she could not get any further away from him.

‘Nothing can touch you,’ he hissed. ‘I hope you never have to feel the pain I feel. I hope you never . . .’

And then the front door opened and her mother came in. Liz breathed a sigh of relief and moved across the room.

Her mother didn’t greet Alex. She could not abide his presence in her house. It was the only thing her parents agreed on—Alex was the biggest mistake Liz had ever made.

But because of him there was Luke.

As far as Liz could see that ended the argument right there.

‘It can’t all be my fault, Liz,’ Alex whispered to her when she walked him to the door. ‘There’s an old cliché about it taking two to tango and you know that you don’t make things easy, Liz. You know it.’

Liz wanted to tell him that there was no excuse for where his anger took him but she had kept quiet instead. She had closed the door on him without defending herself, without saying anything else.

She had closed the door and hoped that her fuck-up would disappear with the night.

3

Ellen came into the room while Liz was still standing by the door. Liz knew that her mother had deliberately waited in the kitchen until Alex had left. She wondered how much Ellen had heard.

Liz knew that she had a fair idea what had happened last night. She had stayed in the living room while Liz saw Alex out and, even though Liz knew her mother was only protecting her, she couldn’t help but feel like a guilty teenager.

‘When are you going to let go properly, Liz?’ she had asked as they switched off the lights on the way to bed.