When I Lost You: A Gripping, Heart Breaking Novel of Lost Love. (25 page)

‘I
am
going to go back to work one day. You
know
this is my calling,’ I say, and she groans and throws her head back in frustration.

‘Well, Leo, I’ll promise you one thing. The next time you’re in a coma in a foreign country, it won’t be
me
they call to deal with the aftermath. I’ll be back at home here raising our baby and getting on with my life.’

She slams the door as she leaves the room and I sigh and look back to the article. I see my name on the byline, and I wait for the thrill I’d always felt at the sight of that, and the impatience that’s hovering below the surface now that I’m grounded – the urge that is driving me to get well, and to get back to work.

Neither emotion surfaces this time. Instead, I can only think of Molly. I close the magazine and go after her. She’s in the bathroom and the shower is on. I manoeuvre myself in through the doorway and watch as she tears her clothes off and throws them with force onto the floor.

‘Is that what our fights are like?’ I say, and she glares at me as she steps under the stream of water.

‘That wasn’t a fight,’ she says, and she laughs bitterly. She lets the water run over her face and then turns to wet her hair. ‘That was a friendly discussion by our standards but it gives you an idea, and as great as this has been between us the last few weeks, it shows that our problems are still there and that we haven’t yet figured out a solution.’

‘Yeah,’ I murmur. ‘We need to find a compromise.’

‘There is no compromise.’

‘What if I travel less?’

‘You already promised me that once before. It didn’t last long.’

‘Do
you
have some ideas for a solution?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well?’

She pours shampoo into her palm and lathers up her hair before rinsing it off. The suds drain down over her glistening naked body and I follow their path, momentarily distracted from the very serious train of thought I’d been on.

‘Leo,’ she prompts, and I look back to her face. She raises an eyebrow at me.

‘Sorry,’ I mutter. ‘Maybe you should just stay naked all the time. It would be really hard for us to quarrel if you did.’

‘Even my naked body won’t be enough to stop you getting on that plane the minute your legs are back in action.’

‘So that’s your solution? I don’t work anymore?’ I feel a tic start up in my jaw, and I reach to rub it. Molly is applying conditioner now and she doesn’t answer me. ‘Would you really have me stuck here and miserable about it?’

‘I don’t think you can regulate yourself, Leo. I think you get so caught up in that world that you disconnect from this one. So yes, I think the solution is you not working in the field anymore. You can still write, you can still be a journalist, you could even be in a foreign posting if that was what you wanted – the baby and I would move with you. But you couldn’t cover conflict anymore – not in person – because your addiction to that adrenaline rush is
our kryptonite.’

She flicks the shower off and steps out, and I pass her the towel. She wraps it around her body to dry herself, and I catch the edge of it again and very gently pull it back away from her. I run my eye back down over her body. Her belly is slowly but surely expanding, and she’s glowing with a ripe fertility that is immensely attractive to me. I raise my eyes slowly up to her face and see her fighting against an answering response.

‘We have to have this conversation eventually, Leo,’ she whispers. Fleeting sadness crosses her face. ‘Everything hinges on this for us.’

‘I know,’ I say, and I swallow. ‘But we have
time
to figure this out. We don’t have to come up with a solution right at this minute – or––’ I drop my eyes again, and then I dare to offer her a grin as I glance back to her face, ‘even in the next half hour?’

Molly sighs and walks away from me.

‘Where are you going?’ I call, and she throws a glance over her shoulder.

‘To the bedroom, obviously. Try to keep up.’

L
eo
promised
me that he’d be home for Christmas. It had been such a difficult year – we’d spent most of it apart, and I couldn’t wait to reconnect with him. He had been gone for so long by that stage that I kept forgetting what his scent was like, and I’d taken to brushing my face along his clothes in the wardrobe every now and again, trying to catch a hint of it.

‘Christmas,’ he kept saying, whenever I told him I missed him or complained when he told me about yet another delay to his return home. ‘I’ll make it up to you at Christmas, I promise.’

With a few days to go, Leo emailed to say he’d be arriving in Sydney at six in the morning on Christmas Day – and although I never met him at the airport, this time could I make an exception? Everything was falling into place. We were going to have Christmas Day together, our first focused entirely on
us
.

I envisioned a sleepy day, cuddled up together in bed – and so it didn’t worry me at all that I was so excited on Christmas Eve that I couldn’t sleep. I considered staying up all night, but eventually drifted into a light doze. And then the phone rang at four o’clock on Christmas morning.

The shrill burst of the mobile on the pillow beside me sent me into an adrenaline rush and I was trembling by the time I pulled the handset to my ear. I tried to guess what the news was before I answered – plane crash? Car accident on the way to the airport? Stray bullet? Was he dead, or just injured?

‘Leo?’

‘Molly, honey – I’m so sorry. Everything is okay. I’m sorry to call so early but I had to ring while I had the chance. What time is it there?’

‘
There
? Here? What do you mean? Why aren’t you on a plane?’

His silence was all the answer I needed. Now I wasn’t sure which was the nightmare – was it the dream I’d just been having, or this?

‘I couldn’t leave, Molly. Have you seen the news? There’ve been protests – thousands of people marching––’

‘You mean, you
won’t
leave.’

‘I
can’t
.’

Leo’s frustration was palpable, and I was awake at last enough to hear how bad the phone line was, and I knew we weren’t going to be able to speak for long. I wanted to rant at him, or at least to tell him how much he was hurting me and how miserable I was about it. Instead, I sat up in bed and pushed the hair out of my eyes. Lucien lifted his head sleepily to glare at me and then suddenly stood and walked until he was able to drop himself over my lap. I sank my spare hand into the softness of his fur and let the warmth of his body be a comfort.

I hated every single thing about that moment – even our dog was now so accustomed to me being upset and alone that he knew exactly what the signs were and how to help. Alone was bad, but alone for Christmas was a new low. I could have gone to his family but everyone knew how excited I had been to spend the day with Leo. I was embarrassed even at the thought of turning up and telling them all that he hadn’t come home.

‘So when
will
you be home?’

‘I don’t know.’

I did not respond. There was nothing I could say. I thought about the Christmas-tree shaped vegemite sandwich I’d made. It was a silly gesture – an innocent gesture – and I’d felt light as air as I cut the shape out clumsily with a knife. It was waiting for Leo in the fridge. Instead of being safely home to eat it, I thought a little hysterically, maybe I could serve it at his wake. There was absolutely no point in me trying to ask him not to stay; he had already made the decision. This was a courtesy call so I wasn’t standing at the airport when his flight landed without him on it.

‘I love you, Molly,’ Leo said – at least, I thought maybe he’d said it, given the line was badly crackled by that point. I wanted to be silent and to make him see how livid I was and how hurt I was, but I was too scared that he would never come home and his last words from me would be an accusation –
why can’t you leave
? That was always the thing. If I tried to make Leo come home, I was stopping him from doing his work. And his work was important – too important for me to stand in the way of. Even, apparently at Christmas.

‘I love you too,’ I whispered. I was crying, and Lucien stood again and tried to lick my face. Our damned pet was moved by my pain, yet Leo was never even there to see it. He was busy tending to
other
people’s pain – other people’s problems that were so much worse than mine and so much more worthy of his attention.

‘I’ll be home in a week or two, I promise. We’ll have Christmas then, okay?’

But I knew that he would not be home in a week or two – not when the timeline was so vague. I knew that his vagueness meant that New Year’s Eve and my birthday would also be casualties to his work this year. I murmured something as if I believed him and then I hung up the phone. I had stopped crying by then; instead, I lay on my back and let Lucien cuddle up on Leo’s pillow. When I finally fell asleep again, I slept until eleven, and then I was awoken by a text from Mum.

Molly, Merry Christmas! I’m sure you are busy today, but if you do get time to get away on your own, please call past. We have a gift for you and we’d love to see you.

I didn’t even bother to wake up properly before I called her.

‘Molly! Darling!’

‘Mum,’ I said. ‘Can I come for lunch?’

‘Lunch? You want to come for lunch?
Today
?’

‘Yes, Mum.’

‘With… I mean, but – with––’

‘No, Mum – Leo is overseas. It’s just me.’

‘Oh, yes, darling –
please
– come! Dad will be so delighted; this is going to be a wonderful Christmas!’

I popped next door to give Mrs Wilkins the audio books I’d ordered for her, and she smothered me in hugs and gratitude and then sympathy when I told her Leo wasn’t going to make it home. Mrs Wilkins had bought each of us a gift but hadn’t had time to wrap them – there was a hand-knitted brown jumper for Leo, a lovely purple throw rug for me and a horrifying pink collar with diamantes on it for poor, emasculated Lucien. I left Mrs Wilkins when her son arrived to take her for lunch.

I hadn’t bought a gift for Mum and Dad – there was no point, really – they had enough money to buy any item in the world they might desire. Instead, as I walked into their dining room and saw the sheer joy break on their faces, I realised that my unexpected visit was the best gift they could have imagined. They lavished warmth on me that day – fussing over me at lunch as if I were a toddler. I felt a little guilty the whole time I was there, because I was only half in the moment and missing Leo’s presence so dreadfully that I could barely stand it. Once or twice I mentioned him because he was right
there
at the forefront of my mind – something I’d never done in all of the time since I reconciled with them. I learned that day that Leo’s name had the same effect on my parents that Declan’s once had; Dad would turn red and get snappy, Mum would freeze up and get teary. If I pushed it, the fragile bridge we’d built between us would disintegrate, and so as the hours stretched on, I tried harder to avoid his name – as if I were ashamed of him.

As we sat out on the deck afterwards and sipped champagne, Mum passed me an envelope. She and Dad were beaming, and I nearly dropped it when I realised what it was.

‘Happy Christmas, Darling,’ Mum whispered. She and Dad suddenly linked hands and I looked down at the cheque again and then back at them.

It was an obscene amount of money – more than my trust fund. I knew it was nothing to Mum and Dad in terms of their net wealth, but it would mean that I could expand the work of the Foundation immeasurably.

‘This is…’ I whispered, and I could barely breathe. When I looked up, Mum was still beaming at me but Dad was staring at the floor, his jaw stiff.

‘We figured you didn’t need anything for yourself,’ Dad said tersely. ‘And it’s a tax deduction.’

‘Dad, Mum – this means the world to me.’

‘We know, darling,’ Mum smiled at me, calmly and proudly, but without warning she burst into tears and threw her arms around my neck. Just softly enough that Dad wouldn’t have heard, she whispered into my ear, ‘You have done something for Declan’s memory that I could never have even dreamed of.
Thank you
.’

It was the first time I had heard my mother say my brother’s name in over ten years and although she was crying, I knew they were happy tears. Somehow, the work I was doing had given her some peace too. I wondered if this miraculous generosity would have eventuated had the Foundation been doing work with drug addicts or researching addiction, which was something I’d vaguely thought we might try to fund in the future. Still – it was a gesture that I could never refuse, and one that I hoped showed an acceptance of the person I now was.

I was still so angry with Leo, but as soon as I got home, I took a photo of the cheque and emailed it to him.
Leo, I hope you’re still alive to read this. See the image? From Mum and Dad for Christmas. Isn’t it wonderful? This is going to generate so much publicity – I’m sure more money will follow from their ‘end of town’.
I almost hit the send button, and then I re-read my flippant intro to the email and softened. Once again I rested my hands on the keyboard and added a farewell.
Please be safe, love. I couldn’t live without you. Come home soon.

I
wake
up in the middle of the night thinking about our argument –
‘friendly discussion’
according to Molly – and after a while, I realise I’m not going back to sleep.

I go to the kitchen for tea, fix the cup into the holder that’s been attached to my wheelchair and take myself out onto the balcony. The sliding doors are in tracks that would have prevented me from getting out there, but Molly had ramps added. There’s not a place in this apartment that I can’t go, and not a thing I can’t do for myself: she has thought of everything. It matters to her that I’m happy here.

I face the sparkling arch of the bridge and let the breeze fan the last vestiges of sleep from my mind. It’s dark, and I feel alone with my thoughts. I haven’t even thought about failure in this quest to rebuild a life with Molly so far; I do not actually consider it an option. I also haven’t considered what my life would look like if I wasn’t able to return to work at all. Sitting on the balcony nursing my tea, I let myself think about both possibilities for just a moment. Molly has not issued me an ultimatum – although I know she hates my job, I also know that she understands how important it is to me.

All the same, the conversation in the shower left no doubt in my mind that a serious change in my role is the direction her thoughts have taken. Was that what caused the break between us? I know I need to ask her about the moments that led to us separating, but that question is one that I have quite deliberately postponed. I know that it is going to be an intensely painful conversation and we need a level of intimacy and trust between us before we go there.

It is coming, and I will ask soon – but I still do not know what I will say if she tries to make me choose. For just a moment I imagine getting back to work. The vision that arises is one of the places where I have always felt most alive – I can smell gunpowder and dust and blood in the air. I can hear the explosions in the distance, and machine gun fire nearby, and Brad in my ear inevitably trying to convince me to pull back.

I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins and that strange sense of triumph when I finally understand the situation in a way that no one has understood it before. I picture myself at the computer later in the dingy hotel room, the words flowing out of me. I feel the satisfaction of that moment when the magazine is in my hands and it is
me
who has interpreted the conflict and brought it to light. It is me who has determined how history will remember that moment in time.

Those are the moments when I feel I am the most powerful man in the world. I have overcome the fear – but not just that, I am the
only one
who has overcome the fear. I have given a voice to the voiceless.

I love those moments – I love them with passion and strength and fire.

I look down at my legs, their form illuminated only by the light I left on in the kitchen. They are already wasting – the muscles fading away from disuse despite the hours of therapy I’ve been doing. I think about the headaches I get almost daily – throbbing pain that starts at the site of the fracture and that radiates all through my skull sometimes. I think about the mental tiredness and the fogginess that still creeps up on me unexpectedly.

I resist all of these things as if I can will them away just by refusing to acknowledge them, but they are very real, and some days they limit my ability to go about even this life here in Sydney with Molly. Usually I try to spin it so that she joins me and we can make it a peaceful, relaxing time of togetherness, but some days I have to nap just to get through the afternoon. On those days, I wouldn’t make it through a working day even if my job had me sitting at a desk crunching numbers.

The neurologist has told me that all of these things are normal for someone with a brain injury – and even once I’m walking, and even once my memory returns some of these symptoms may persist for the rest of my life. This reality would be difficult enough to accept had the accident been some freak occurrence, but that isn’t the case here.

I stop and I stare out at the water and for just a moment, I swallow hard. It is difficult to acknowledge, even just quietly within myself, but Molly is right: this accident happened because I was in a dangerous place doing a dangerous job. It could have been avoided. There is a chance that I will spend the rest of my life suffering the after-effects of an injury that I brought upon myself.

Even as I acknowledge this, the drive to return to the field resurges and I tell myself again and again that
it is worth it.
My job is amazing – it defines me – it is who I am. I sit in my wheelchair and nurse my headache and know that I brought all of that on myself and yet I
still
can’t wait to get back to work.

I force myself to imagine what my home life would look like if Molly did issue me an ultimatum and I did choose the job I love. I picture myself returning to the terrace alone, but however hard I try, I can’t even imagine it. I try to tell myself that life would simply go back to the way it was before her, but this lie is so unconvincing that I cannot even pretend to buy it.

I simply cannot imagine life after Molly. I do love my work, and it is fulfilling, but if it is all that I have, isn’t my life actually empty?

And then, there is the baby… How would Molly raise a child on her own? She is more than capable of meeting the challenge, but I try to imagine what that would look like. I think about our childhoods and the different ways that we approach life. Ideally, our baby will have the benefits of both of our strengths, and the balance of both of our weaknesses. I suspect even Molly knows that she was spoilt by the excesses of her upbringing in the same way I know that I was damaged by the sheer
lack
in mine.

But would Molly even know to ensure that our child has a rounded education – not just the best schools, but a broad range of experiences? Would she push our baby too hard academically in the same way that her parents pushed Declan? Might she expose it to the things that she missed out on – would she ensure that it understands and appreciates its privilege, that it has an opportunity to be a person who understands the value of work, the value of saving, the value of possessions and achievements?

Would she even have a clue about the challenges faced by a black child, particularly if it went to a school full of wealthy white kids? There is no way around that: the baby needs
me
to navigate those aspects of its life.

Molly will love our child and she will nurture it and provide for it, but she is also soft, and she will want to spoil it – I know this with absolute certainty because she has even done so with me. She will throw birthday parties that are extravagant and give over-the-top gifts. We will argue about those things, I realise, and I feel the slow sinking of my gut. Even if we do restore our marriage, we will have to find ways –
healthy
ways – of finding the balance in all of these vast and countless differences. We have to get past the automatic reflex to speak louder and with more force, and find ways to connect, even when it hurts. That is not something that comes easily to either of us. For the very first time, it occurs to me that if the worst-case scenario does eventuate and if Molly and I cannot make our marriage work, we will have to talk about custody.

As I realise this, I am gripped by a fear that is every bit as real as an adrenaline moment on the battlefield. If we separate, if we cannot find a solution to the problem of my work, then there is a good chance that I would find myself in a custody battle with a woman of unlimited wealth.

I know that she would never keep me from seeing the baby altogether. But equally, I know that she is going to love that baby and it is going to be immensely difficult for her to part with it. Would I be forced into a situation where I only saw the baby when it suited Molly? What would that look like? A few hours on a Saturday afternoon? Every second weekend? A day here and there between my assignments?

Would I have any say at all in its upbringing if that happened? I am suddenly furious even at the thought of an outcome in this situation where I might completely lose control over my family life. I am going to be a good father and I won’t let Molly take that away from me. One way or another I will be present in my child’s life. As it occurs to me how utterly powerless I would be in that situation, I feel such anger towards her that I want to pack my things and go back to the terrace. The sheer loudness of this emotion is like a slap to my face, and I realise how far ahead of myself I’m getting. Molly is still trying to work all of this out, just as I am. Neither of us even wants to be apart from the other. I feel my pulse begin to settle and I have almost regained my equilibrium when the door behind me opens.

‘Leo?’ she calls softly.

I turn my chair back towards her and see the concern in her beautiful blue eyes. The last of my rage evaporates. She loves our baby – but she loved me first. For all of the pain that I have put her through, she is still trying. I reach for her hand and she steps out to join me on the balcony. The breeze whips her hair around her face.

‘We need to make this work,’ I whisper.

‘I know,’ she whispers back, and she gives me a smile. ‘Please come back to bed, I’m lonely without you.’

I follow her back inside and we climb back into bed and I take her in my arms. She falls back to sleep, snoring softly against my ear, but I lie awake for a long time considering the sheer weight of the possibilities that lie ahead of us.

M
olly warns
me that she will be late home from work the next day. She’s going to meet her parents for coffee to tell them about the baby.

‘Have you thought any more about me trying to reconcile with them, Molly?’ I ask.

‘I have,’ she says lightly. ‘I’ll try to run the idea by Dad this afternoon.’

When she comes home several hours later, Molly is upset, but she shrugs off my attempts to comfort her. She takes a bath, and when she emerges, she tells me quietly, ‘I’m not going to see my parents any more, Leo.’

‘But – why?’

She puts her hand on my thigh and she squeezes gently. ‘I realised today how unfair it was for me to reconnect with them the way that I did. I did it because I missed them and I was lonely.’

‘It’s natural for you to want your parents in your life, especially
now
.’

She shakes her head. ‘I’ve made up my mind. If they can’t accept you, they can’t accept me. I should have said that to them two years ago, because I think by dropping back into their lives like that, I kind of condoned the way they treat you. It was a betrayal, in a sense, because I didn’t insist that they respect you. And it’s not okay, Leo. You did nothing wrong.’

‘We’ve talked about this. About Dec. I get why they blame me.’

‘
No
,’ Molly says. Given how fragile she seemed when she walked through the door from visiting them, I’m amazed at the determination in her voice. ‘I won’t be a part of it. You have my loyalty, Leo – all of it this time. I mean it. You can trust me, I promise you.’

‘What happened, love?’

‘I asked Dad if he’d consider having coffee with us – both of us. I thought it would be better now, you know, because of the baby. But Dad can be such a hateful man. I think it’s easier for him to blame you for what happened than to accept that it was actually Declan’s problem. In any case, I told them that you and I are a package deal and that they don’t get to treat you badly and have me or our baby in their lives.’

By the time she’s finished talking, her voice is little more than a whisper and she’s almost in tears. Then she sits up suddenly and groans in frustration. She wipes her eyes on her sleeves and growls, ‘I hate being a weepy pregnant woman!’

‘You know what will help with that,’ I say, and she raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Ice cream. With or without pickles, your choice.’

‘Without.’

‘I’ll go out and pick some up, and then we can watch
The Bachelor
together.’ She brightens considerably at this offer, so I caution, ‘This is a one-time-only offer, by the way.’

‘Thanks, Leo.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’