‘You were temping.’ I lift my shoulders. ‘So you’ve quit?’
‘Yes.’ Her expression is serious. Her face is so expressive I feel I have an unfair advantage, like I can read her as one might a book. ‘After my dad died I was entitled to take some time, and I didn’t. I came back for the funeral—’ her voice shifts a little ‘—but there wasn’t much point sticking around. I wasn’t ready to pack up his house or anything. I just feel like there’s all this stuff I need to get on with. Photography, my life, responsibilities. Grown-up stuff.’
‘So the house is unoccupied?’
She nods. ‘I had it locked up for Future Cora to deal with. Unfortunately, that’s now me, so I’ll have to get back at some point soon to sort it out. I can’t leave it there indefinitely.’
‘Why don’t you want to do it?’
‘It’s just hard.’ Her eyes meet mine, and I feel her struggle and her honesty. ‘It’s like stepping back in time and, honestly, to a time I’d rather forget. Everything’s like it was before. My room. The kitchen.’ She shakes her head. ‘But so much more rundown. He drank himself into an early grave. I couldn’t stop him. I wasn’t enough of a reason for him to stop.’ She bites that full lower lip and I lean forward, pressing my forehead to hers, breathing her in, not particularly wanting to think about the fact I’ve doused my organs in liquor daily since learning the truth about my own father.
‘I tried. I really did. Before...the baby. But afterwards, the fight just left me.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘Is it?’ A crease forms between her brows. ‘I don’t know. I feel like he deserved better.’
‘We all make our own beds, Cora.’
‘Maybe.’ She sounds unconvinced.
‘And your boyfriend?’
‘Dave?’
‘That was the father?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you still speak to him?’
She pulls a face. ‘He was kind of a waste of space.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Oh, yeah. The sort of guy who was a legend in his own lunchbox. You know the sort. Small community, great at football, much adored, parents owned half the town, so he had a bit of money behind him, and he was drop-dead gorgeous. I fell head over heels for him and I think he liked the attention. What he didn’t like was the idea of monogamy, only I didn’t realise that until I was six months pregnant with his baby.’
I bite back a curse. ‘I see.’
‘Mmm. Walking in to find him in bed with someone else wasn’t exactly what I’d been planning on. It sounds stupid but I honestly thought he loved me. We were young; I was naïve.’ She frowns. ‘I think I probably wanted to be loved, you know? I wanted someone the opposite to my dad, someone who’d... I don’t know. Would make me feel part of a family. And he had a great family, big and happy.’
Her words feel accusatory when I know they’re not, but it’s a reminder that I can’t offer her what she wants—and I don’t plan on offering her anything more than this, anyway.
‘Maybe he did love you. Maybe the cheating was a mistake.’ The excuse surprises me. I don’t know why I make it for him. Perhaps to make her happy, to relieve her of some pain.
‘It doesn’t matter. Dave was a lifetime ago. I feel like I dodged a bullet in some ways.’ She pales. ‘Not because of the baby.’ Tears fill her eyes and that ache, right below my ribs, is back. ‘But because I found out he wasn’t being faithful and the stars fell from my eyes. It made it easier to leave, after—’
Her voice trails off into nothing.
‘I get it.’
And I do, but I also hate it. I don’t understand why, but I want to reach into Cora’s past and erase all this pain, I want to make things better for her. But I’m hardly anyone’s saviour. My path in life right now is bent on self-destruction and little more.
‘Do you ever hear from him?’
‘I hear of him, from time to time. Last I heard he was working on an oyster farm out of Broome.’
‘Married?’