Lost Without You

by Rachael Johns

  ‘I don’t know. A couple of hours?’

  ‘Are you working on the story for the new book?’

  ‘No, this is Mum stuff.’

  Sol peered closer at the screen. ‘Is that a spreadsheet?’

  At his surprised tone, Paige laughed—she and Excel had never been friends but it seemed the best way to keep track of potential kidney donors. She turned her head and her heart pitter-pattered at the sight of him in his fireman uniform—that would never get old.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, focusing back on the task. ‘I’m making a list of all our family members.’ She pointed at the screen. ‘This column has their name, then this one how closely they’re related to Mum, and here I’m taking note of any reasons why they might not be a suitable donor. This column is for blood type of those who might be possibilities and this final column is for when we ask if they’re willing to be tested.’

  ‘Wow—you’ve been busy, but I thought you wanted to donate? Aren’t you the same blood type as your mother?’

  She exhaled her disappointment and then pointed again at the top of the spreadsheet—she and her dad were number one and two on the list, but she’d put their names in red. ‘I can’t donate because of my diabetes and Dad’s out because of his heart.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  ‘I know. I’ve never hated my diabetes as much as I do right now. Although the doctor said, even without it they’d caution me against being a donor due to my age and gender. Apparently donating can be a risk to fertility. How ridiculous is that? Surely it should be up to me whether I take such a risk?’

  And of course she would; her mum was far more important than some children who didn’t even exist and might never even get to. If she had to choose between her mother and having kids, there was no choice.

  ‘I guess the doctors know what they’re doing,’ Sol said. ‘Look, how about I have a quick shower, then we grab a glass of wine and you can fill me in on what happened at the hospital and your progress?’

  And, despite part of her wanting to continue, wine, Sol and their comfy couch was a combination she couldn’t resist. ‘That sounds perfect,’ she said, pushing to a stand and arching her back into a stretch, ‘I’ve just remembered there’s some leftover curry in the fridge from the other night. While you clean up, I’ll microwave it for an easy tea.’

  ‘Sounds good. You know me, always up for easy.’

  Paige laughed. ‘I think you mean you’re always easy.’

  He slid his arms around her and pulled her in for a smooch. ‘Why don’t you join me in the shower?’ he said a few long moments later when they broke apart and gasped for air.

  Her hormones danced a jig. As if she could ever resist the lure of her hot firefighter. ‘Good idea.’

  She grabbed Sol’s hand and they hurried down the corridor to the bathroom.

  Not much talking happened in the shower, but by the time she and Sol had finished scrubbing each other clean, Paige was feeling more relaxed and way more positive than she had been all day.

  As they poured the wine and reheated the curry, she asked Solomon about his day. He told her about the fun he’d had at Bondi Primary on a school visit in the morning, followed by a nasty car crash on O’Brien Street in the afternoon that had required the jaws of life. Then they sat down on the couch—steaming bowls and full glasses in hand.

  ‘So, how’s your list looking so far? Any possibilities?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a lot harder than you’d imagine. There’s a long list of reasons why people wouldn’t be able to donate. Obesity, cancer, previous abdominal surgery, heart attacks and of course diabetes.’

  Paige had studied the information her mum had been given that afternoon, looking for a loophole, something that would make her kidney a suitable contender. She hadn’t found any such loophole, but she’d practically memorised the list of things that make people unsuitable and she didn’t need to bore him with the full list now.

  ‘Do you have to be a relative?’

  ‘You don’t even have to be related. Blood type is the most important thing.’

  ‘What blood type is your mother? Not that I can ever remember what I am, but I guess I could ask Mum.’

  Paige blinked and turned her head to meet his gaze. ‘Are you saying you’d consider giving my mum your kidney?’

  ‘Buttercup, why wouldn’t I help if I could?’

  Her heart swelled with love for this amazing man who simply didn’t see what the big deal was. His generosity and selflessness were the first things she’d noticed about him (okay, first after his incredible good looks and amazing body) when they’d met at a picnic for kids from refugee families. Some of his colleagues who’d come along in the fire truck obviously had places they’d rather be, but Sol was so patient with all the kids, asking each and every one of them to tell him about themselves. He’d stayed long after his mates took off with the truck, kicking the footy around with the children and then helping her and the other volunteers pack up.

  She’d offered to drive him home that day and in the confines of her car, their chemistry had come to a head. When he’d invited her inside for a ‘drink’, Paige had gone willingly. But what she’d assumed would be a one-night stand because she didn’t have time for relationships had exploded into something so much more. Sol wasn’t a one-night stand kinda guy—he was a take-her-home-and-meet-the-family type and she was helpless against him. His love for his mum, his half-sisters and even his stepdad was clear. Not long after they’d got together, she learnt about his past.

  When he was eleven he’d stood up to his father who had been physically abusing his mother for years and then convinced his mum to run away to a shelter with him. Lisette called him her saviour and although Paige herself had never needed him to rescue her, his courage and tenacity were merely two of the many things she loved about him.

  She was pretty sure he didn’t have any of the ailments that would make him ineligible to be a donor but they were jumping the gun.

  ‘You are a man among men,’ she said, putting down her wine and grabbing his face in her hands. She kissed him passionately on the lips, then said, ‘but let’s see how I go with blood relations first.’

  He shrugged. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Ooh, there’s something else I wanted to tell you,’ she said, pushing the worry about the kidney donor out of her mind for now—the transplant couldn’t take place for at least six months anyway. ‘It’s to do with our wedding.’

  He grinned. ‘I’m liking it already.’

  ‘I want to find Mum’s wedding dress and wear it on our big day.’

  ‘What?’ The grin faltered. ‘Didn’t your dad say she gave it away?’

  ‘Yes, I asked him about it again this afternoon. He told me she donated it to a charity fashion parade and at the end of the night they raffled it off. I’ve spent the last few hours trying to track down the organiser of the fashion parade to see if they have any records of who won it. I actually found her and she said she’s currently doing a long overdue cleanout but does still have the minutes from their meetings back then, which might have the name of the raffle winners from that night. She’s going to go through them this weekend and call me if she finds a name. Then, I’m going to find the winner and ask if they’ll let me buy it off them. I think it would be really special and Mum would be ecstatic to see me walk down the aisle in her dress.’

  ‘Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to and, if Rebecca wanted you to wear her wedding dress, wouldn’t she have kept it in the first place?’

  Paige’s heart sank—she couldn’t help feeling annoyed at Solomon; she’d been so excited by this idea.

  ‘I really want to do this,’ she said, trying to swallow the lump that had suddenly grown in her throat. ‘I can’t give Mum my kidney, but maybe I can do this. She’s so excited about us getting married and I think this would make it even more special for her.’

  ‘Okay.’ He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘I understand, and you know I’m happy with whatever m
akes you happy, I just thought you’d probably want something a little more modern.’

  ‘Mum’s dress is a classic, I think it’ll stand the test of time. Didn’t you like it?’

  ‘Babe, one wedding dress is pretty much the same as the next for me, it’s the woman inside it that matters. You could wear a hessian sack and I’d still want to say “I do”, but what if you can’t find it? I don’t want you to get your hopes up and be disappointed. Perhaps we could hire a dressmaker to copy the dress instead?’

  But Paige shook her head. ‘I can’t get the idea out of my head and it’s got to be somewhere, right? Wedding dresses don’t just vanish into thin air.’

  ‘I guess not. Does this mean you’ll want me to wear your dad’s suit?’ Sol sounded slightly horrified by the idea.

  She nudged him in the side. ‘No, silly. He probably hired it and I guess we’ll do the same for you. It’s the dress that matters. It’s the dress that makes a statement.’

  ‘And what is the statement you want to make when you walk down the aisle in your mother’s dress?’

  She took a sip of her wine and pondered this question a moment. ‘I want to pay tribute to my parents and their wonderful marriage. That marriage began with that dress and I just feel like it’ll be a good omen for our marriage if I wear it as well.’

  ‘Personally, I don’t think we need any good omens, but I understand why you want to do this and, if anyone can find it, you can.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She snuggled into him again.

  ‘I can’t wait to marry you,’ he said, dropping a kiss onto her head. ‘I know we’re already living together and I already come home to you every night and it’s not that I want to own you or anything, but I have to admit, I can’t wait to be able to say “my wife”.’ He put on a funny voice: ‘Have you met my wife? My wife and I … I’ll just have to check with my wife.’

  She laughed. ‘I like it when you say that. And I can’t wait to be “your wife”, which reminds me, do you think we should set a date?’

  ‘I thought you might want to wait until Rebecca was well again?’

  ‘Yes, but planning a wedding, having a date to look forward to will give Mum something to focus on aside from dialysis and her stupid kidneys.’ She absent-mindedly ran her fingers up and down his chest as she spoke. ‘What do you think about October?’

  ‘This October?’ His voice and eyebrows went up and she could see him doing the mental calculations in his head. ‘That’s like … three months away.’

  ‘Yep—October is usually nice weather, but not too hot.’

  ‘Maybe so, and I don’t know much about wedding planning, but I reckon we might find it hard to find a venue on such short notice. Don’t these places book up years in advance?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s why I was thinking maybe we could have the wedding on the beach or in a park and the reception in your mum and Randy’s backyard—it’s big enough and beautiful.’

  Sol’s eyes lit up. ‘Mum would love that. She’d be in her element and it would give her an excuse to redecorate the house like she’s been pestering Randy to agree to for the last couple of years. But what if you don’t find the dress in time?’

  ‘I’ve only been on the hunt a few hours and already I feel as if I’m close.’ She grinned, excitement building within.

  ‘In that case, we’d better get a move on.’ He dug his phone out of his pocket and she watched as he brought the calendar up on the screen and skipped forward a few months to October. ‘What day of the week were you thinking?’

  ‘A Saturday I guess. I always find it weird when people get married during the week, don’t you?’

  ‘Again, not something I’ve really thought about,’ he said with a bemused smile, then looked down at the screen again. ‘But Saturday it is. How’s the thirteenth sound?’

  ‘It sounds like our wedding anniversary,’ she squealed and almost spilled her wine, which she’d forgotten was still in her hand.

  Sol grinned. ‘Indeed it does. October thirteenth. Let’s do this.’

  Josie

  ‘Hey babe, I’m heading off now. You have a good night,’ Nik said as he entered the lounge room, all dressed in his work uniform of white shirt and navy trousers, and crossed over to the couch where Josie lay sprawled in front of their widescreen TV, remote in hand.

  ‘Thanks, hun,’ she replied, pressing pause on Mystic Pizza as he bent down to kiss her goodbye. She kept her mouth firmly shut, hoping he wouldn’t taste the fermented grapes on her lips. While he’d been in the shower, she’d snuck half a glass of wine from the bottle she’d hidden at the back of the pantry.

  ‘Hope work’s good,’ she added chirpily.

  ‘I’d much rather stay home and snuggle on the couch with you.’

  Nik’s ‘snuggle’ was a euphemism for ‘Netflix and chill’, which in turn (as she’d learnt from her students) was a euphemism for sex, of which they hadn’t had any since he’d returned. That first night, after bowling, he’d actually fallen asleep while she’d been in the bathroom getting ready for bed. Josie hadn’t been able to believe her luck. Then, the next day her period had arrived—what had not been a blessing for so long suddenly felt lucky, because it meant she could put off intimacy a little longer. It had been a long period, at least that’s the impression she’d given her husband.

  ‘I wish you could,’ she lied.

  ‘Well, enjoy your movie,’ he said and then finally made his move towards the front door.

  Josie waited until she heard it shut behind him, then let out the breath she felt as if she’d been holding all day and pushed herself off the couch. She crossed to the window and peeled back the curtain a fraction, watching as her husband swaggered to his car as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  There were benefits of Nik working nights—the biggest being that he wouldn’t tap her on the shoulder in bed—but it meant long hours together during the day where she couldn’t drink or escape outside for a cheeky fag.

  As he drove off, a slow smile spread across her face. She let the curtain fall and all but ran into the kitchen where she retrieved the wine bottle from the pantry. She poured herself a large glass, took a long, satisfying mouthful and then headed out onto the back balcony to rescue her cigarettes from their hidey-hole under the foliage of a pot plant.

  The moment that first hit of nicotine shot through her, she felt a little better. To hell with the guilt that also came! She was an adult, she could do what she bloody well liked. Thank God for that stranger at The Inferno who’d reminded her of this pleasure. She smiled down at the cigarette and then took another long drag, recalling that night and how good she’d felt dancing her woes away before that wanker had tried to hit on her.

  Nothing else made her feel even close to normal the way moving her body to music had. And she craved that feeling again.

  Then go out, said a voice inside her head.

  A little shot of excitement zapped through her body. She took another swig from the glass and went inside to get ready.

  Within ten minutes, she was dressed, her hair and make-up passable. Planning to be home long before Nik finished work, Josie didn’t bother to hide the evidence of her drinking before shoving her mobile, smokes and apartment keys into her pockets and heading outside. She’d barely lit up another cigarette when Nik stepped out from around the building.

  Josie gasped, her free hand rushing to her chest—her heart felt as if it had just been hit with a defibrillator.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ Nik folded his arms like a bouncer, his chocolate-brown eyes narrowing as they registered the cigarette.

  The obvious blurted from her mouth. ‘You scared me half to death.’

  No apology was forthcoming.

  ‘You’re supposed to be at work.’

  He raised one of his thick, dark eyebrows. ‘And you’re supposed to be on the couch watching Mystic Pizza, but instead …’ His gaze trailed up and down her body, taking in her skinny black jeans, pink top and her favourite
gold jacket, which matched the sparkly gold boots on her feet. It wasn’t an appreciative head-to-toe.

  ‘Where the hell were you going?’ He glared at the cigarette in her hand. ‘And how long have you been smoking again?’

  ‘It’s my body, I can do what I like.’ Yet even as she spat these words she dropped the cigarette to the ground and stamped it out with her heel.

  ‘Maybe so, but you’re my wife—and last time I checked that gives me the right to worry, to care. I came back because as I drove away I felt like I was having a heart attack or something. I couldn’t stop worrying about leaving you alone and I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I didn’t go home, something bad was going to happen. I came back to make sure you were okay and … I find you all dressed up and going who knows where! With who knows whom!’

  ‘I’m allowed to go out if I want to.’ But her words sounded childish even to her and her bravado was wavering. This was not how she’d envisioned her evening going.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s just the thing—you never want to go out, you never seem to want to do anything these days, or is it just that you don’t want to do anything with me?’ He paused, then raked a hand through his hair. ‘Are you having an affair?’

  She jerked back as if he’d slapped her. ‘Of course not. How could you even say such a thing?’

  ‘What am I supposed to think, Jose?’ He threw his hands up in the air. ‘When I ask you to go out with me you act as if I want you to pluck your own eyeballs out and eat them for breakfast. You flinch when I touch you. You barely even talk to me anymore. I thought it was because you were hurting. I hoped it was the situation, not me, yet you’ve obviously got plans tonight. If you’ve got nothing to hide, why didn’t you tell me you were going out?’

  Her gaze dropped once again to the ground. Tears threatened and she tried to swallow the knot that had appeared in the back of her throat. ‘I didn’t have plans,’ she managed eventually. ‘I just …’

  Nope. Lost cause. Here came the weeping.

  ‘Oh, Jose.’ Nik shook his head, then stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. He rocked her against him and cradled her close as tears dripped off her lashes and onto his shirt. ‘We need to talk. Let’s go inside.’