Selling the Drama

by Theresa Smith

  Ashley and Bree bolted over to him, hugging him from either side, cheering loudly at the news that they were able to take him home at long last. Toby looked up at Charlotte, who met his gaze with a teary smile. She never failed to stun him, her capacity to hold everything together; she was in a class all of her own. She was divine. Her smile widened and Toby was certain, that if angels were mortal, they would look just like her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The household had finally settled from the excitement of having Toby come home, and after checking on the children, Charlotte poked her head into her mother's room.

  "Hey. Do you want a cup of tea?" Charlotte offered from the doorway. Iris looked up from the book she was reading. She had a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, giving her a distinct grandmotherly appearance. Charlotte grinned at the sight. "You look like a grandma," she stated.

  "I am a grandma," Iris replied dryly, yet she took the glasses off. "But heaven forbid I should actually look like one." She cast Charlotte a heavy look. "Why aren't you upstairs with Toby? He's going to need help-"

  "He doesn't want help."

  Iris paused, considering. She seemed on the verge of saying something when a loud crash came from overhead. Raising her eyes to the ceiling momentarily, she flicked her gaze back to Charlotte. "Needs and wants are usually two very different things."

  Charlotte bit her lip anxiously, waiting. Toby had been very clear about what he did and did not want her to do for him. But still. Meeting her mother's eyes, she nodded once before heading upstairs, taking them two at a time. She found him on the bathroom floor, sitting upright. As soon as he saw her, he put his hand out to prevent her from touching him.

  "No! I can do it. I just need a minute. Just to get my bearings." His face though, appeared to be creased with pain, despite his endeavours to hide it from her.

  Charlotte waited. She had put a plastic chair into the shower for him, but he had taken it out, and by the looks of it, fallen down in the process. Despite how much he didn't want to use the chair, it was a necessity. He couldn't stand in the shower on one leg. He knew this as much as she did, yet he had still taken it out, unwilling to accept any concessions, unwilling to bend to his disability. "Can I help you up?" she eventually offered, unable to just stand by doing nothing.

  Toby sighed heavily. "No."

  "Do you want a bath instead of a shower?" Charlotte persisted, looking down at him.

  Toby seemed to be deliberately avoiding her gaze. "I told you not to mother me. And I also told you not to put that stupid chair in the shower." He gripped the side of the vanity and hauled himself up, using his right arm for support given the weakness that still existed throughout his left side.

  "Then I'll leave you to it." Charlotte turned to go but his voice stopped her before she actually made it out of the bathroom.

  "Charlotte, I'm sorry," he said in a rush.

  She turned back to face him. He did indeed look sorry. Sorry to her, possibly also sorry for himself, but either way, he looked very sorry indeed. "I know you want be like you were. I'm sorry you can't." She remained in the doorway, taking in the sight of him. The only evidence from the accident visible on him now was a surgical scar across the side of his body and the stump where his leg ended just below his knee. The stump was not pretty to look at, not at all. Yet it was not hideous either. It was simply what he looked like now. Fitted with his new leg, wearing long pants, no one would ever know anything had ever happened to him. But here, stripped bare, his vulnerability was on display, and Charlotte knew this bothered him. Even before her. Which was why he persisted in not meeting her eyes. She remembered how exposed she had felt years ago when she had been left with that awful scar down her neck after Porter's attack. Mortified. Yet, Toby had been the one person she had felt she did not need to hide it from. The only person.

  "A bath might be good," he conceded.

  "Are you in pain?" Charlotte walked over to the bath, rinsing it out before putting in the plug so it could fill with warm water.

  "Yes."

  She added bath gel and sat on the edge, watching the water swirl and the bubbles foam. "Your arm and ribs?" she probed, trying to get a bead on what he was going through right now. He was so determined to try and have everyone believe he was perfectly fine. Fully recovered. Yet, Charlotte could tell him if he asked, just how many days and hours had passed since that moment he had been wheeled into the hospital past her, almost dead. He could fake it all he liked to everyone else, but she was not going to let him get away with it with her.

  "My leg. My arm and ribs don't hurt anymore. It's only ever my leg now." His voice was taut with strain, his answer clipped.

  Still facing the water, she ventured further into the discussion. "What does it feel like?"

  "Right now, it's feels as though something long and sharp is going in and out of the bottom of my foot. But sometimes it just aches all over. Other times it's itchy."

  She paused, looking over her shoulder at him. He was leaning heavily on the vanity, his arms crossed in front of his chest, looking at her at last. "You're talking about your missing leg?" she clarified, frowning at him, confused by his description. "It gets itchy? And aches? Where? At the stump?"

  Toby shook his head. "No. Where it doesn't exist anymore. Where there's only air now." He stared back at her, as though assessing her reaction, testing her, yet for what, Charlotte had no idea.

  "You heard the doctor say this would happen," he continued, gazing at her evenly.

  "I know. I just…" She shrugged then, not really knowing what to say, probably failing the test he had set down for her. It must be awful, to feel something that wasn't even there. She could not even begin to imagine what that must be like. Surreal, at the very least. Reaching over the bath, she turned the taps off. "It's ready." She stood, holding out her hand to him. "How do you want to do this?"

  Taking hold of her hand, Toby smiled down at her, his grip sure and strong. "Preferably with you in there as well."

  She smiled back at him. "It might be a bit squashy."

  "There's more room in there now. One less limb taking up space."

  Charlotte pulled a face at that.

  "Too soon for missing leg jokes?" Toby asked.

  "I don't know. It just seems…" she pondered, grappling for the right words to say. "Like you're setting me up to laugh when I shouldn't."

  "I'm not that funny. I wouldn't think you'd be in much danger of laughing when you shouldn't," he replied dryly.

  "You're right. You're not funny at all. You're actually pretty sad," Charlotte teased, her hand still held tight within his.

  "You know what is sad?" Toby tugged on her hand to draw her closer. "The saddest sad thing you'll ever hear?" A side of him not seen for some time began to emerge right before her eyes.

  "That you haven't shaved in two months?" Charlotte reached up with her other hand to pinch his cheek, the scruff tickling her fingers, a teasing smile about her lips.

  "Sadder than that is the fact that I haven't had sex since before I shaved last. That's what's really sad. This beard, it's like a living reminder of my celibacy. I'm almost a monk, it's been that long."

  Charlotte giggled at that. "You're an idiot." She dropped his hand so she could get undressed, reaching back out for him when she was done. "Lean on me whichever way you need so you can get in," she said to him, gesturing to the bath.

  He grinned widely. "You keep talking dirty like that and I might not make it into the bath," he teased as he braced himself against her. Before attempting to get into the bathtub, he looked down at her seriously, lowering his head so he could press his lips to hers, kissing her firmly. "Thank you."

  "For what?" she asked, brushing her cheek against his, delighting in the feel of him against her, solid and real, so very alive it almost brought her to tears. She blinked them away, not wanting to ruin the moment by becoming all weepy and needy.

  "Just because. There are way too many things to list. You
know why."

  Charlotte nodded. She supposed she did. "I love you."

  Toby pulled a face at her. "I'm not dying anymore. Unless you're about to drown me," he kidded. "You don't need to get all soppy with me now."

  Curling her fingers into his hair, she looked at him carefully. "I'm still in love with you. After all these years, I am still in love with you. I've never stopped feeling that way, not even when I left you. Saying that I love you, it just always seemed to me like it wasn't enough to describe the way I feel, but maybe I'm just being dramatic and looking at it all the wrong way. So, I'm going to say it every day now. And you're just going to have to put up with it."

  Leaning her forehead against his, she looked straight into his eyes. "This does not change who you are to me. You are still that horny teenage boy who used to sneak into my room every night; the moody, intensely focused on the bigger picture guy, who eventually changed his whole career plan just to be with me and our baby; my dynamic, ambitious and highly successful fiancé; the father of my beautiful children; the man I always knew I would spend my life with; one of the five reasons my heart beats. What is missing from you now, does not change any of that. Not for me."

  Pressing her lips to his, she kissed him, deep and drowning, giving him no chance to respond, no chance to argue her down, no chance to do anything but accept what she had told him and absorb it into his soul, to believe it, to harbour it, and to own it.

  "Dad?" Ashley put down his reading book, looking up with a nervous expression on his face, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

  Toby smiled at him, reaching over to ruffle his hair. They were sitting side by side out on the back veranda, the afternoon birds screeching in the trees around them, a breeze at last breaking through the steamy heat of the day. "What's up buddy?"

  "Are you never going back to work? Like Chad?"

  Toby shook his head at that. "I'm going back to work next week. Maybe not for as long each day as I used to." Not at first anyway, but eventually he would. He was not made for doing things by halves. "Chad has a different type of injury to live with than me. His is much more limiting." He refused to use the term disability. It was too much for him to concede.

  "He builds stuff well," Ashley remarked. "Chairs and stuff."

  "Yeah, he does do that well." Toby considered his next question for a few moments before going ahead and asking it. "I don't suppose you've heard any talk around the house about when Chad and Jenna might be moving into a place of their own?"

  Ashley frowned for a moment, as though thinking hard. "Not really. I think they're going to live in the shed." He scratched his head and then nodded, pointing down the backyard to Royce's large shed.

  Toby glanced over at it. He never went in there; everything he needed for the lawn was in the small shed next to the pool. He knew Iris banged about in there from time to time, probably destroying things, but it had been years since he had stepped foot in there. Looking back over at Ashely, he smiled again, deliberately keeping his voice calm. "What gives you that idea, buddy?" Shit, he hoped Ashley was wrong.

  "Grandma said to Jenna lots of times before you came home: 'Get your arse into gear and clear out that shed before Toby comes home and hits the roof.' Sorry for swearing, but that's what she said, and you asked."

  Toby reached out and ruffled his hair once more. "I did ask. No worries." He glanced down at the shed again, a small flicker of anger igniting within him. He wondered if Iris had withheld this plan from Charlotte also. Most likely. That was her style.

  "Dad?"

  Returning his attention to Ashley, Toby put his concerns aside, not wanting to ruin this quiet time with his son with thoughts of Iris and her duplicity. "What's up?"

  "How come, when you were in hospital, your mum and dad didn't come and see you?"

  Toby felt his heart slam around the walls of his chest; a cold sweat prickled the palms of his hands. Ashley sat before him, wide eyed and curious, his seven year old face so much like what his own would have looked like at the same age, with one exception. Ashley had very different eyes. His were not filled with fear. Toby considered, entirely unprepared for this question. He began with the obvious.

  "They died a long time ago." He wondered if that would be enough.

  "What from?"

  Apparently not. "An accident." Not entirely untrue.

  "Like yours with the car?"

  "Nothing like mine."

  "What like then?"

  Toby could not help but grin at Ashley's persistence. He was too much like him. "Just a different sort. It's a bit hard to explain."

  "So, no cars?"

  "There was a car. But…look, it's not something I can explain to you. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you about it."

  His eyes widened at that. "Oh." Biting his lip once more, Ashley sat quietly, seeming to consider the concept of an accident so bad that his father could not even articulate the details to him. "Do you miss them?" he asked eventually.

  Toby pondered this, searching his mind for an answer that would suffice. He did not want to lie to his son, but if he said yes, that could open up a new line of questioning, just as saying no would. "I miss that my mum never got to meet any of you. I think she would have really liked Mummy and she would have loved all of you a lot."

  "Do you have a picture of them?"

  "I have a couple."

  "Do you have any of their stuff?"

  Toby frowned at that. "What sort of stuff?"

  "You know, like keepsakes or something. Ralphy has this old pocket watch that was his grandpa's. His grandpa is dead now, so he likes to carry it around and show people, telling them it's a keepsake." Ashley swung his legs, kicking at the railing while he looked up at Toby, questioningly.

  Toby exhaled. "I don't have anything that belonged to my father. I have some jewellery though, that belonged to my mother. That's all." He had not pulled it out in the longest time. It was stuffed into small flat box, buried within the wardrobe. He had considered showing it all to Charlotte once, but he became so overwhelmed by the sight of the jewellery, so assaulted by memories, not just of that long ago day when he'd meticulously removed it all from his mother, but of all the others that had preceded it, for years and years; so he had simply shut the box and pushed it to the back of the wardrobe, never opening it again, merely shifting it from place to place on occasion.

  "Does Mummy have the jewellery?"

  "No. I don't want Mummy to have it. It's not…" Toby paused, stuck for the right words. Shit. "That jewellery, it wasn't nice jewellery. I never liked it. I would only give Mummy something that was really nice. That I liked." That did not give him nightmares each time he saw it. Swallowing deeply, he forced a smile onto Ashley, deeply disturbed by how uncomfortable this entire turn in the conversation was making him feel.

  "Why keep it if you don't like it?"

  A good question, the answer to which Toby had never really taken the time to examine with any depth. Looking at Ashley, taking in his innocent curiosity, he decided to just keep it simple. "I think I've kept it because no matter how much I don't like it, it was all important to my mother. She liked it all very much." And that was a really sad truth to acknowledge, because she had adored the jewellery his father had pressed onto her, the consideration that they were forms of payment for injuries incurred only harboured by Toby, it would seem. She wore many pieces of it, every day, flaunting her husband's generosity, hiding the bruises as best she could, hiding from public when she was unable to disguise them, feigning illnesses when people asked her why she had not been out for so long, lying to protect him, always lying, lying, lying. To protect a man who had treated her worse than an animal. A man who did not ever once show her any mercy, despite her begging, despite her screams.

  Toby closed his eyes and brought his hands up to his face, breathing shallowly, attempting to hide his misery from his son. Time never really dulled the horrific. What was bad then was still bad now; time did not lessen. In some ways, as you got older and
time passed on, the memories had the ability to make you feel worse, the acknowledgement of the wrongness of it all now viewed with an adult's clarity. Pulling his hands away from his face, opening his eyes to look at Ashley, he decided to put an end to the questions about his parents.

  "How about you get ready for a swim before Mummy gets home with Bree and Courtney? I'll get in with you," Toby offered. Swimming was good for increasing his strength to his left side, and while he was unable to keep his prosthesis on while in the pool, the stump was less exposed below the water.

  Ashley's face lit up and he took off, racing to get ready for their swim. Toby sank back into the seat, closing his eyes once more, feeling as though he had been drained of all energy. He thought about his mother, as she had been, separate from his father and her constant injuries, the way she was when she was only his mother and nothing else. And he realised, for the first time since that fateful day, that he did indeed miss her. He missed all that she had been cheated out of, and correspondingly, all that he had never had with her on account of it.

  Charlotte glanced from her mother to Toby, then back to her mother again. Iris looked as calm as can be, while Toby, well, Toby looked fit to explode.

  "It's my house," Iris stated, an air of superiority about her that Charlotte knew would just rile Toby up even further. "They'll be in the shed. You won't even notice them."

  Toby snorted at that, a sound of disgust that went well with the derisive shake of his head. "You think?" He leaned forward, slapping his hands onto the table with a force that startled Charlotte and seemed to break Iris out of her cool reserve. "Seeing them, is not the issue!" he seethed.

  "Then what's the problem?" Iris cried out. "I thought you liked Chad! Jenna has her moments, but I never thought you had a problem with her!"

  Toby frowned at Iris. He stepped back from the table and put his hands onto his hips, and Charlotte could see how hard he was working to control his temper. When he had come to her and asked if she knew about her mother letting Chad and Jenna move into the shed, she could not have been more surprised. It was the first she had heard of the notion. Why would anyone want to live in a shed in far north Queensland, for a start, and why her mother would want Jenna around permanently when they fought so often, was a close second in the range of thoughts that burst into her mind as Toby paced before her ranting about her mother's underhanded duplicity. He had quickly deduced that she knew nothing about any of it, and moved onto hunting down Iris for some answers.