Handle Me with Care

by Rolfe, Helen J

  When Evan moved on past without stopping, Maddie almost reached for the paper bag in the seat pocket in front of her. The tumble drier of emotions churned over and over, and with it she fought the urge to be sick: sick that she had lost him and didn’t really know why, sick that she’d run away that night in the first place, sick that she hadn’t chased him yesterday at the beach and asked him to spell it out to her.

  Josh’s hand squeezed her arm.

  ‘I’m fine, really.’ She closed her eyes as the plane taxied down the runway, and she was determined not to open them until they landed back in Melbourne.

  *

  Will and Simon had been on a total bender last night and waking them this morning was a nightmare. As a result they were late to the airport and could count themselves lucky that the plane hadn’t taken off without them.

  But that had been nothing to the giant kick in the guts Evan had felt when he saw Maddie just now, and yesterday on the beach. Yesterday he’d been headed for a cool off in the surf after his run and spotted her – her hair blowing in the wind was a dead giveaway – waiting for a turn on the doughnuts. She was with the same guy whom he had seen her with outside the fish and chip shop and something inside him snapped. He hadn’t lost both balls; he was still man enough to fight for what he wanted, and what he wanted was Maddie. What he hadn’t accounted for was the story she shared with him on the beach, the story of Riley. He’d known that her boyfriend had died, but what he hadn’t known was how long she’d been carrying that grief around with her, how much it still affected her every day. And when she mentioned marriage, kids, the whole package, he realised that he had to walk away or risk hurting her all over again. She didn’t deserve that.

  He sat rigid, his eyes glued to the back of her seat – probably the only advantage of being tall on an airplane was that he could see over other people – and his insides clenched when he spotted her slender wrist stretch up to adjust the overhead air vent and twizzle it her way.

  ‘Can I interest you in a tea or coffee, sir?’ The flight attendant passed by Will and Simon, who both had their heads back, mouths wide open.

  He shook his head. Without anyone to chat to he decided that the best thing would be to close his eyes firmly for the rest of the flight so that he couldn’t look in Maddie’s direction. He hoped that he wouldn’t hear the giggle that could warm him all the way through like a whiskey on a cold night, and he hoped that she would forgive him for this and move on.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Evan’s appointment with the doctor was encouraging. All the latest tests indicated no signs of the cancer occurring anywhere else – for now. Hooray for the removal of a ball and the blessed chemo.

  Evan walked into Huntley Primary School and past the open doors of the assembly hall. He loved his job, and in times like this it was his saviour, his way of operating within the realms of what he knew rather than venturing into the unknown.

  Rows of children sat straight-backed, eyes glued to the front as the Principal presented the birthday awards for that week. The piano chords sounded to announce the start of the birthday song and Evan sneaked past on the way to his classroom, willing himself not to think about Maddie and what might have been, and what a prize bastard he was for walking away two days ago. She would be wrong if she thought that her talk of marriage and kids had scared him off. On the contrary, it was exactly what he wanted too. But it would be selfish of him to stay with her. He had seen the pain of her past loss still swimming in her soft, brown eyes; he had seen the passion in her eyes at the family she needed to have someday. How could he deny her that?

  Since his diagnosis, and even in the early days when he thought that it was a harmless lump, Evan had done enough surfing on the internet and stalking of online forums to know how much of a mess testicular cancer could cause: some guys found that their remaining testicle wasn’t producing enough sperm anyway, so their chance of fatherhood had gone; others had a recurrence in the remaining testicle and therefore were rendered infertile. Some men talked about how the stress of having cancer had taken its toll on their relationship and their girlfriend/wife/partner had left them.

  Well, he wouldn’t put Maddie through that.

  Evan used his time wisely before the kids descended on him once again, and in the stock cupboard he pulled out a roll of butchers paper and a bag labelled ‘decorative bits’, ready for an art session later that day.

  ‘So how was the doctor’s appointment?’ His colleague Mike took the roll of paper from Evan before it slipped out from under his arm.

  ‘It’s all good,’ said Evan as they took everything into the classroom. ‘Chemo seems to have done the job so far and the chances of recurrence are low.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  Evan heaped the art supplies on to the cabinet closest to the window and looked up at the darkening sky. It reminded him of the afternoon he left Maddie down at the beach.

  ‘A little bird tells me that you’re running again,’ said Mike, reminding Evan that he was still there.

  ‘I’m getting there. Not quite back to the same fitness as before, but more or less.’ His body was certainly coping, which was more than could be said for his mind.

  ‘Can I count on you for the school fun run? It’s nothing major. A run around Albert Park Lake if you’re interested. We thought we’d raise money for Blue September.’

  ‘What’s Blue September?’

  ‘It’s all about raising funds and awareness about the cancers that can affect men. You may not know this, but my brother died – it would’ve been before you came to teach at Huntley Primary – of prostate cancer. Last year my daughter’s swim club held a Blue September event and she swam with a blue wristband with her uncle’s name on it. They raised a considerable amount too.’

  Evan felt a jolt at how easily it could’ve been him who died, ashamed almost at the level of self-pity he had indulged in.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your brother, Mike.’

  ‘Thank you. I’d been thinking about arranging an event this year but hadn’t got around to it, and when we heard your news there were a few shakes of the head around the staffroom, a few comments that cancer in men isn’t widely thought about. Nobody else seemed to have heard of Blue September, but around about the time you went into hospital we got talking over lunchtime and decided to do something about that.’

  ‘It’s a good idea.’ Evan rolled a pencil beneath his fingers on the table and then sharply released his hold so that it shot all the way to the back and toppled on to the floor.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Mike bent down and picked up the pencil.

  Of course he wasn’t. How could he be when he couldn’t pursue the very thing that he wanted more than anything? What he wanted more than all those marathons he had put himself through. What he wanted more than the career he had fought his way into despite the constant flak.

  ‘Forward me the email, I’d love to join in.’

  The rain held off that afternoon, and the winter sun shone as Evan took his class outside for sports. He returned to his childhood, kicking a soccer ball, twirling hula hoops and balancing on stilts. He showed his prowess at skipping with a single rope to the envy of some of the girls. He didn’t let on that Holly had always wanted a sister, and when Evan was born the fact that he was a boy didn’t stop her from putting pretty things in his hair, making him participate in tea parties with her dollies and getting him to play skipping games. It was a wonder he had been able to keep a single masculine bone in his body.

  When he left that day, one of the kids in his class, Billy Turner, waved at him across the playground. The boy could be a pest, but he had a kind heart and Evan had faith that all his kinks and knots would be ironed out over the next few years. He looked on as Billy ran to his parents waiting at the school gate. Billy hugged his mum as every boy should and then his dad lifted him up and over his head and settled him on his shoulders.

  Evan’s heart broke at the sight o
f that family unit: the father he hadn’t known for long enough; the father he may never get to be. He knew then that he was right to walk away from Maddie. He needed to give her a chance to have it all.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When Evan walked away, Maddie couldn’t deny that it had hurt. It was as though a bone inside her body had snapped beyond repair. But meeting him had also taught her that she could heal eventually; she could love again. And she realised now, more than ever, how important it was to confront the past rather than run from it.

  Those feelings had prompted her to pick up the telephone and call Caitlin, and now here she was, making her way across the lawns at the Royal Botanic Gardens to at last deal with the woman whose words had held her in limbo for so many years.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.’ Caitlin stood from the bench beside the Ornamental Lake as Maddie reached her.

  Maddie sat down and Caitlin followed suit. They both looked out over the serene water. The rain had dissipated, but the smell lingered in the air and the power of the sun had dried the bench almost as if it had done so especially for them. Hopeful flowerbeds had already started to sprout their colours as though they were backstage and getting ready for their spring performance.

  Caitlin clasped and unclasped her hands and Maddie gazed at the water so hard that she wondered whether her stare could be powerful enough to see to the bottom. Meeting here had been Maddie’s idea. It had felt easier than in the confines of a coffee shop with a table to separate them, not knowing where to look or what to say. She had hoped that this calm location would lift their spirits if they felt them sag with the weight of their history together.

  ‘I didn’t think you ever wanted to lay eyes on me again.’ Maddie knew her voice sounded colder than she had intended, but she wasn’t entirely sorry.

  Caitlin waited a while before she spoke. ‘I can’t even begin to tell you how much I regret what I said to you at the memorial, Maddie.’

  Maddie wanted to make her suffer like she had for more than a decade, but her heart had never been that hard, and instead, she found herself thinking about the feelings behind the words as opposed to the actual words themselves. Maybe that’s what she should’ve done all along, but she had never been strong enough until now.

  ‘Did you mean what you said?’ Maddie kept her gaze firmly fixed ahead.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. It was like all the pain inside of me was building and building behind a dam and then … well, then the dam burst its banks and the water flooded out in those mean, spiteful words. I hate myself for doing that to you. I despise the way I acted, the way I couldn’t even summon the strength to pick up the phone and call you to tell you how much I was hurting.’

  Maddie sniffed. ‘I’ve carried those words with me for years and they’ve haunted me ever since that day. I started to believe that what you said was true, and so I haven’t allowed myself to move on. I’ve never been truly happy.’

  She heard Caitlin crying now and she wanted to comfort her, but she couldn’t, not yet.

  ‘Maddie, I’m so sorry for how I acted. Richard has always been upset that we lost touch, and I know that I was very wrong to push you out of our lives. I truly meant to get in touch and apologise, take back what I’d said—’

  ‘You can’t ever take that back.’ Maddie thought of how close she was with Richard, Riley’s dad, and felt glad to hear that he had been more on her side.

  ‘I know I can’t do that. But I’m hoping I can help you to understand that the words came out of a black place in my heart that didn’t know how else to heal.’

  Maddie had waited a long time to hear this apology. She watched a caterpillar edge its way along the bench next to her, arching its back, laying itself flat, repeating the process. She gently let it hook on to her finger and then she set it free on the grass out of harm’s way.

  Caitlin pulled something from her pocket. ‘Here, I remember how Riley used to buy these for you.’

  Maddie looked down at the clear, cellophane packet full of the Haigh’s dark chocolate peppermint frogs that she loved. ‘You do know that Riley used to eat at least half of them,’ she said, accepting the chocolates. ‘It was never all me.’

  When Caitlin smiled, the deeper lines on her face were reminiscent of how long it had been since they had seen one another, each of those lines filled with pain and remorse for what had happened.

  ‘Do you remember Riley’s chocolate milkshake obsession?’ Caitlin asked.

  Maddie’s body relaxed on to the bench as the sun warmed her and the conversation lightened to memories about the man they both remembered. ‘I’d almost forgotten about those. He used to whip them up at home all the time.’ She flexed her feet inside her runners as she thought of what to say next. ‘Mum told me that you had something to give to me.’

  Caitlin reached inside her chocolate-brown wool coat that was at odds with some of the spring blooms that had already popped up around them. She passed Maddie a small, velvet covered box.

  Maddie took the box and placed it on her lap, her fingers resting on top of it as she stared at it, unopened.

  ‘I shut down after Riley died, Maddie. And it wasn’t fair to you, to Richard, to anyone. But most of all it wasn’t fair to Riley. He would’ve been so disappointed in me.’ Her voice caught.

  Maddie put her hand on Caitlin’s arm; an involuntary reaction that reminded her of how close they had once been. ‘Riley would never be disappointed in his mum.’ She saw a tear drop from the woman who had held her head high for so long.

  ‘You’re a beautiful person, Maddie.’

  Maddie’s hand stroked the velvet of the box, scared to venture inside.

  ‘Richard and I decided that it was time to downsize when he retired.’ Caitlin fixed her gaze on the lake. ‘He said that I’d kept Riley’s bedroom as a shrine all these years. I didn’t move anything, even though most of his possessions had gone with him to New York anyway. It almost caused us to split up about five years ago.’

  Maddie paled at the thought. They were such a strong couple, one to admire and a couple whom she and Riley had hoped to emulate one day. ‘Are you okay now?’ she asked.

  ‘We went through a lot of counselling – marriage and grief. I sorted through a lot of Riley’s things, but the boxes from New York had been shoved to the back of the enormous walk in wardrobe and I left them. They were sealed, and I couldn’t imagine ever opening them without him.

  ‘A few months ago Richard and I opened those boxes together. I think it was one of those defining moments which let us know that we had reached a different place to the one we were in before.’

  The light breeze lifted Caitlin’s hair from her face, emphasising the sadness that would always be there. ‘Richard and I packed those boxes ourselves when we went over to New York to clear Riley’s apartment.’

  ‘I could’ve helped with that.’

  ‘I know, Maddie. It was unforgiveable of me to shut you out, but that’s why I had to see you now.’

  Maddie still didn’t open the box.

  ‘I think we were in so much of a trance those few days that even we were surprised at what we had packed. There was no filtering of what was meaningful, what was a part of Riley. Going through those boxes I found that I’d packed a CD that had been snapped in two, an empty cellophane bag that had had Haigh’s chocolate in it. We even found old tickets for the subway. When we opened another box it was much the same.

  ‘You know, Maddie, we’d gone into his old bedroom as two lost parents, but we ended up smiling as we went through his belongings and remembered event after event with our son, everything from when he took his first steps and hit his head on the corner of the coffee table, to when he failed to catch his mortar board at graduation and ended up with one whacking him in the face.’

  Caitlin’s giggle started big but ended up wavering. Maddie knew that she was crying.

  ‘I never wanted to hurt you, Maddie. I’m so sorry for everything that I’ve done.
You were like family to us and I realise now that I didn’t only lose a son, I lost a daughter.’

  Maddie let her own tears flow as she pulled Caitlin closer. They sat there on the bench overlooking the lake; the silence meant more than any words ever could. And the words that Caitlin had spoken at the memorial? Well, Maddie let them fall one by one into that lake and sink to the bottom for good. It was time.

  Caitlin pointed at the box on Maddie’s lap. ‘We found that lurking right at the bottom of one of the boxes that had silk ties and a few work shirts. It must have been bundled in with those as it’s the sort of thing you’d hide in a clothes drawer, I guess. I knew what it was the moment I saw it.’

  Maddie fingers stroked the surface of the velvet box because she knew what was in it now.

  ‘When I found it, I looked at Richard and without a word between us, we knew what had to be done. We knew that we had kept you out of our lives for long enough, Maddie. It was time to try and fix that.’

  The box was tough to open but the small hinge at the back obliged and Maddie looked down to see a platinum ring with a pear-shaped diamond. She clamped her hand over her mouth as the sun rebounded off the jewel.

  ‘Do you remember me having you try on my old rings one day, because I had a couple to give away that I no longer wore?’ Caitlin asked.

  Maddie nodded; she couldn’t speak. And then the realisation hit. ‘You did that for Riley didn’t you?’

  ‘He’d been working so hard out there, and after you holidayed with him, he knew that he couldn’t wait to start his life back in Australia with you. I told him the size of the ring that fit you the best. He must have bought that ring just days before he died. He planned to propose on Christmas Eve.’

  The hand that wasn’t holding the box lay across Maddie’s heart. She jumped when a butterfly dotted with gold and white specks landed on her knee before its antennae twitched and it fluttered off again.

  ‘When I saw that ring, it was the one single thing that clarified what I had to do. It was the single item that made me realise exactly who Riley was – he was the man who loved you, the man who wanted to share his life with you, raise a family of his own.’ She stretched out a hand and touched the back of it to Maddie’s face to stop her tears that were free-falling now.