by Sarah Belle
“Do you still love me?”
He hesitates. “Yes, I do.”
“Because I love you, more than anything. I am so proud to be your wife, the mother of your children. You are…the most amazing father and I want a chance to be an amazing mother. Please, give me that chance.”
“How do I know this will last, that it’s not just a phase you’re going through?” he asks.
“I sold my business, because I wanted it out of our lives forever. It’s gone, never to return.”
Chris scratches his head and looks over his shoulder as Ethan approaches us, rubbing his eyes and resembling a zombie.
“What are you doing, Dad?” he asks.
I can tell that Chris is unsure as to whether or not he wants Ethan to see me, so I step to the side, out of his line of vision.
“Is it Mum? Is she home?” he asks, with what I hope is a stir of excitement in his voice.
Chris pauses and my heart stops.
“Would you like her to be home?” he asks.
My still heart turns to glass, set to shatter irreparably if Ethan says no.
“Yeah, I miss her. She was a knucklehead at the concert, but I really want her to come home,” he says.
I stifle a small giggle — I was a knucklehead — and my eyes fill with more tears at hearing that he still loves me and wants me to be his Mum.
Chris inhales and then exhales deeply before he steps to the side and allows Ethan to poke his head out the door.
“Mum!” he shrieks as his little face lights up and he launches himself at me.
“Hi sweetie!” I say, burying my nose in his bed hair and inhaling his sweet, sweet scent.
“Are you coming home?” he asks.
I don’t want to look at Chris because if the answer is no, I don’t want Ethan to blame him for it, so I stall.
“Well, there’s lots of things to think about, Eth,” I say.
Ethan turns to Chris and tugs his shirt. “Please Dad, make her come home.”
The tears are now spilling over my eyelashes and sprinting down my cheeks.
Chris loses the rigidity in his body and gives Ethan a small smile. “I can’t…make her come home, mate, but if she’d like to come home and be a family again,” he looks at me “then that would be pretty great.”
I rush into his arms, taking Ethan with me, and hold Chris in 1961 style, every part of our bodies touching. And then I kiss him, a true, passionate kiss that comes from deep inside me and leaves him in no doubt that my love for him is real. A kiss that would be deemed inappropriate in public in 1961. Thankfully, he kisses me back.
“Ewwww, Mum!” Ethan says. “Do you have to do all that kissy stuff?”
I bend down to Ethan’s level and put my hands around his waist. “Ethan, sweets, I really let you down and hurt you terribly on Saturday and I just want you to know how sorry I am. It will never, ever, happen again.”
He smiles and curls into my arms, “That’s OK Mum. I know you tried.”
How did my little boy become so grown up?
“Why don’t you go back to bed now, mate. It’s a school day tomorrow. Mum and Dad need some time together,” says Chris as he ruffles the top of Ethan’s hair.
“OK,” he yawns. “Mum, will you take me to school in the morning?”
“Even better, I’ll make you breakfast,” I say.
His eyes grow large, like boggly fish eyes, but I get the feeling it’s not from excitement, it’s from fear.
“Yes, bacon and eggs on toast,” I smile.
“No Mum, you don’t have to do that.” He smiles nervously and looks at Chris. “Does she, Dad?”
The look on his face is now pure terror.
“Ahhh…” Chris starts.
They are clearly thinking of the old Juliette – the one who endangered people’s lives with her cooking.
“It’s OK guys, you will be pleasantly surprised by the new me,” I smile with a wink and a nod. I have fighting blood in my veins. I am made of the good stuff.
Ethan doesn’t look convinced as he walks towards his room. He’s probably going to have nightmares about killer eggs and demonic bacon all night.
I lead Chris into the lounge room and plonk him on the couch, sit next to him and take his hand in mine. If only there was a way of telling him about my experience without sounding like a loon. Oh, hang on! There is.
“I had a dream the other night. In it, I travelled backwards in time…” I started.
He looks at me as though I am a brand new person sharing this with him. For the next ten minutes we sit hand in hand as I detail our life, our family, our friends, his family and how much in love we were.
“This dream made me see things differently, it put everything into perspective – it was the epiphany I needed. There will be a time, down the track, when I will want to return to work, because I love it. I’ve always worked and it’s an integral part of who I am. But this time, I won’t allow myself to surrender to it. I won’t live to work. I will work because it provides me with an outlet to be me.”
He nods and smiles, “I know you love to work, Jules, and I support you in whatever you need to do.”
“But until that day, I want to take time out to be a Mum and a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter-in-law, an aunty, a volunteer at school…” I laugh. “The profit we’ve made on the sale of the business means that I won’t have to return to work until I am ready…until we are ready.”
“I like the sound of that, Jules. Welcome home.”
I trace my finger down his cheek and across his lips, the lips that I kissed so regularly in 1961, and not often enough prior to my experience. He smiles and the sexy crinkles appear.
“Did you say that we had a lot of sex in your dream?” he asks.
“Yes, we were like teenagers, couldn’t keep our hands off each other,” I say and then giggle like a schoolgirl. “Let me show you.” I stand up, pull him to his feet and kiss him in a way that results in him picking me up, like a new bride, and carrying me through the door to our bedroom.
“Chris, I just have one more thing to tell you.”
“Hmmm, what’s that?” He looks concerned.
“I’m pregnant.” Three down, three to go.
“You whaaat?” Dash screams down the phone.
“You heard me, I sold the business,” I say.
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Fuck me! Are you having a mental breakdown or something? I knew it! You’ve got a brain tumour, causing you to make irrational decisions. I can get you into the hospital quickly, you’ll need an MRI,” she says.
“No, there is no tumour or breakdown. It’s just the best thing for me to do, seeing as I am now pregnant.”
“Whaaaaaat? Jules! Oh. My. God. I am…..”
“Speechless?”
Silence.
“Dash, are you alright?”
“Yes, I…just…fuck!”
Up until my recent experience I had never given any thought to how often Dash swears. She’s worse than a Bruce Willis movie.
“So, what have you got for me?”
“Unbelievable truths, Jules. Gold!”
“Spill.”
“Well, it seems that Anya’s life in Sydney is not exactly as she’s painted it.”
“Hmmm, go on.”
She goes on to explain the nitty gritty of Anya’s background, which is unexpected and will come in very handy when the time comes to put her back in her box.
The next day, after a serious night of shagging my sexy husband senseless, I make a delicious breakfast, much to the shock and surprise of everyone, pack Ethan’s lunch box, take him to school and follow him into his classroom. He shows me where he sits, where his work hangs on the walls, where he plays at lunchtime, and introduces me to a couple of his little friends. The bell goes and he runs to class. It will be a long road to re-earn his trust, but time is something I have plenty of now.
Afterwards, I walk up to the car park and see a familia
r figure hovering near the school crossing, chatting with some mums. It’s Anya. Now it’s my turn.
One of them is the woman she was sitting with at Diego’s the day she wanted me to overhear her. Confrontation has never been my thing, but now is the time to set the record straight. Fighting blood. Made of the good stuff.
“Anya, I was hoping to catch you today. Saves me having to track you down,” I say.
She’s taken aback by my sudden appearance, “Juliette!” It’s like she’s seen a ghost. “You’re not at work today?”
“No, I sold the business.”
“Ohhh, really?” Her carotid pulse is beating so hard it’s visible above her collar. “That’s so…”
“Wonderful, yes it is. But listen, the reason I wanted to catch you today was to tell you to keep your mitts off my husband.”
My smile is sweet and polite but uncomfortable.
She pales, as though a plug has been pulled and the blood is draining out of her feet.
The other mothers are a mixture of reactions. Two are leaning forward, eager to hear the rest of what will be said, one is stepping backwards and fumbling with her keys, while her friend from Diego’s is having trouble closing her mouth.
“Whaaa… I never!”
“Oh yes you did. Anita from Diego’s came clean about how you asked to be seated close enough so that I could overhear your conversation about your imagined liaison with Chris.”
The other Diego’s Mum splutters, “What, that wasn’t true?”
Anya is stunned and unable to speak, other than an assortment of primal sounds.
“Spreading lies about your fantasies of another woman’s husband is a definite no-no, Anya. It’s against the sisterhood, isn’t it ladies?”
There is an assortment of affirmatives from them and much nodding of heads.
“But this isn’t your first time stealing husbands, is it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Juliette,” she says as she moves to turn and walk away.
The other Mums are spellbound, unable to peel their gaze from the two of us.
“Really? So you didn’t steal another woman’s husband, get pregnant, have Molly and then leave him for another man?”
All four are just about dribbling in stupefied anticipation.
“And here you were telling anyone who would listen that you were the one cheated on and left on your own. You know, they have a name for that Anya. It’s called LYING.”
Her face is the colour of an aubergine as she stutters her way through the alphabet in defence.
“So, hands off Chris. He’s my husband, father of my children and he isn’t interested in you because he’s in love with me, the proof of which is growing in my tummy right now,” I say, rubbing my hand over my growing baby.
“You’re pregnant?”
“Yes. Chris and I have had our trials, the same as every other married couple,” I look around the audience gathering and see that many are in agreeance. “No relationship is perfect, but it’s not for you to exploit the issues between man and wife to your own end. Ladies, I’d watch this one if I were you. Keep a close eye on your husbands around her. She may be physically beautiful, but she’s fugly all the way to the core.”
And with that I turn on my size seven flattie and waltz off to my car, leaving Anya to face the lynch mob by herself.
Four down, two to go.
I jump into my car, feeling on top of the world, and dial Sylvia’s number. She answers on the third ring.
“Hello, Sylvia speaking.”
“Sylvia, it’s Juliette. How are you?”
“Well, thanks love. And you?” The hesitation in her voice tells me that she hasn’t spoken with Chris yet.
“Very well, thank you. Listen, I was wondering if you have any plans for the rest of the day?”
“Oh, well…I was going to the supermarket and then off to indoor bowls.”
“Do you think the team can do without you for the day?”
She pauses. “I suppose so. Do you need me to mind the boys? Is everything alright?”
“Everything is perfect. I’m coming to get you. We’re having a girl’s day at the spa. You, me, Dash and Lauren. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Juliette, that’s so sweet but you don’t want me tagging along, an old girl like me…”
“Yes, I really do want you tagging along, Sylvia. I’ve done a lot of growing since the concert, faced a lot of home truths and wrestled with my demons. And today is the beginning of the rest of my life. My behavior has been disgraceful these last few years and that is something that will take a lifetime of therapy to forgive myself for. I hope that you will forgive me. I’m so sorry.”
Silence, except for a little sniff on the other end of the phone.
“My actions hurt your son very much, as well as my children and every other member of my family, including you. So, please, share this day with me and help me to put right some of the wrongs of my past? Please?”
“So you and Chris are OK?” she asks.
“We’re more than OK. We’re starting a brand new chapter in our lives, one in which you’ll play a very big part.”
“That would be lovely. Thank you, Juliette.”
“No, thank you, Sylvia. Thank you.”
One to go.
There’s just one last thing to do. I buy potted flowers on the way to the Faulkner Cemetery. It’s long overdue, but today is the day I will finally put my past to rest.
The grave is in a state of total disrepair. Weeds have overtaken the plot and the plaque is so tarnished it may as well be 100 years old. Lolly wrappers and rubbish have been caught in the long grass, making the entire thing look totally unloved.
I kneel down and begin to pull away the weeds and overgrown grass, placing them in a plastic bag along with the rubbish. Tears roll down my cheeks and splash onto the small grass plot as memories from my childhood replay in my head like an old movie. Some good memories, some not so good memories.
I take my screwdriver out of the bag and remove the old memorial plaque. It’s so tarnished now that it’s impossible to read the name inscribed on it, or the dates of birth and death underneath. There was no other inscription, nothing that would impart any feeling as to whether this person was loved, or missed. Nothing. Shameful.
I unwrap the new plaque and fix it in place as the tears continue to fall. Before long, I am sobbing and blubbering, embracing the headstone in my arms; a belated hug. After 20 minutes of crying, laughing and apologising, it’s time to go. I take one last look at my handiwork and know that everything has been put right again. Everything.
Eleanor Leticia Wilde
Loving wife and mother
Peace, perfect peace.
Chapter 28
Six months later…
We sold our Clifton Hill house and two months ago moved into our new home, a small hobby farm in Ocean Grove. It’s a quick ten-minute drive to the beach on enough land to have fruit and vegetable gardens, some chooks that cluck incessantly and two dogs who bark at the constantly clucking chooks.
Why did we move away from everyone if I was set to be with family? Ocean Grove is only a bit over an hour’s drive from Melbourne, on a good day, and we have a guesthouse for family to stay in when they come for a visit. Although we miss the close proximity to family that Melbourne offered, Ocean Grove has a special feel to it — it allows my spirit to be free. Our children get to grow up next to the beach and live in a place that is small enough to offer a sense of community spirit, but big enough to offer opportunity. Perfect.
We eat freshly laid eggs and Chris makes his own beer and honey mead, from his ‘man cave’ in the shed. Everything needs a bit of work, but we are happy to renovate when we can. My husband is, after all, an amazingly gifted architect. Our gardens are huge, with plenty of room to play football and cricket; well, I don’t, because my belly is too full of babies.
Yes, that’s right, babies. Twins, would you believe?
A boy and a girl, Will and Lily. Ethan calls them by their collective name, Willy. Seems like my 1961 souls are finding me again, thank God
It took a lot of work to repair our relationship and for me to re-establish the trust Chris once had in me. It wasn’t a honeymoon. It was a challenge for both of us, but I can honestly say that our marriage is stronger for having gone through the hard parts. We have a renewed love and respect for one another that will see us through the next challenge of having twins.
There have been days where I have missed my business and working in general. But I could never have worked, even part-time, in the agency and managed the birth of twins, so this decision was the right one for me to make at this point in time. One size does not fit all, but this one feels pretty good on me.
I have done some volunteer PR work for the local theatre group and a couple of local charities, just to keep my mind active and give me something to talk about at the end of the day, and it feels pretty good to have a healthy relationship with my work.
I have commenced my master’s degree in psychology, and although it will be another three years before it’s completed, I am looking forward to starting a new career when the time is right.
Rob has met a nice girl; her name is Lorena, an Italian backpacker who has quit backpacking the globe to stay and whip him into shape. She is a real Italian beauty, curvy with dark hair and glossy black eyelashes, and has Rob wrapped around her little finger.
Lauren met a nice Greek man, who has swept her off her feet and just adores Anna. You guessed it, his name is Stavros. They are planning to marry next March. She’s never been happier.
I told Chris when both Rob and Lauren met their partners that these would be the ones they marry. He didn’t believe me. He also didn’t believe me when I told him my tummy felt like it was holding twins; one boy, one girl. According to him, he has a psychic wife, which is incorrect of course, but a girl needs to keep a few secrets.
Dash, Joe and the kids are down here every third weekend. She refers to our new home as her ‘beach house’. She’s still removing various objects from the rectums of humans; last week it was a wooden bed knob. The patient bought in the matching bed knob so that the operating team would know what they were dealing with. Thoughtful.