‘Very smart.’ It was her stock answer, the same one she gave every day because she wasn’t even sure he was listening, his mind already somewhere else.
He walked over and bent to give her a kiss. A fleeting touch of his lips, the kiss gone before it had properly landed, another part of the routine. That’s me, she thought as she watched him walk out of the bedroom. Just part of the routine.
‘Bye, Alice,’ he called as he left the room, and she froze as if he’d unwittingly fired an arrow into her heart. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. It wasn’t even the second, and she stared at the empty doorway, her breath hitching in her throat.
Just a mistake, she told herself. His mind’s on work, doesn’t mean anything. She thought back to her childhood, her mother always calling her and her sister Kate by the wrong names, distracted by whatever she was doing at the time. Doesn’t mean anything, she reassured herself again, but decided that she’d mention it to him. Present it as evidence that he was spending too much of his time thinking about work and not enough thinking about his home life.
She sat staring into space, her thoughts sneaking back to what might have been. Connor. His name flowed into her mind, along with a flurry of images until they filled every little space. She lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, inspecting each memory before putting it back and picking another. Sunshine and laughter. Lots of banter. The sea, surfing, cooking barbies on the beach, salty skin, road trips to the Blue Mountains, watching the sunrise, the sunset, boat trips. Snorkelling over the Great Barrier Reef. And talking. So much talking about everything and nothing. Connor knows more about me than anyone else on the planet. She knew this to be true, and she missed his friendship, the way he would always listen. And frankly, he’d had a lot to listen to when they’d first met, things that she’d never revealed to Dean lest she frighten him away.
Becca had been signed off work for four months before she’d been persuaded to take a sabbatical and had headed off to Australia. It was at the suggestion of her friend Tina, a fellow nurse who’d emigrated to Sydney five years earlier and had settled there with her Australian husband.
‘Come and stay,’ she’d said. ‘We’ve loads of space. The weather’s fantastic, you can just hang out, or find yourself a job, whatever works for you. I think getting away from the whole mess is going to be best. Fastest way to put it all behind you, don’t you think?’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ had been Becca’s first response, dismissing the idea before she’d even had time to think about it. Her go-to answer of the moment being ‘no’. She’d been trying to catch herself doing it, as her therapist had suggested, making a conscious effort to turn ‘no’ into ‘yes’ at least some of the time, but it really was a struggle.
Her therapist had been delighted by the idea of a break. ‘What a wonderful opportunity,’ she’d said, beaming over the top of her bifocals, her blonde hair a curly nest sitting on top of her round moon of a face. ‘I think some time away from home, putting some distance between you and your… troubles would be just the ticket. You wouldn’t dwell quite so much on what happened, and if your friend is a nurse, well, you’ll be in sympathetic company. Unlike your mother.’ She’d cocked her head. ‘With the best will in the world, being at home is not really working, is it?’
The next time Tina had repeated the offer, Becca had forced herself to accept. Spurred on by the fact her mother had been hinting that it was time for her to move back into her own apartment because, really, there was nothing wrong with her, was there? The tension had been mounting, and she’d noticed an increase in the hissed conversations between her parents, little digs at every opportunity. Eventually, it had become unbearable, and the challenge of flying halfway round the world by herself was more palatable than moving back into a place of her own, where she’d have nothing but her thoughts to keep her company.
Tina had lured her with talk of sunshine and heat and kangaroos and kookaburras and koalas, all out there in the countryside, common as rabbits. It was strange, she thought now, how random things could unblock your thinking. Once she’d been there a few weeks, Tina had helped her find a bar job, and Becca had been surprised to find that she loved it. Six months into her stay, with her mental health well on the way to recovery, she’d met Connor.
Their relationship was intense, spending every moment they possibly could with each other. They’d had a couple of weekends away, going up to Cairns so she could see the Great Barrier Reef. Then she’d given up her bar job to travel round the south coast with him, surfing and picking up casual work, living in his campervan. After five months, though, she was yearning for stability. Connor hadn’t been ready to stay in one place. That’s when they agreed to have a break, and she’d gone back to stay with Tina while he’d carried on his travels.
Her heart had ached for him, but her head had told her he wasn’t long-term partner material. They’d continued talking every other day and she’d been completely conflicted, her head and heart at war with each other, and her biological clock ticking away in the background. Her dreams had children in them. Lots of children. But Connor was a free spirit, and parenting hadn’t been in his plans for the foreseeable future.
When her mum had had a stroke and died, it had turned her thinking on its head.
She’d travelled home for the funeral but had bought a return ticket. ‘I’ll be back in a month,’ she’d assured him at the airport. She hadn’t understood how grief would hit her once she’d arrived back home. Or how diminished her father would appear, shaking and swaying, hardly able to walk on his own, let alone look after himself. She’d soon understood she couldn’t leave him. A month at home was nowhere near enough to deal with the loss of her mother, or the unresolved issues which had been left hanging between them. With her mum gone, her dad became her priority, and Australia seemed as distant as another planet, completely out of her reach.
A little hand tugged at her hair and she blinked her eyes open, shocked out of her reverie. Big hazel eyes gazed back at her. ‘Are you awake, Mummy?’ Mia asked, earnestly, as if it wasn’t obvious. Becca laughed.
‘I am now,’ she said, pulling her daughter into a hug, burying her nose in her tangle of curls, filling herself with the scent of the little person who ruled her heart. Connor’s in the past, she told herself firmly. This is my future.
‘I’m hungry,’ Mia said, wriggling from Becca’s grasp and tugging at her hand. ‘Time for breakfast, Mummy.’
Becca allowed herself to be pulled out of bed and padded downstairs with her daughter’s tiny hand wrapped in her own, a sensation that she never ceased to delight in. Because there was a time when she’d thought she’d never be able to trust herself to look after a child. A time when she hadn’t trusted herself to know what was real.
3
It was never a good idea to let her mind go back to those dark days; it was like stepping in quicksand, which grabbed at her thoughts, pulling her down and refusing to let go. She focused on chopping up fruit for Mia’s breakfast while she tried to keep the past at bay. Her phone pinged with a new message. Connor? She made herself finish what she was doing, settled Mia with her food and then checked her phone. Her shoulders slumped when she saw it was from her boss, Carol, asking her to call.