After I moved out of her place and into the duplex, she kept trying to be my friend. She wanted me to go dancing and drinking in nightclubs and bars. She wanted me to snap out of it, to pull myself together, to show him, to get back out there.

I remember thinking that it wasn’t fair. If Patrick had been killed in a car accident, I would have been allowed to grieve for him for years. People would have sent me flowers and sympathy cards; they would have dropped off casseroles. I would have been allowed to keep his photos up, to talk about him, to remember the good times. But because he dumped me, because he was still alive, my sadness was considered undignified and pathetic. I wasn’t being a proper feminist when I talked about how much I loved him. He stopped loving me, so therefore I had to stop loving him. Immediately. Chop, chop. Turn those silly feelings off right now. Your love is no longer reciprocated, so it is now foolish.

He and Jack were both gone from my life as if they were dead, but that was hardly a tragedy. Breakups happen to everyone. It was the same with Mum’s death. Old people die all the time. And she was sick! So, a blessing really. So what that you’ll never hear her voice again. So what that you’ll never read Jack another bedtime story. So what that you’ll never make love to Patrick again.

Get over it, get on with it, get a grip, girl. Everyone wanted me to hurry up and make myself happy again—cut my hair, sign up for evening classes—and it was just plain irritating when I wouldn’t, when I couldn’t. It was no wonder that Tammy slipped out of my life.

And now here she was again, after all these years, her voice on my mobile phone sounding exactly the same; Tammy always sounded slightly puffed out, like she’d just run around the block.

“Saskia, honey, I’m back in Sydney!” she said. I didn’t know she’d left Sydney. “You’re not on Facebook!” she said. “How are your old friends meant to find you if you’re not on Facebook, you philistine!”

She acted as though we’d just lost touch the way ordinary people do. She didn’t even mention Patrick. She asked if I’d have a drink with her on Wednesday night. And I said sure, while I sat in the car and felt the sun on my face, and I thought no way do I need therapy! I’m meeting an old friend for a drink tomorrow night! I’m perfectly normal.

Then five minutes later I found myself driving to the hypnotist’s house.

I’ll just drive by, I told myself. I won’t stop the car. Jack will be at school, and Patrick will be at work, and Ellen will be sitting in her striped chair, in her cozy little glass haven, offering chocolates, letting her liquid voice rise and fall while the sunlight dances around the walls.

As I drove there I wished I was still Deborah going for another appointment about my leg pain. It’s strange how much I enjoyed those sessions. The pain has been worse again lately. I haven’t even bothered with any of Ellen’s techniques. Now that I’m not Deborah to her, I don’t feel entitled to use them.

But Patrick was there.

As I turned the corner into her street, I saw them coming out of the house together, hurrying as if they were running late for an appointment. Patrick was wearing jeans. He had the day off. Why? He never took a day off during the week. Ellen was wearing jeans too, and a beautiful long gray fitted coat with cute pom-poms bouncing about on little strings. The sort of coat only someone quirky and delightful could wear. You couldn’t tell she was pregnant yet.

They looked like a couple; nobody looking at them would think that they didn’t belong together. And there it was, that strange feeling of exquisite, tender pain: delicate but fierce, like a long, thin, gleaming needle slowly piercing my flesh.

Where could they be going? I didn’t even bother fighting it; I had to know. If I could just know, it wouldn’t hurt so much. I always think that, even though the knowledge always hurts more.

So I followed them. I was driving one of the work cars because mine was acting up again, so Patrick didn’t see me or do any of his clever maneuvers to get rid of me.

They drove to Jack’s school.

A school concert, perhaps? Or a soccer game? One that I’d missed? I thought about texting him to ask, not that he would answer, of course, but then Ellen stayed in the car while Patrick went into the school. He was half running. Was Jack sick?

But then only a few minutes later he reappeared, walking quickly, carrying Jack’s schoolbag while Jack ran to keep up with him. They jumped in the car and off they went again.

I couldn’t think where they’d be going at this time of day, and my desire to know was now a raging thirst. I was leaning forward now, my hands clenched hard around the steering wheel, my vision focused entirely on the number plate of Patrick’s car.

I dream about that number plate.

Lance from work rang on my mobile and I let it go to voice-mail. Following them was all that mattered. I lost them at a set of lights on Military Road, when some idiot driver slammed on her brakes at an orange light, as if her sole purpose was to thwart me. I screamed with frustration and slammed my hands so hard on the steering wheel they will probably bruise. It was pure luck that I found them again. When I got to the end of Falcon Street, I turned left onto the Pacific Highway, for no particular reason, just because I was in the left-hand lane, and I saw the three of them walking along a footpath. Ellen pointed at a building and they disappeared inside.

I found a spot nearby and didn’t bother putting money in the meter. I walked back to the same building while pain grabbed and twisted at my leg.

When I got to the empty lobby, I stopped at the directory board that listed various business names. Dental surgery. Chartered accountants. Immigration specialists. It could have been anything.

And then I saw: Sydney Ultrasound.

That’s where they were going. To see the baby.

The baby.

It felt personal, as if all three of them were doing this to hurt me, as if this entire building had been placed here for the sole purpose of hurting me.

He would hold her hand, and they would listen to the heartbeat and exchange teary, radiant smiles. I’ve seen the movies. I know how it works. Jack would see his little brother or sister for the first time.

You’ll be the best big brother in the world, I used to tell him when Patrick and I were trying to get pregnant. Jack said he’d prefer a little sister. His best friends were all girls at preschool. “I want a little sister called Jemima,” he said. “With black hair.” And then he added, “Please.” I was teaching him manners at the time. I said that would be fine. I quite liked the name Jemima.

Tags: Liane Moriarty Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net