I almost forgot to put in the milk. I poured some in and it immediately looked like those geography maps in high school that show the different layers of land mass.
‘Gemma, you’re a good mother. C’mon, that’s not what I meant. Please don’t turn this into something that it isn’t.’
I pushed my hair behind my ears. Heat rose above the empty pan and formed an invisible wall between us. I sloshed in the egg mixture and it sizzled; the sound was calming. ‘You were the one who started trying to talk to me about marriage at seven in the morning. You were the one who commented on my ability to be present. Not ideal when you’re about to walk out the door,’ I said.
‘Okay, okay.’ His hands were up high around his face in surrender. ‘Gem, I just … Look, we can talk about this later, but I just feel like …’ He trailed off, looking lost.
A stab of guilt hit me. Scott was so sure of his life before he met me. A planner. The guy who followed instructions. He keeps the manuals for the dishwasher and the microwave and remembers where they are. He does long division manually. He’s punctual. He knows what happens next.
‘I guess I just feel like we need to do something. It’s one month away from a new year. I don’t want another year of drifting. I want to feel like we’re going somewhere. Together.’ His hands fluttered uselessly at his sides. ‘I want you to be my wife.’
‘Isn’t Ben enough?’ It was all I had to divert the focus away from me.
We both glanced at our son. He looked up and smiled at us, a heartbreaking smile, as he tapped the end of his spoon on the table and flicked milk onto his face.
‘Ben is everything to me. You know that. But this is about you and me. Gemma, I’d want to marry you even if Ben wasn’t here. Don’t you get that?’
The eggs stuck to the bottom of the pan. All the moisture had disappeared. I turned the gas off and prodded at the yellow mass unenthusiastically.
‘I’m not sure what I want.’
Scott flicked his eyes at the clock on the wall. I was making him late.
‘So if I ask you, will you say no?’
‘Scott!’
‘Fuck, Gem! I’m trying here, okay? I really don’t know what you want from me. I really don’t. I want to make things work with us.’ He raked his hand through his hair and looked at his watch. ‘And now I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later, okay?’
He kissed me on the cheek. A press of lips I barely felt. He wrapped Ben in a large hug and planted kisses up and down the side of his face until Ben screamed with laughter.
‘Bye-bye, baby man.’ Scott looked at me. ‘See ya.’
I tipped the pile of overcooked eggs onto my plate as he walked out.
‘I just want you to leave me alone,’ I said to the closed door.
Chapter Fifteen
Monday, 14 December, 11.03 pm
I pull into the driveway behind Scott’s car. I flick the lights off as I look at the house. I don’t want to go inside.
It’s dark but the moonlight catches on the white skin of the gum trees, making them glow. It’s incredibly still: nothing moves. I breathe deeply but I’m not sure if I’m trying to calm down from seeing Felix or readying myself to see Scott. I can still feel Felix’s hands all over me. I bite my lip. He’s a drug; I have some and immediately want more. I close my eyes and will time to rewind so I can have a few more hours alone with him. I have never wanted time to go slower than when we are together.
A dog barks sharply and I jump so suddenly that the seatbelt catches and pins me in place. I click it open. The bedroom light is still on inside. Hopefully Scott won’t want to talk; my eyes are grainy with sleep. I’m all talked out. Rosalind’s death has set something off inside me. I feel reckless. Wild. Like things could suddenly just come tumbling out. I told Felix a lot tonight, more than I’ve ever really told anyone. And I almost told him more. All of those bricks that I’ve carefully stacked and built into a sturdy wall feel like they are coming loose. The floodgates of my mind have been prised open and thoughts are swirling out unchecked. It’s wearing me down.
I grab my bag and get out of the car. There’s a rustle in the bushes near the letterbox and I startle again. I walk briskly to the front veranda. The pull of sleep is so strong.
In a beat I freeze. There is something on the porch, a dark mass in the shadowy corner. I quickly run the options of what it might be through my mind but nothing fits. It’s in my nature to assume the worst, and I think of Ben asleep in his cot only metres away: uncovered because of the heat, the fan doing lazy laps above his head, shifting the warm air around his little body. I peer over the bricks and decide that whatever it is isn’t moving. I can’t hear anything. Stepping carefully, I round the corner and make my way towards the mysterious shape. I’m about two metres away when my brain catches up with my eyes, and I realise I’m looking at a large bouquet of long-stemmed red roses, tucked inside the softest, blackest blanket of tissue paper.
Chapter Sixteen
Tuesday, 15 December, 7.39 am
‘I thought they were from you for a second.’ Felix and I are at our favourite breakfast place, Reggie’s. They do half-decent coffee, plus no one else from the station ever comes here. ‘Too highbrow,’ Keith Blight is fond of saying, though I don’t think he really knows what that means. Everyone else goes across the car park to the cafeteria, which does greasy bacon and egg rolls for three dollars fifty with a bitter, watery coffee for an extra dollar.
Felix is shovelling muesli into his mouth at an alarming rate, only pausing every now and then to wash a mouthful down with coffee. I find myself getting distracted by his mouth. I notice a tiny freckle to the right of his top lip that I’m sure I’ve never seen before. ‘From me?’ he says.
‘Well, I only thought that for a second. Then I realised that you’re not really a flowers kind of guy and that, even if you were, you would never have them delivered to my house.’
‘Yeah, well, no, of course not.’ He swallows the last of his coffee. ‘Jeez, Gem, it’s not good.’
‘It was pretty freaky.’ After I realised what they were, I’d got a plastic bag from the car, gathered up the flowers and put them in the boot. All I could think about were the roses that had bobbed around Rosalind’s body when she was in the water. Limp from the heat, the scent of the fresh flowers formed a cloud around my face. It followed me into the house, where I quickly downed two shots of whisky, scrubbed my teeth until my gums smarted and mumbled goodnight to Scott before tumbling into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I found the note this morning, which was a blessing. If I had seen it the night before I’m not sure I would have slept nearly as soundly. A small white satiny card with the words Beautiful things are hard to keep alive printed neatly inside. The handwriting was deliberately simple, large inconsistent block letters printed in dark ink.
Ben clutched my legs, peering into the boot and spying the blooms.
‘Ooooh, pret-ty! Mummy, look!’
‘Fingers,’ I said, yanking him away and pushing the boot closed.
‘Are you going to tell Jonesy?’ says Felix.