When I Lost You: A Gripping, Heart Breaking Novel of Lost Love. (24 page)

‘You told me the name of your resort when we were on the phone, and I Googled that too.’

I remember the sinking feeling in my gut as I read about it, and realised just what kind of place she’d planned for us. I’d been imagining our weekend away to be just like that amazing trip we took to Uluru – staying somewhere comfortable but modest – somewhere I could afford to pay for myself. I didn’t think the setting mattered until I saw what
she
had planned. I thought our focus would be on time together more than anything else.

‘So…?’

‘You called it a “retreat”,’ I say gently. ‘But it
wasn’t
a “retreat”, Molly – it was an exclusive resort – the price for even the most basic room was thousands of dollars per night, and I knew you
wouldn’t
have booked the most basic room.’

‘I didn’t. I wanted to surprise you – I knew how tough things had been for you in Iraq,’ she whispered, and she shook her head again. ‘I don’t understand, Leo. It’s not like we couldn’t afford it.’

‘I’d planned a humble, simple weekend away. You would have been so disappointed if it had gone ahead as I planned. No gourmet food, no butler, no private balcony with sunken spa, not a masseuse in sight. And Molly, I knew
I
was going to feel
very
uncomfortable in that place you had booked – but that was your expectation of a casual weekend away. I didn’t even
know
about such places, let alone think to book them for us.’

‘Are you telling me that you didn’t come home because you didn’t want to go to my resort?’

She sounds angry, and so she should. I hesitate a little. ‘No, it was much more complex than that. There were good reasons to stay. There was genuine unrest brewing; good stories to write…’ I dare to glance at her again and find her eyes swimming in tears. The breath leaves my lungs in a rush. ‘No. Yes. Okay, Molly, I will be brutally honest with you. I stayed in the field because I felt powerful and capable there. And when I looked at your plans for our first anniversary, I felt completely out of my depth with you.’ I force myself to continue – tearing myself open – pressing through the pain because it might be a way forward and we
have
to find a way forward, but the words I say come from a place so deep inside me that I could have hidden them forever and no one would have known. ‘I don’t think I have
ever
felt as inadequate as I did that day.’

Molly draws in a shuddering breath and a single tear rolls down her face. I’m breathing heavily because that admission was hard work and now I’m feeling exposed and unsure if it’s even going to be worth it. I touch a shaking fingertip to dry the line of moisture that has run from her eye down into her hair, and suddenly I need to hold her: I need to wrap my arms around her and promise her that I will do better.

I remain still, because I am not at all sure I deserve to have that need met.

‘If you had just told me this…’ she says unsteadily.

‘Surely you understand that I couldn’t.’

‘Why are you telling me now?’

‘I
told
you,’ I whisper, ‘I will do whatever it takes to fix this. Maybe these conversations, as painful as they are, are all that was missing in the first place. Do you think?’

Molly sits up and she throws her arms around my neck and she presses her face into it.

‘I’m so sorry, Leo.’

‘No,’ I whisper weakly. ‘
I’m
sorry.’

‘I can see that.’ We sit in silence for a minute or two, and then Molly whispers urgently, ‘Leo, did you remember what happened in that bar yet?’

I shake my head.

‘I don’t think you cheated on me,’ she says. Her voice is very small. ‘And I’m not trying to attack you, but you really
weren’t
in the country very much over those last few years. If you
were
unfaithful, there were months at a time when you could have done it with complete privacy in some foreign hotel. I can’t imagine you’d wait until you got back to Sydney to do it.’

‘
I
can’t imagine I would have ever have even looked at another woman,’ I murmur. ‘It must have been something else. It
must
have been.’

We sit in silence for a minute. Molly turns, but then relaxes against me, resting her head in the hollow of my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her and rest my chin on her head.

‘I need to ask something of you,’ she says quietly.

‘
Anything
, honey.’

‘It’s a big ask.’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Go on.’

‘Can you discharge yourself from the rehab clinic and come home?’

This is the very last thing I am expecting from her. I pull her gently away from me and she meets my gaze. Her eyes are dry now, but she is wearing a mask of determination that I don’t understand.

‘Here?’ I say. ‘But how? I mean…’

‘No, probably not here,’ she says reluctantly. ‘I mean, you were too pissed off about the tea to notice, but I did get those chairlifts put in…’

I look at the stairs. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Well…’

‘The thing is, there’s no room for equipment,’ Molly interrupts me. ‘And once you use that thing to get up there, you’ll realise how frustratingly slow it is – they
will
get you up and down the stairs, but not in a hurry.’

‘So – what are you thinking?’

‘I know you’ll hate this idea, but my apartment at Bennelong seems to be the best option. There’s a pool there you can use and endless room for equipment and there are no stairs, just the elevator. I can get railings installed in the bathrooms and whatever else you need – I’m sure there’s a way to lower the counters in the kitchen, but even if there’s not, you could just call downstairs and the concierge would bring your tea anyway.’

She’s speaking fast; trying to get all the words out before I can cut her off, I suspect. I wait until she’s finished, and then I tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear and rest my forehead against hers. It feels amazing to be this close to her. Even the vulnerability of this conversation at some point stopped being painful and became its own reward.

‘You really want this?’

‘I do.
So
much. I can see that
you
really mean it – you do really want to fix things. Well, I am starting to think that maybe I do too. And I don’t think we can do this unless we work at it together.’

I do remember the first time we tried to figure out where to live. We went back and forth about it for weeks – she was adamant she wanted to be at Bennelong, I couldn’t think of anything worse, and nothing has changed – I still hate that apartment. It’s a sterile, artificial home in a sterile, artificial world full of wealthy people who look down on me and who wallow in their lazy privilege. There’s no spirit and no sense of community – no cheerful Mrs Wilkins next door, no beautiful jacaranda trees to see at the window.

But
Molly
will be there. I could wake up next to Molly every morning again. And her eyes are pleading me. She really
wants this – maybe she even needs it. And if I’m there, I could take care of her and our baby.

‘Okay,’ I say.

‘Okay, you’ll think about it?’ she asks hesitantly.

‘No,’ I say, smiling at her. ‘Okay, I’ll do it. When do we start?’

I
woke
on the morning of my first wedding anniversary and rolled over to see Lucien asleep beside me. I rolled again, to the other direction, where my phone rested beside the bed. I picked it up to check for a text from Leo, and when I found his email, I let misery and disappointment rush in at me. I thought how much I missed his presence in our house, and how empty life felt when he was away – and then out of nowhere, an idea struck me. I picked the phone back up and called my mum.

I hadn’t spoken to her in a year – not since just before the wedding.

‘Molly?’ she seemed uncertain as she answered, and the sound of her voice was almost enough to break me.

‘Hi, Mum,’ I said. I was aiming for nonchalance, but was upset enough that the words came out sounding high-pitched anyway.

‘Sweetheart, are you okay?’

‘I miss you. I miss Daddy,’ I said, and it was true. I felt much more than lonely – I felt
alone
. Mum didn’t respond at first. When she spoke again, she was whispering, ‘Darling, Daddy is never going to accept that man. He’s just not. There’s too much history.’

‘I know. But do you think he can accept
me
? Can you? Leo is away so much; maybe I could meet you two for lunch sometime.’

‘We assumed you wouldn’t
want
to see us under those circumstances, Molly,’ Mum said, stiffly.

‘You’re my parents. I love you. I hate the distance, Mum. Don’t you? Can I see you if we don’t talk about Leo?’

I had coffee with Mum that afternoon. It was a very tense catch-up, but I felt it had been a good start. Two days later, on the day I
should
have been travelling back to Sydney on the back of Leo’s new bike, I went for Sunday brunch at my parents’ mansion on the water at Point Piper.

Dad hugged me, but he didn’t mention me leaving TM, and he didn’t mention Leo. Instead, over Eggs Benedict and coffees, I automatically filled the somewhat awkward silence by talking about my new career. They did not actually acknowledge that I’d named the Foundation after Declan, but we talked for hours about the work I was doing. They seemed so interested – and I found that to be remarkably energising.

By the time I left that day, I knew my parents were proud of me, and that went a long way towards consoling the wound on my soul that had been left by Leo’s absence. I wanted to tell him, but I knew instinctively that he wouldn’t like me spending time with them. Whenever the subject of my parents came up, he’d clam up and tense up and then change the subject, as if he couldn’t even stand to hear about them. So I decided that I would continue to meet with them occasionally, but only when he was out of town, and mainly to keep them abreast of the work of the charity I’d named for their son.

I didn’t realise at the time that I was actually adding more and more layers of complexity and distance to what was gradually becoming a complex and distant marriage.

I
am encouraged
by the change in tone between Molly and me after the conversation about our anniversary. I feel that night marks the point where those catch-ups we have each afternoon become less of an obligation on her part, and more about reconnecting with me. We go out less, and we touch one another more. She is affectionate with me again, just as she was when we first met, and I can’t hold her hand while we walk, so I hold it all the time as we sit.

I suspect that she is working a miracle for me at Bennelong. She won’t let me see because she wants to surprise me, but she promises me that once she’s done with that place, I will feel at home there. Given all of the energy I once threw into resisting this very thing, I’m surprisingly calm about my home being one of Sydney’s wealthiest addresses. I am actually starting to suspect ‘home’ will be whatever building I am in when I wake up next to Molly again.

But even if I am making progress with my life and my memories, there’s no denying that I am getting nowhere with my disability. I still cannot even stand independently. Sometimes I can
stand for a few seconds – if it’s early in the day and I’m not tired, and if someone else holds me straight because I can’t balance myself, and if I have something to hold myself up on. I spend hours every day working at this, and the progress I’ve made feels like nothing at all.

It’s pitiful and frustrating, and I am sensing increasing pessimism from my therapists at the rehabilitation clinic. Their focus is gradually shifting away from getting me upright again to convincing me I need to get used to being permanently seated.

‘You’re getting around so well in the wheelchair, a lot of patients don’t ever seem as comfortable as you do,’ the therapist tells me, and when he says it several days in a row, I finally snap.

‘Is that your way of telling me I need to get used to it?’

‘Well, Leo… for the time being, anyway, it might be better to accept this situation and find ways to cope with it, rather than focusing on changing it.’

I insist on a new therapist, but the second one isn’t much better – proposing a regime which focuses less on the mechanics of getting me back on my feet, and more on mastering ways of living that don’t require it at all. The mood at the rehabilitation clinic has shifted, and it’s an immense relief when Molly tells me that the apartment at Bennelong is ready for me to move in.

I visit at her office one afternoon, and we interview for a physiotherapist to work with me full-time at our new home. Out of the half-dozen that Molly and Tobias have selected for the interview, there’s a clear stand-out.

‘Tracy seems the best,’ I tell Molly, and she raises an eyebrow at me.

‘There were four men, one dowdy middle-aged woman and a stunning blonde. You
had
to pick the blonde?’

‘She was definitely the most positive,’ I protest, and Molly sighs.

‘She
was
the most positive.’

‘The others were all blabbing on about “coping strategies” just like those idiots at the rehabilitation centre.
She
was talking about aggressive therapy to get me back on my feet.’

‘That’s true. I just…’ She glances at me and shrugs.

‘Plus, this Tracy seems like a real professional. It’s not
her
fault she looks like that.’

‘Also true.’

‘I mean, you’re drop-dead gorgeous too, and you’d never blur the lines between your work and your personal life.’

‘You’re saying all the right things.’

‘I’ll pick one of the guys if that makes you more comfortable.’

‘No, take the hot blonde. She did seem to be the only one who thought she’d get you back on your feet,’ Molly sighs, then she mutters, ‘But you should know, if we need to hire a nanny once the baby comes, I’m going to pick some gorgeous young guy with a six-pack as revenge.’

‘I’m sure he’ll have more going for him than a six-pack – a degree in child development, at least.’

‘Let’s see who applies for the position. I can be flexible about qualifications where there’s a six-pack involved.’

‘What was that I was saying about you being a professional who’d never blur lines?’

She grins at me, and kisses me. ‘I’ll call Tracy and offer her the job,’ she tells me.

My whirlwind wife has organised everything for me. She had all of the kitchen counters and bathroom spaces lowered so I can access them, and the space I remember as one of her sitting areas has miraculously been transformed into a rehabilitation gym. I’ll work out with the physiotherapist with a 180-degree view of Sydney Harbour to enjoy. Molly has even organised for a permanent dog walker, who will bring Lucien into the city to visit us a few times a week. She’s thought of everything. The day the tradesmen move out, I pack my bag and have the van take me to my new home. She’s waiting at the door when the elevator opens and we stare at each other.

‘Welcome home,’ Molly says. I move myself forward to her, push my bag off my lap onto the floor and take both of her hands in mine.

‘It’s
great
to be home,’ I say, and I mean it. She shows me around and I survey the changes she’s made with a sense of almost overwhelming awe.

‘What do you think?’ Molly asks me nervously when we return to the entrance.

‘What do I think?’ I repeat, and I grab her hand and pull her onto my lap. ‘Kiss me. I love you.
That’s
what I think!’

She giggles and gives me a very gentle, teasing kiss, then disentangles herself and walks back into the kitchen.

‘You promised me a soufflé when you came home, Stephens,’ she calls.

‘This is a
lot
of effort to go to just to get a soufflé,’ I say as I follow her.

‘Pregnant women sometimes do some crazy things in order to fulfil their cravings. I would have thought you’d have learned that with all of your research.’

L
ater that night
, after takeout and soufflés, we make love in Molly’s bed – that same bed where we made love for the very first time. There are echoes of that night all around us, but it is inevitably a very different expression of our love.

I am, by necessity, a much more passive participant now. We find creative ways to work around my disability and Molly is very good at distracting me at moments when I might have fixated on what I
can’t
do rather than the miracle of what
we
still can. We make it work – and somehow, the determined teamwork and communication required add a layer of intimacy that I hadn’t expected.

Afterwards, she lies against my chest and I hold her so tightly that my arms tremble around her. Humbled by her, and humbled by the experience of being
with
her again, I kiss her hair and I whisper to her, ‘I love you so much.’ I squeeze my arms around her again. ‘These have always been my favourite moments with you.’

‘Really?’ she sounds sceptical, and I laugh softly and kiss her again.

‘Yeah, really. For me, these are the moments that make what we just did “making love” rather than “having sex”.’

When we fall asleep that night, we lie on our sides and I tuck my whole body up close against her back. I rest my hands on her belly, over the place where our baby is nestled, and I feel completely at peace and completely content with my situation – thoughts of work and my legs and even my memory are far, far away.

L
iving
in Molly’s apartment feels a little bit like a honeymoon, except of course for the hours of physical therapy I’m doing every day. I get up early and swim, then join her for breakfast. We read the newspapers together over toast and fresh coffee from the café, and then we each get to work – but now my work is my physical therapy with Tracy, and Molly’s awaits her at the Foundation building in Redfern.

By mid-afternoon, I’m finished and rested, and Molly returns to the apartment. We have promised each other that we will spend the afternoons together – even if we do nothing more than lie side by side on the couch to read. Some days, we meet up with Brad and Penny or my family, or we go out for coffee or dinner. Most days we go for a stroll through the Botanic Gardens near her house and we talk.

‘Can you tell me about a time when I was in the field and it was okay?’ I ask her one afternoon. She looks at me blankly.

‘
Okay
?’ she repeats, and I shrug.

‘Well, presumably you did get at least a little used to it. I mean, I was travelling to war zones from the first few months we were together and you were fine with it then.’

‘No, I really wasn’t. And I never got used to it.’

I just need a
hint
of positivity and her refusal to give it to me is frustrating. ‘That’s a bit overdramatic, don’t you think?’

‘I think
that
attitude is a big part of the reason I gave up on our marriage, actually.’

‘That attitude?’ I’m shocked, because I didn’t even realise I’d shown her attitude. I repeat my own words back in my mind, but the mystery is solved when she stops walking and says flatly, ‘That dismissive, arrogant streak that you have, which only creeps out when we talk about your work.’

I sigh and offer her an apologetic grimace. ‘I’m just trying to keep this conversation balanced.’

‘No, you’re trying to
win
. For you the best-case scenario in these chats is that I have a revelation that it was okay after all and you sort your mobility out and things go back to normal. You can’t talk me into that outcome. I
didn’t lose
my
memory; I know what it was like. I worried about you constantly. The more I showed you that, the less you updated me. The less you kept in contact, the more I worried and the more isolated I felt. There was no point when you were away in a war zone and I woke up alone and thought to myself,
well, this is nice
.’

‘Okay, fine – but weren’t there times when you were more proud of my work than you were frustrated by it?’

‘I am absolutely proud of your work and now that I have a career I have a passion for, I even understand why you need to do it.’

‘So, there were assignments that you
were
supportive of me going on?’

‘I always
tried
to be supportive,’ she sighed. ‘But I love you, Leo. I wanted you
with
me. I married you to share a life with you, not to catch up every few months for a few days then feel you tear away again. Especially… especially
now
.’ She touches a hand to the gentle curve of her belly, and I nod, but I don’t say anything. The discussion remains unresolved, but I keep telling myself that we
will
figure out a middle ground, and a compromise too, and there will be a way that I can get back to my work and keep Molly in my life.

Because the more ‘at home’ I start to feel at Bennelong, the more desperate I am to get back into the field. It’s not that I want to run away from Molly, it’s just that I do love my job, and my days feel aimless without it.

I’m gradually reading back through the articles I wrote over the years I have lost. They are all familiar to me, but as I read them, I often remember the moments I spent in the field researching. This is bittersweet – because it makes me desperately want to return and that life feels so far away from me still. But it’s an exercise that I undertake almost as a form of study, because even reliving those days gives me a hint of the
meaning
that’s missing from my life.

One day, I read an article I wrote early in the Syrian conflict and I see an image Brad took of an old couple sitting among the rubble of their house. I remember a fleeting sense of frustration towards Molly as I see that photo and I show it to her when she comes home.

‘Oh yes,
that
,’ she sighs, and she offers me a sad smile. ‘We fought about that photo.’

I sigh too. ‘God, it just goes on and on. How did we fight about a
photo
?’

‘You showed it to me when you came home from your trip, and I told you that I thought they looked similar – I thought they were brother and sister.’

‘They do, I guess.’

‘Your theory was that they’d lived a shared life – that because they farmed the land together they’ve had the same environmental exposure: they’ve eaten the same food, they’ve laughed and cried at the same time and life has weathered each of them in much the same way. So at eighty, or whatever age they were, they wound up looking kind of similar. And I think I said something like it wouldn’t apply in
our
case, because the way you were going, with all the stupid risks you were taking, you’d probably be dead by then, anyway.’ Her voice is flat, almost emotionless. ‘And then you probably said something about my being so unsupportive of your career and that it wasn’t forever… blah, blah, blah. Cue yelling and Lucien hiding with Mrs Wilkins until the noise quietens down.’

I focus not on the argument, but on a single aspect of it. ‘You felt I was taking too many risks in the field?’

‘I did. So did
everyone
, except maybe Kisani, who seemed to rather enjoy the bump in the magazine’s popularity every time you got yourself injured and made the news.’ I frown, and Molly sighs. ‘I didn’t mean that. She was devastated after your accident and she apologised to me for letting you go ahead with the assignment. Even she knew it was a mistake by then.’

‘But
was
it a mistake?’ I ask carefully. ‘I mean, sometimes you do have to take risks in the field to get the important stories. And I was hurt in a car accident; that could have happened here in Sydney on the way to a Sunday brunch.’

Molly raises an eyebrow at me. ‘But it didn’t. It happened in Syria, while you and the militia you were embedded with were outrunning a squad of government soldiers who were trying to blow you up. Are you seriously going to sit in that wheelchair and try to tell me that pursuing the story that got you this brain injury wasn’t a mistake?’

‘Battlefields are dangerous places. And the important stories are never in the safe zones.’

Molly stands up abruptly.

‘
Don’t
, Molly,’ I say, and I catch her hand. ‘Stay, talk to me about it.’

‘Don’t you understand how hard it is for me to hear you say that? I thought you were going to
die
, Leo! I had to think through whether I could stand to fly back on the jet with your
body
,’ she hisses, and she shakes my hand off hers. ‘You’re not even walking again yet and already you’re justifying the next dangerous assignment you take. I just don’t understand why you have to keep pushing the boundaries all of the time.’