* * *
‘I was wondering...’ His voice trailed off. It had taken him ages to decide how best to deal with this and finally he had decided to drop by her place, to pretend nothing had happened, and then offer his solution. Except she had taken for ever to answer the door and when she did, it was clear that he had woken her up. There was a huge pillow crease down the side of her face and the usually sunny Celeste was decidedly grumpy and certainly not about to make this easy. ‘Were you asleep?’
‘Actually, yes, I was.’
‘Sorry.’ Ben cleared his throat. He didn’t want to just drop helping her, but he did want to pull back and this might just be the way! ‘I’ve got a day off tomorrow. I’m going to do a big shop because I’m having too many take-aways, and I wondered if you wanted to make a list. I could grab some stuff for you.’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’
‘It really is no problem. You said you were struggling to get to the shops—’
‘I did my shopping this afternoon online,’ Celeste interrupted. ‘So I’m all right. I’ve got a friend coming over tomorrow and we’re going to make a load of meals and stock up the freezer.’
‘That’s...great.’
‘And the doctor said that I needed to rest a lot,’ Celeste continued, ‘so, I don’t mean to sound rude, but...’ she gave an uncomfortable swallow ‘...I’m having a lot of trouble getting to sleep, and I’d just nodded off when you knocked.’
‘Sorry about that,’ he apologised.
‘You weren’t to know.’ She gave a slight smile, only it didn’t reach her eyes, and neither did her eyes meet his. ‘But it might be better if you don’t...’ she gave a tight shrug ‘...just drop over in future.’
‘Sure,’ Ben said. He should have been relieved. After all, he’d been hoping for the same thing. He was absolved from duty now, so why didn’t it feel great? ‘What did the doctor say?’ he asked, not able to leave it there.
‘I told you.’ Celeste’s usually sunny face was a closed mask. ‘I’m to rest... Look, Ben, it’s really not your concern.’
Then she closed the door.
He went back to his unit.
And as he had done for the last few years on this night, Ben tried and failed not to watch the clock.
The horrible thing about anniversaries, Ben had found, was the build-up to them—as if you were stuck in a portal, as if by somehow going over and over every detail, you could change the outcome, bargain with God.
Only not this night.
Oh, he did all that, but there was another layer there too.
Guilt.
Guilt, because when he surely should have been drowning his sorrows in whisky and thinking only of Jen, when he should surely be lacerating himself with thoughts of what could have been, this year he couldn’t sustain it.
Instead, he found himself standing at the window and wondering about Celeste.
Found himself thinking not about what could have been, but what already was.
And what could be?
* * *
Time did heal.
He’d been told it, had said it himself, but only now was he actually starting to believe it.
It didn’t consume him now, it didn’t walk with him constantly, there was room in his mind for other thoughts, so on a day that was usually spent locked in mourning, he awoke, showered and dressed, went to the cemetery and told them he loved them—always had, always would—but instead of heading to her parents’ home, instead of stopping, he started. He kept his appointment with the bank, saw the real-estate agent, looked around the house again, put a deposit on a boat, went home, saw that his sunflowers were dying, watered them, showered again, and got changed into shorts.
He did really well, actually!
Until Jen’s parents rang.
And then so too did his.
Followed by Jen’s sister.
And then it all finally caught up with him.
He tried not to look at the clock, tried not to remember ringing her from work, then tried to remember the exact tone of her voice when Jen had said she had a headache.
It had done nothing to alert him.
Well, actually it had, but he was a doctor and his wife was pregnant and also a doctor and between them they could dream up a million and one scenarios if they so wished. So she had told him it was just a headache...and he had told himself the same.
‘It’s just a headache, Ben.’
Except when he suggested that she take something for it, instead of her usual rebuff, he’d been concerned to find out that she already had. Jen, who never took anything, had taken a couple of painkillers.
‘I’ll come home,’ he’d suggested.
‘For God’s sake, Ben.’ She’d sounded irritated. ‘It’s a headache, I’m just going to go and lie down.’
Yes, by early evening it had all caught up with him again.
He didn’t walk along the beach today, and he didn’t jog. He ran. Only the beach seemed too small—he could see Melbourne miles away in the sunset, but he felt as if he could make it in a few leaps, that he would never run out of energy, that he could run all his life and still never leave it behind.
He wasn’t wearing a watch, but he knew the time, knew it to the very second.
Ringing Jen and getting no answer, and telling himself she was just lying down.
He pounded the beach. His lungs were bursting but still, still he remembered walking up the garden path and trying not to run, because he was surely being stupid, because there was surely nothing wrong, then letting himself in and calling her name. It was five past seven, as he ran, Ben knew that, because suddenly he felt like swearing at the sky for cheating them, five past seven because he’d seen it on the clock as he had walked into the lounge, seen her kneeling on the floor, her hands on her head on the sofa.
So still.
So pale.
So gone.
* * *
Pounding on her chest, ringing the ambulance.
He wanted her and if not he wanted a Caesarean—he wanted life to be salvaged from the wreckage he had come home to, except he knew, knew, knew even as he laid her flat on her back that it was too late.
He ran along that beach, not as if the devil was chasing him, because nothing could catch him now. He was the chaser, pounding on anger, and regret and hate and the unfairness of it all.
Temper split his mind.
He didn’t want Celeste and her baby.
He wanted his!
* * *
It was a relief to be off work, but it was also the longest, loneliest time.
Her request to stay at her parents’ was met with a curt letter of refusal and a cheque, which Celeste would love to have not cashed on principle, but she couldn’t afford principles right now. Although she’d have loved to splurge and get her hair cut and buy something fantastic and non-essential for the baby, instead she trimmed her hair with the kitchen scissors, bought another two boxes of nappies and paid two months’ rent in advance, then crawled back into bed and carried on missing Ben.
And she did miss him.
Missed him more than she had Dean. Which made no sense, but it was how it was. Over and over she took out the memory of his kiss and explored it, remembered the moment that had ended them—and she wished she’d never tasted him, never been held by him, had never kissed him, because in that moment she’d glimpsed a different world. With just one kiss he’d shown her how good life could be—and then he’d ripped it away.
She thought about ignoring the knock at the door—but not for long. Maybe it was her parents to say they’d changed their minds, or the postman, or maybe, just maybe...
It was Ben.
‘I hope I didn’t wake you,’ he said.
‘You didn’t.’
‘And I’m sorry to drop round...’ His four-wheel drive was purring behind him, the engine still going, no doubt ready to make a quick escape.
‘It’s fine.’
Ben wasn’t finding this easy. The whole day hadn’t been easy, in fact—but it was something he had promised, something he had to do. ‘I went over to my sister’s to get the car seat for you.’
‘Oh!’
‘Look.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t want to offend you, so say if you don’t want them, really, you just have to say. But she gave me a few things...a crib, a stroller, one of those jogging ones...’
‘Do I have to promise to take up jogging?’ she asked.
‘No...’ Despite the strained circumstances, she still made him smile.
‘Only I might get challenged under the Trade Descriptions Act if I’m seen with it,’ she teased.
‘It’s good for walking on the beach too,’ Ben said. ‘Well, according to my sister.’
She couldn’t joke any more, really she didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t a question of being too proud to accept help, it was more that she’d had none, well, apart from her parents’ cheque. But this was real help and real thought and that it came from him made it as bitter as it was sweet.