‘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?’
31
Molly – December 2012
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?’