‘I know,’ Ben said, then suggested that she choose a movie, so she did, kneeling down as she worked through his collection, and as she did she told him her most recent news.
‘I mean, you won’t have to keep bailing me out because I’m moving back home.’
His wine paused midway to his mouth. ‘When?’ he asked and then took a long sip, holding it in his mouth until she replied.
‘Next weekend.’ Huge amber eyes flashed towards him then looked away. ‘Mum and Dad are painting the spare room for her and we’re moving the stuff throughout next week. It’s just not working, living here. You know what it’s like, and Mum and I are getting on a lot better now...’ She trailed off.
‘How do you feel about it?’ he asked shrewdly.
Celeste stared unseeingly at the DVD she was holding. ‘To be honest, I haven’t really stopped to think about it that much.’
So she did. She sank back on her heels and thought.
Out loud.
‘It’s not what I really want,’ she admitted. ‘I asked them a few weeks ago, but that was when I was pregnant. I never wanted to live there with a baby—but it’s best for Willow. We could manage on our own, but this way...’ Celeste took a deep breath. ‘She’s nearly two months old—it seems unbelievable. I could put her in the crèche next month and start back at work.’
‘Is your mum going to watch her for you?’
Celeste nodded. ‘Only for work—she’s warned me that she’s not a built-in babysitter so we’ve agreed it’s just for a year.’ And then she told him her other news. ‘I’ve spoken to Meg and she’s going to help me with my application to transfer hospitals.’
‘Back to your old one?’
‘No.’ Instantly she shook her head. ‘To Melbourne Central...’
‘That’s my old stomping ground,’ Ben said.
‘It’s much closer to home than here. Anyway, I’m going to be head down finishing the emergency grad year and then I’m going to do as many shifts as I can and save...’
She looked so young sometimes—she was so young, Ben reminded himself. Only that wasn’t what he meant. She seemed so fey and carefree at times yet there was a deep streak to her that enthralled him—an inherent resilience that belied her apparent fragility at times.
And she’d clearly given this a lot of thought.
‘You say you’re getting on with your parents now?’
‘It’s a lot better than it was.’ She’d chosen the movie and popped it in. ‘I can’t imagine living at home again, though. I couldn’t wait to leave the first time!’ She rolled her eyes and added, ‘They’re really strict.’ She gave him a smile and this time sat on the same sofa as him. ‘There’ll be none of this...’
‘What?’
‘Sitting in the dark with a man, drinking wine!’
‘You’re twenty-four.’ Ben grinned. ‘And we’re watching a movie.’
‘I don’t care how old you are, young lady.’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘When you’re under our roof, you live by our rules.’
‘You’re serious?’ he exclaimed, half horrified, half amused.
‘Absolutely. It will be even worse this time around, given...’ She nodded in the direction of upstairs.
‘She can’t hear you!’ Ben laughed.
‘I don’t care whether she can hear or not. I’ve told Mum and Dad that there’s to be no talk of “the mess I’ve got myself into” or “accidents” around her—that’s my only rule if I move home. I’ll put up with anything for a year if it gives her a better start, but I’ll tell her her story in my own way, in my own time.’
‘That’s fair enough.’
‘It’s not her fault I didn’t know her dad was married...’ She stopped talking then, thankful for the dark room, because her face was red suddenly, not from embarrassment but near tears. They sat in silence for a while—the words that had never been voiced by Ben hanging there between them...
‘How, Celeste?’ he finally asked. ‘How did you not know?’
‘I just didn’t.’
‘What about nights like this?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like this.’ Ben gestured at the simplicity of it all. ‘Did you never wonder why it was always at yours?’
‘He didn’t come to mine.’ Her voice was shrill. ‘We went out, we were dating...’
He didn’t get it, but it wasn’t his place to push it, he’d already crossed that line, so Ben chose to leave it, surprised when it was Celeste who broke the strained silence between them.
‘I shared with two other students. I knew what we were doing was wrong...’ She stopped again and was staring unseeingly at the television screen.
‘Wrong?’ Ben frowned. ‘I thought you didn’t know he was married?’
‘It’s more than that. I can’t tell anyone about Willow’s father...it would cause so much trouble.’
‘You can tell me,’ Ben said, because though he could sense her indecision, he also sensed her burden.
‘You won’t say anything to anyone?’
‘Never.’
‘Because gossip...’
‘I don’t gossip.’
She looked over to him, at those guarded, remote features that occasionally softened into tenderness—and right now she was the lucky recipient of that emotion. She saw the honesty and integrity there too and it made her shame burn harder, so much so that she couldn’t look him in the eyes as she shared her truth.
‘His name’s Dean. He was my lecturer at university.’ When Ben didn’t say anything, she wasn’t sure if he understood the problem. ‘It’s forbidden for a lecturer to have a relationship with a student...’
‘I know.’
‘It happens, though,’ she attempted to rationalise. ‘All the time. I mean, it’s between two consenting adults, and it’s a stupid rule really...’ He could see tears squeezing out of her eyes, and, as she always did, she closed them, trying to keep it all in.
‘Not that stupid a rule, perhaps,’ Celeste admitted. ‘He must choose his targets—I mean, he had his story all set up. He said he shared a house with another lecturer—that was why we couldn’t go back there—and as I was sharing with students, we always went out miles away. Of course, I assumed it was so that no one from uni found out about us. He told me that once I’d qualified, that we could go more public...’
‘You never suspected?’ He still didn’t get it. Even if he and Celeste were only a little bit in each other’s lives, that much of each other they already knew.
‘I’d never really had a serious boyfriend,’ she revealed, giving a tight shrug. ‘Like I said, Mum and Dad were really strict, and when I left home, I didn’t go wild or anything. Really, I didn’t even know if we were going out at first, it was just a drink, or dinner...’ She was squirming with embarrassment now. ‘And we went to a hotel a couple of times...it should have been obvious to me,’ Celeste admitted. ‘I mean, he never answered his phone—it always went to voicemail.’
‘Oh?’ Ben frowned. ‘Is that supposed to mean something?’
‘He never answered his phone when he was with me either.’
‘Okay...’ Ben said, not that he really understood it.
‘You’re too honest.’ Celeste managed a watery smile. ‘So am I, I guess, because I never assumed he was lying. He never answered his phone in case it was another of his women—or even his wife.’
‘How did you find out he was married?’
‘He was away one day, another lecturer came in—explaining that he was taking over because apparently Dean’s wife was ill...’
‘Oh, Celeste,’ Ben groaned softly.
The commercials for the film were over so she put her feet up on the table because that was what Ben was doing and took a sip of her wine and sat there, trying to watch the film while remembering the hurt—the very real hurt—and the fear a few weeks later when she’d found out that she was having Dean’s baby.
It was a funny movie that she’d chosen, or it had been the first time she’d watched it—only it didn’t seem so funny now. Instead, it was a romantic comedy of errors that just made her feel like crying.
Ben was on the sofa next to her, big and solid and so reassuring.
And there was a picture of Jen by the television.
She couldn’t see the image, just the outline of the frame—but that made her feel like crying too.
As if the universe had got something terribly wrong, had tossed them all up in the air and they’d landed in the wrong places, the wrong rooms, with the wrong people.