A truly horrible thought attacks me out of nowhere. This intensely personal truth Cam shared with Hugh is something that would have hurt me. That’s why Hugh had to leave town to work out what to do.
His steel integrity is unshakeable. Ironic that the very thing I most admire about him will be the thing that shoots us down. It’s driving that wedge so deep between us I can’t even speak. It’s the idea of being excluded by the two men who I—
Forget The Unravelling. This is cataclysmic. End of the rose-coloured filter I’ve had on my marriage with Cam all these years – particularly since he died.
End of Hugh and I, before he and I even begin.
I glare at him now as I stand up and pace the room. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so . . . silenced. Two men and a secret so impenetrable it survives death. Hugh had better armour up, fast, because half of my rage has nowhere to go.
He’s just sitting there. Watching my agony. I mean, he could fix this in five seconds flat if he’d just tell me what it is. But I know he won’t. It’s Hugh. You can bloody trust him.
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ he explains quietly. ‘I was never going to mention it. I didn’t want to hurt you like this.’
Oh, right. He was just going to go through life deceiving me instead. Fantastic. Perfect start to our . . . whatever this was going to be between us.
‘Why are you looking so petrified?’ I ask him.
He shakes his head, as if he can’t believe I’m so clueless.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he asks. As he gets up and steps towards me, I back away like a skittish animal. ‘Kate,’ he says, stopping still. ‘I’m terrified I’m losing you.’
Right. I see. Terror well placed, then.
I can’t breathe in here. I grab the glass sliding door handle and reef it sideways for all it’s worth. But it’s stuck.
He comes up behind me and reaches carefully around my body, lifts the door off its tread slightly and budges it free. For an infinitesimal moment, his ragged breath is on my neck, and part of me implodes.
Don’t lose focus, Kate.
I pull open the door and the air outside is charged ahead of the storm that’s been increasing in intensity since this morning. Good. It’s a full moon. It’s windy. It’s moody. The sea is crashing intensely. It’s like I’ve stepped into an external representation of what’s going on inside my mind and body. Lightning strikes and a crack of thunder explodes overhead. I think I see a person at the end of the garden. Cam?
Don’t be stupid.
I trudge off that way anyway. Hugh calls out to me to stop because it’s late. It’s dark. The storm is dangerously close. ‘At least take your phone, Kate . . .’
I really don’t care.
I hear the sliding door slam moments later and I know he’s on this side of it. Well, I hope he can keep up.
The sand is cold under my bare feet. Every couple of minutes, the lightning flashes over the water, thunder breaks and I see that silhouette again in the distance. It’s starting to freak me out. Is there really someone there?
I check behind me and when the sky lights up, I can see Hugh, keeping his distance. He might not have seen me in a rage very often, but he knows me well enough to back off and leave me to work this out myself. Not that I can, because Cam has deserted me. Left me with no way to have this conversation. No outlet. And unless Hugh breaks his promise, I’ll never know the truth.
What had Cam done? Something illegal? Had he cheated on me? Did Cam have other children I didn’t know about? Or even just one child. That would be bad enough. What if he had a whole other family, like those people who live double lives? Is that where Cam sent Hugh? To mop up some unmentionable mess interstate that I didn’t know existed?
I see the figure again. I stop trudging and stand still. Thunder and waves crash around me. Rain starts to pelt.
Another flash of light. He’s still there. At a distance. Watching me on the beach.
I must be more drunk than I thought. I don’t see dead people, I just feel them. I am desperate here. Torn. I want to run to him, but the pain of seeing him up close would destroy me. Not seeing him destroys me too.
‘Cam!’ I hear myself shouting over the cacophony of rain and thunder and ocean waves. I reach my hand out towards him. Why won’t he come any closer? I feel like once I start, I will follow him forever, endlessly, never close enough, always out of reach.
This is no way to live.
I turn around, and Hugh is standing not far from me, saturated. Rain is dripping off his dark hair and his face and neck while he waits for me.
He’s so . . .
Alive.
So real. So ‘with me’, in a way that Cam will never be now.
I wouldn’t be here with him if Cam hadn’t died. It’s that pervasive thought that occurs to me every single day. Almost everything about my existence has been re-written because of what we’ve been through. I didn’t ask for this. I can’t change it. The longer I stay here, chasing the ghost of my former life, the shorter the next chapter of my life will become.
Hugh presents me with the cardigan that I’d picked up yesterday. He must have grabbed it on the way out, maybe as a peace offering. It’s been tucked into his jacket and it’s the only thing that’s dry. I ease my hand through the sleeve and fish around behind my back, searching for the other sleeve until he has to help me. We’re standing so close, our breath is condensing into one cloud as we exhale. It’s electric, being here in the unpredictable storm with him – every cell of mine aware of every cell of his. I’m craving him on some deep, biological level that doesn’t care about secrets and betrayals and walls and professional boundaries.
Cam told me I had to move on. It was easy for him. He wasn’t the one dragging himself out of bed every day without their life partner. He didn’t start each new day facing a lifetime of parenting alone, where every significant and insignificant occasion is now bittersweet. School assemblies. Sports finals. Formals. Graduations. Weddings. Grandchildren. Always wanting to share these things with the only person who could ever feel exactly the same way about it. Always having to feel that way on your own.
And this extends to my own accomplishments too. I imagine writing my book and fantasise about being offered a publishing deal. But where there should be the popping of champagne in my kitchen and being picked up and spun around and kissed because Cam is so proud of me, there is nothing. A nice phone call with Mum. Maybe a hug from Charlie. Grace would take me out to celebrate but it’s not the same. Nothing is.
‘Kate?’
I don’t know when Cam expected me to move on. Or how. Just that he did.