Blazing Fear

by Leisl Leighton

  Holy hell, the man could kiss. She’d never imagined anything like it. Never experienced anything like it in those wild days when she’d rebelled as a teen and did things she’d become so sorry for since.

  After a moment, when he seemed steadier, he pulled away from her further, staring down at her. ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘You were having a panic attack.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t.’

  ‘You were. Everyone saw it.’ Ah, shit. It was the wrong thing to say. She knew it the moment the words left her mouth, but the look on his face told her the full story. This, people knowing, it was his worst nightmare. ‘I didn’t mean everyone,’ she hurried to say as he took a few stumbling steps back from her. ‘Just your mum and Reid. But they already seemed to know you had a problem.’

  He was shaking his head. ‘No. No. I’ve kept it from them. They don’t know. Nobody knows.’ He raked his hand through his hair. ‘Christ. What have I done?’

  She stepped towards him. ‘You haven’t done anything. You lived through a traumatic event. That would affect even the strongest of people. The fact you’ve managed so well all these years is testament to how strong you’ve been, but it’s okay to lean on people. To ask for help. You have to know that. Flynn. Flynn?’

  But it was no use. He was already gone. Not physically, but mentally, shutting down, enclosing his emotions behind whatever wall he thought they were safe behind. ‘Reid,’ he yelled as he limped away from her. ‘Let’s go look for that cat.’

  She wanted to tell him to sit down, to rest his leg, that she wouldn’t push him further about his fears, but the words wouldn’t come because she knew they were useless. He wouldn’t listen. He was too proud. Too stubborn.

  Hell, he reminded her a bit of her dad. A bit of herself.

  What a pair they made.

  No. Not a pair. Never a pair. She sighed as he pushed through the kitchen door, the force of his shove making it slam shut behind him.

  ‘Oh dear. That didn’t go so well,’ Barb said from where she was leaning against the doorway that led into the hall.

  She jumped, her face and chest heating. ‘You saw that?’

  ‘The kiss? No.’

  Prita blinked, then blushed. ‘You did see it.’

  Barb smiled. ‘It seemed like a good kiss.’

  ‘It didn’t work. It was stupid.’

  She took Prita’s hand and led her to the couch. ‘It got him inside and over his panic attack. From my point of view, it worked a treat.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s true.’ She snorted. ‘Kissing is hardly in the mental health hand book.’ She plopped onto the couch. ‘Some doctor I am.’

  ‘There’s some things you can’t fix, Prita. You can help with many bugs and illnesses, breaks and sprains and all sorts of pain, but the mind and how it processes things is a far trickier beast.’

  Prita stared at Barb. ‘You sound like you have some experience.’

  Barb pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘Everyone’s life is full of ups and downs and mine is no different from the rest.’ She looked down at her hands and then back up. ‘I struggled after my daughter, Reid’s mum, killed herself by running her car it into a tree. Although, I didn’t admit that to anyone, not even myself, for years. It wasn’t until my Robert died about ten years after, that I realised how bad I’d got. It was Flynn and his Anna who helped me through that time, made me get help. He was my rock. I only wish my boy would do the same for himself. Allow me, or someone else, to be his rock.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘I’m afraid he’s tarred with both his father’s and his mother’s stubbornness though, so I’ve not been able to even so much as get him to talk about what happened that day.’

  ‘What did happen that day?’ The moment the words were out of her mouth she wished them back. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘No, of course you can ask. You more than anyone else should know something of what you’re dealing with.’

  Prita frowned. ‘Because I’m his doctor?’

  ‘No. Because of the way you feel about each other.’

  Prita held her hands up. ‘There’s no feelings—’

  Barb tapped her on the hand. ‘Now now, you know what happened to Pinocchio when he lied?’

  ‘His nose got bigger.’

  ‘No, he got swallowed by a whale. I always thought that was a fairly obvious metaphor for being swallowed by the consequences of your lies, but—’ she shrugged, ‘—we are talking about a story where the main character was a wooden boy.’

  Prita stared at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. Barb smiled at her. After a moment, wiping her eyes, she said, ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Make a person feel like things aren’t so bad.’

  ‘It’s not hard. Humour fixes lots of things. As does a good scone. And, of course, love.’

  Prita’s smile fell from her face. ‘I don’t love Flynn.’ Her voice was a harsh whisper, but she could still hear the fear there in the middle of the denial.

  Barb’s soft smile showed she heard it too. ‘You’re not ready for that yet, I know. I also know that it’s not a fix for everything—it certainly wasn’t for my daughter. But I do know that if she’d been here, I wouldn’t have stopped trying to help her get help. And I’m not going to stop trying for Flynn.’

  Breath tight in her chest, Prita took Barb’s hand in hers. ‘I won’t stop trying either.’

  Barb smiled sadly. ‘He’s going to make it very difficult. He won’t admit he needs help easily. His role has always been the one who helps others.’

  ‘Yes. I see that in him.’ They had that much in common.

  Barb’s smile changed to loving pride. ‘My boy is strong. Maybe too strong for his own good right now.’ She looked away, took a deep breath, then met Prita’s gaze again. ‘They were out doing clean up after the fire had swept through here and we were given the all clear. A team went out with the CFA to clear the fallen trees from the roads and mark the trees that were dangerous and needed to be chopped down on roadsides and bush tracks. Anna was marking a tree when one of the high boughs split and fell on her, crushing her. Flynn was working the next tree down. He never said, but I know he heard the crack of the bough, that he saw what happened to her. They found him, cradling her broken body in his arms.’

  ‘Oh god.’

  ‘He had nightmares for months after. He thought I didn’t know, tried to hide them and the impact of them on him, but I heard what he yelled in his sleep.’

  ‘That must have been frightening for Aaron.’

  ‘No, I made certain that little boy never had a chance to hear his father like that. When I moved them in here after it happened, I put Aaron into the room the furthest from his dad’s. Flynn protested at first, but I said the little boy needed to be in a quiet room away from the living areas of the house so we wouldn’t wake him up after he was put to bed. Luckily I did that though because it saved Aaron from ever being woken by his father’s screams.’ She swallowed hard and took in a deep breath.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anymore.’

  ‘I do. Talking is good. It’s what Flynn hasn’t done enough of.’

  Prita nodded. ‘What was he screaming?’

  ‘It wasn’t always easy to make out, but I believe Anna was alive when he got to her, that she died in his arms.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ she asked, swallowing the desire to make an emotional comment on how awful it all was. Her job here wasn’t to be emotional. It was to allow Barb to share her emotions. She remembered that at least from her psych rotation.

  ‘I ran into his room the first night I heard him shout out—it was about a week after it happened. He’d had night terrors as a little boy, which were frightening in their intensity, so I ran in there expecting something similar.’

  Prita nodded. She knew all about night terrors because of Carter. But this wasn’t about her. ‘This was different though.’

  Barb nodded tightly.
‘He only shouted once, like he was reliving the moment the branch fell and he couldn’t get to her in time. He was thrashing like he was trying to lift something heavy. I wanted to move in to wake him to stop him, but I remembered from when he was little that wasn’t the best way of dealing with it, that touching him was likely to make it worse, not better, so I stayed back and called his name. I don’t know if he heard me, but he suddenly subsided, his hands held out like this.’ She lifted her arms, cradling her hands. ‘He was sobbing, begging her not to leave him. Then he paused, as if listening to something. His voice was so choked with tears and grief it was hard to hear what he said, but he promised her he would never forget her. That he would never replace her.’

  Prita’s throat was thick, her eyes full of prickling heat, her chest feeling both too big and too small for the breaths she was trying to breathe. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘He woke up and I gathered him into my arms and let him cry. The next morning, he got up and acted like nothing had happened the previous night. From that day, he threw himself into his work and into bringing up Aaron.’

  ‘You didn’t think that was strange? That he’d not even acknowledge being that upset?’

  Barb shook her head. ‘He has such pride. I thought he was embarrassed to have someone bear witness to him losing control like that. Even his mother. And, knowing what that kind of pride was like, I didn’t want to push him. It was enough that he’d shared it with me in that moment.’ She sighed. ‘But as time went by, I began to believe he truly didn’t remember it happening. If I brought up that moment of grief or asked him about the nightmares, his eyes would go blank and he’d say he didn’t know what I was talking about. He’d slept like a baby. He was throwing himself into work and into raising Aaron and CoalCliff began to prosper like it never had before and everyone in the community began to catch on to his drive and enthusiasm and were lifted by it so that the entire shire prospered. I questioned myself that there was any problem—I mean, how could there be when he was doing so much and being such an inspiration to the community? Even the nightmares seemed to go away after a few months. At least, I didn’t hear him cry out anymore, although, I know he often still gets up in the night to go check on Aaron.’

  ‘What made you realise he wasn’t getting better? That he was in denial?’

  ‘He never spoke about Anna, not even to Aaron, except to mention occasionally the reason for a decision was because it was what she wanted. So that was one sign, but not big enough for me to be too worried. The following year was a wet one and the fire danger in the region was low—I don’t think we had a single issue. Then two years down the track, we had the first fire in the January—a small one in the valley near where our creek ride goes through. It was handled quickly and didn’t spread. There wasn’t a hint of a breeze that day, the smoke spiralling straight up. But the look on his face when he saw the smoke, the way he froze, it suddenly made me realise he’d stopped coming to our bonfire nights in the winter camps, that he never cooked on the BBQ anymore when it was the thing he used to enjoy doing the most, that he used to even hardly come into the guest lounge area when we had the fire going during the colder months.’ Prita nodded. They were all the things she’d noticed. ‘He used to love to mingle and chat with the guests and the kids well into the night, throwing logs on the fire. I hadn’t seen him do that since Anna’s death. All those things—little, insignificant things that hadn’t stood out by themselves until I saw his face at that first sign of bushfire and realised he had a serious problem he was hiding from us all.’

  ‘I think he might have PTSD. Do you know what that is?’

  Barb nodded. ‘Nat’s ex-husband suffered from it.’ Barb looked at her, clinging to her hands, her gaze pleading. ‘Have I done the right thing? Helping him to hide it?’

  Prita had heard the stories of what Nat had suffered at the hands of her mentally ill husband, so she understood Barb’s worry. ‘Every person is different. Every trauma is different. What one person handles someone else doesn’t or can’t. Some people suffering from PTSD are highly functioning, while others—like Nat’s ex—just aren’t. But I’m no expert. He really needs to go and see a psychologist if he wants help.’

  ‘He won’t. He’s genetically wired to put on a brave face and not share his burdens.’

  Prita sighed. ‘He’s not alone in that. It’s a particular problem for men. Despite all the changes in society, they still feel they have to be strong and they’re not good at sharing their feelings.’ She learned that from her dad when her mother died.

  ‘Flynn wasn’t like that when Anna was alive. He shared everything with her. They were a team.’

  Prita chewed her lip. ‘Maybe his trauma is still making him be a part of that team, except now, it’s a team of one, not two.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  Prita couldn’t help but shrug. ‘I don’t think there’s much we can do unless he asks for help. We could try and force the issue, do an intervention kind of thing, but that doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to. It can make people dig more into themselves.’

  Barb clenched her fists in her lap. ‘That would be the case with my boy. If we confronted him, he’d deny it even more and then go flagellate himself about letting others discover his perceived weakness. It’s why I haven’t brought it up with him, I’ve just tried to keep him away from having to deal with fires, covering for him with others and getting Reid and Nat and some of the others here to volunteer with the CFA and be available for callouts so Flynn wouldn’t feel he had to.’ She twisted her hands in her lap. ‘But I feel like we’re in for a bad summer. Three fires in a few days. It’s not good.’ She took Prita’s hand. ‘Will you help him?’

  ‘I’ll try. As his doctor—’

  Barb shook her head. ‘No. Not as a doctor. As a person. As a friend. As a woman who was able to distract him from his own panic with a kiss. I know you’re attracted to him, just like he’s attracted to you. And I know you both have your reasons for thinking you can’t pursue it.’

  ‘I don’t think I can’t. I’m married. I—’

  Barb jerked her hand a little, stopping her words. ‘I know your marriage isn’t a real marriage.’

  Prita gaped at her before removing her hand slowly and surely from Barb’s light grip. ‘How could you know that?’ If Flynn had said something … But no, how could he? There hadn’t been the time.

  ‘Oh, don’t look like that. Nobody’s been talking out of school. It’s just a matter of putting two and two together. If your marriage was a real marriage, if you loved your husband and he loved you, if you wanted to be with him, he’d be here with you. You’d talk about him rather than keeping him secret. You’d organise weekends to go spend time together if your jobs are what keeps you away. What does he do, by the way?’

  ‘He’s a photographer and is also a massage therapist.’

  ‘See, two things he could do anywhere, so there’s no reason he wouldn’t be here with you unless the marriage wasn’t real.’

  Prita closed her eyes for a moment, trying to order her thoughts. ‘How did we get into a conversation about my marriage?’

  ‘You are using your marriage as an excuse to not live your life.’

  ‘I’m living my life. I’ve got a beautiful son and have started my own business.’ She faltered. ‘Well, I had my own business.’

  Barb waved her hand. ‘And you still do. There are too many people in this community now who love and respect you to want to see you walk away. But that’s beside the point.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel very beside the point to me.’

  ‘We were talking about you and your not-real marriage and how you’re using it as an excuse. Maybe you have valid reasons for that and maybe you don’t. But either way, it’s an excuse and believe me when I tell you, excuses never lead to happiness. They only lead to unhappiness.’

  ‘I’m not unhappy. And we were talking about what we can do to help Flynn, not my state of happiness or unhappines
s,’ she said desperately, trying to get the conversation back onto a footing where the next step wasn’t going to send her crashing into some emotional abyss.

  Barb smiled at her, the kind of smile that made Prita feel like she’d just walked into some kind of a trap and she was yet to see it, let alone spring it. ‘You can help Flynn. The answer has been staring me in the face and I failed to see it until now.’

  Prita was still not seeing the trap but was pretty certain it was about to slam shut on her and she should back away right now before she got stuck. And yet, she couldn’t make herself do it. Asked instead, ‘What are you talking about?’

  Barb’s smile widened. ‘I think it will be more fun if I let you and Flynn figure that out for yourselves.’

  The trap was hovering, but if she ducked and dived, she could still escape unharmed. Possibly. Self-preservation had her standing and backing up a few paces this time. She’d never noticed before how scary Barb could be. It was the all-knowing-all-seeing glint she got in her eyes. It was unnerving. ‘I do want to help him,’ she said, taking another step back.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ll read some books and maybe call some colleagues to see if there’s a way of getting him to feel safe enough to open up about his trauma.’

  ‘You do that.’

  She pointed to the door that led to the room she’d been told was hers and Carter’s for the next night or two while the cottage was made ready for them. ‘I might just go and do that now.’

  ‘Okay.’ She turned to go. ‘He loves you, you know.’

  Slam. The trap had closed.

  Chapter 17

  Prita stared at Barb, wondering for a moment which one of them had gone stark raving mad?

  Barb, for suggesting that Flynn loved her?

  Or Prita for wanting it to be true?

  ‘I’ll leave you to think about that, shall I?’ Barb was still smiling at her, like she’d not just dropped a bomb and was completely unaware of the destruction she’d left behind as she walked past Prita towards the kitchen door. ‘Go make your calls and then come to the kitchen. I think we could all do with a cuppa and some scones after the day we’ve had so far.’