‘I miss you. I miss Daddy,’ I said, and it was true. I felt much more than lonely – I felt alone. Mum didn’t respond at first. When she spoke again, she was whispering, ‘Darling, Daddy is never going to accept that man. He’s just not. There’s too much history.’
‘I know. But do you think he can accept me? Can you? Leo is away so much; maybe I could meet you two for lunch sometime.’
‘We assumed you wouldn’t want to see us under those circumstances, Molly,’ Mum said, stiffly.
‘You’re my parents. I love you. I hate the distance, Mum. Don’t you? Can I see you if we don’t talk about Leo?’
I had coffee with Mum that afternoon. It was a very tense catch-up, but I felt it had been a good start. Two days later, on the day I should have been travelling back to Sydney on the back of Leo’s new bike, I went for Sunday brunch at my parents’ mansion on the water at Point Piper.
Dad hugged me, but he didn’t mention me leaving TM, and he didn’t mention Leo. Instead, over Eggs Benedict and coffees, I automatically filled the somewhat awkward silence by talking about my new career. They did not actually acknowledge that I’d named the Foundation after Declan, but we talked for hours about the work I was doing. They seemed so interested – and I found that to be remarkably energising.
By the time I left that day, I knew my parents were proud of me, and that went a long way towards consoling the wound on my soul that had been left by Leo’s absence. I wanted to tell him, but I knew instinctively that he wouldn’t like me spending time with them. Whenever the subject of my parents came up, he’d clam up and tense up and then change the subject, as if he couldn’t even stand to hear about them. So I decided that I would continue to meet with them occasionally, but only when he was out of town, and mainly to keep them abreast of the work of the charity I’d named for their son.
I didn’t realise at the time that I was actually adding more and more layers of complexity and distance to what was gradually becoming a complex and distant marriage.
32
Leo – August 2015
I am encouraged by the change in tone between Molly and me after the conversation about our anniversary. I feel that night marks the point where those catch-ups we have each afternoon become less of an obligation on her part, and more about reconnecting with me. We go out less, and we touch one another more. She is affectionate with me again, just as she was when we first met, and I can’t hold her hand while we walk, so I hold it all the time as we sit.
I suspect that she is working a miracle for me at Bennelong. She won’t let me see because she wants to surprise me, but she promises me that once she’s done with that place, I will feel at home there. Given all of the energy I once threw into resisting this very thing, I’m surprisingly calm about my home being one of Sydney’s wealthiest addresses. I am actually starting to suspect ‘home’ will be whatever building I am in when I wake up next to Molly again.
But even if I am making progress with my life and my memories, there’s no denying that I am getting nowhere with my disability. I still cannot even stand independently. Sometimes I can stand for a few seconds – if it’s early in the day and I’m not tired, and if someone else holds me straight because I can’t balance myself, and if I have something to hold myself up on. I spend hours every day working at this, and the progress I’ve made feels like nothing at all.
It’s pitiful and frustrating, and I am sensing increasing pessimism from my therapists at the rehabilitation clinic. Their focus is gradually shifting away from getting me upright again to convincing me I need to get used to being permanently seated.
‘You’re getting around so well in the wheelchair, a lot of patients don’t ever seem as comfortable as you do,’ the therapist tells me, and when he says it several days in a row, I finally snap.
‘Is that your way of telling me I need to get used to it?’
‘Well, Leo… for the time being, anyway, it might be better to accept this situation and find ways to cope with it, rather than focusing on changing it.’
I insist on a new therapist, but the second one isn’t much better – proposing a regime which focuses less on the mechanics of getting me back on my feet, and more on mastering ways of living that don’t require it at all. The mood at the rehabilitation clinic has shifted, and it’s an immense relief when Molly tells me that the apartment at Bennelong is ready for me to move in.
I visit at her office one afternoon, and we interview for a physiotherapist to work with me full-time at our new home. Out of the half-dozen that Molly and Tobias have selected for the interview, there’s a clear stand-out.
‘Tracy seems the best,’ I tell Molly, and she raises an eyebrow at me.
‘There were four men, one dowdy middle-aged woman and a stunning blonde. You had to pick the blonde?’
‘She was definitely the most positive,’ I protest, and Molly sighs.