And I did; I found out more than I could have imagined I would. Which was why, as I led her blindfolded into the pub with the intent to have her sing ‘My Immortal’ by candlelight to an audience of only me, I hoped that it would be enough for her to finally forgive her late husband and find the strength to visit his and her daughter’s graves in order to make her peace.
“Where are we going?” She let out a frustrated giggle.
“Step,” I instructed.
“Shit, you’re supposed to tell me before I actually step.”
I held her steady. “Sorry, my bad.”
“You suck at this.”
“Princess, I’m trying to concentrate. Please don’t say the word suck.”
“Grr,” she growled.
I stood there watching her, with her hands on her hips and looking overly impatient. Her forehead would wrinkle every other second as she tried to see around the scarf that covered her eyes. It was friggin’ adorable.
Knowing I should put her out of her misery, I untied the scarf and gestured her in through the side door of the closed pub. I’d asked Todd to put some candles around the stage area for the sole reason of providing her with a comforting level of light. Singing the Evanescence song to her deceased husband’s memory was going to be hard enough for her as it was, so I wanted the atmosphere to be as calm and pleasant as possible.
She gave me an unsure smile. “What’s this?”
I took her hand and brought it to my lips. “This is your stage to sing to Tristan,” I explained, gesturing to the piano.
Realisation dawned on her face, and she stepped toward the stage, taking her hand away from my lips as she walked. I held back in the shadows and watched as she trailed her finger along the top of the piano before taking a seat and reading the sheet music I’d arranged through Vicky.
Inwardly scoffing, I thought about how that day at Shepparton District Hospital had changed my and Stella’s lives, but how it had also changed Vicky’s and Leigh’s. When my idiot ex-best friend found out that Vic had overdosed and nearly died, he was beside himself; which was when he’d also let his true colours show and confessed how much he fucking cared for her. And as it would pan out, Vic also realised, in the midst of her brush with death that she, too, cared for Leigh. Since that day, both of them have attended rehab and are helping each other through whatever difficulties they face. All in all, that horrific day turned out to be a turning point in all our lives. So, yeah, the irony of it made me scoff to myself.
Hearing the sound of a piano key twang, I refocussed my attention back on Stella, who was beautifully illuminated by the soft glow of the candlelight. She looked gorgeous, and it was safe to say she took my breath away, because I actually choked and coughed like a tosser.
“You all right?” she called out, shading her eyes as she squinted in my direction.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just swallowed wrong.” Just swallowed wrong? What the fuck, Drake?
“Oh, okay then. You do know that you learn how to swallow in the womb, right?” she stated with a cocky smile.
I shook my head, not that she could see it. “Play, Princess.”
Stella smiled then closed her eyes, appearing to compose herself as she sucked in a deep breath and then let it out as she simultaneously pressed the opening notes of the song. She was a truly talented musician. Not that I was a professional in the field or anything, but her skills on the piano were faultless, and her voice, well ... her voice possessed a power to stop me in my tracks and focus solely on its existence, which is what I did when she sang the opening lyrics.
Instantly, she had transported herself into her own musical world, which was such a delight to watch. The emotion, the presence ... the way she told you a story without you realising there was a story to be told. That was what Stella did when she performed.
Completely mesmerising me with her heartfelt message to her husband, she sang of his presence still lingering and that it wouldn’t leave her alone, and I knew how true those lyrics really were. Until she was able to say goodbye, his presence would always linger and haunt her because of the pain she refused to let go. She sang about the pain being real, and her wounds not being able to heal, because what had happened was too great for time to just erase.
The truth in her message and the way she sang it with every fibre in her being hit me just as hard as the day I was informed that Mum was terminally ill. All the emotion and pain I’d experienced that day resurfaced and brought a tear to my eye. Shocked, I wiped it away quickly, but another soon replaced it.
Shit!
Silently fighting my battle with being a sooky la-la, I waved the white flag and surrendered to the tears. Stella’s sheer will and determination was just too much. Her face was poised, but damp with her own outpouring, as she continued singing about having no choice in being bound to the life that Tristan had left behind, at which point she finally lost her composure and broke down. I stood up, but then paused when she persisted through the song, once again finding her self-control. She fucking amazed me. Outright fucking blew me away. And what else blew me away was how, with every note she played and every lyric she sang to the closing of the song, the sense of achievement she must’ve been feeling began radiating from her like a beacon.
Standing there frozen as she pressed the final note on the piano, I wiped the couple of tears that had fallen on my cheeks.
Truth be told, my vision was blurred, so I blinked through the few that still teetered on the edge of my lids, which was when I truly discovered the woman before me. I discovered a woman who had been held captive in her own prison, a woman who had fought through the hell that was captive with her, and a woman who was the bravest person I had ever known. As I slowly made my way toward her, I discovered the love of my life.
I discovered Stella.
E P I L O G U E
Pain. Physical or psychological. Which of the two hurts the most? Is it possible for one to hurt more than the other, or are both just as debilitating? Physical pain is instant, brutal and uncamouflaged. It’s bold and undeniable, often leaving a visible scar, a reminder and trophy of sorts of the damage caused. Psychological pain is one that festers within, bridled, yet just as potent. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, slowly chipping away at a person’s soul, without visibility. Both forms of pain have the capacity to bring a person to his or her knees, destroy their faith and render them no more. But when the two collide, merge, unite in a common cause, the effects can be catastrophic.
My body was currently experiencing both forms of pain as I took slow, tedious steps across the cemetery lawn in the direction of my late husband and daughter’s final resting place. I had been avoiding this moment, running from reality and pretending that it didn’t exist. Yet deep down, I knew this time would come, for some things are just inevitable. I’d been trying to escape the inescapable by burying the horrific reality I was handed in an untouched grave — the grave’s location deep within my body.
But not anymore. Not today.
The wind lashed my skin with each step I took, leaving an icy sting. The leaves cried out when I pressed them into the earth. I couldn’t look up. I refused to, instead focussing on the black leather of my boots and the grass and the gravel that filled my vision. My nails dug into the palms of my hands as I clenched my fists, nerves and apprehension blanketing me. The pain of my biting fingernails was welcome, providing a microscopic distraction from what was to come in mere seconds. But it was microscopic ... the pounding of my heart overpowered all else and reminded me why I’d run, why I’d fled my previous life and why it was so difficult to return. Returning meant facing what had happened ... what I’d suffered.
Returning meant closure, which, up until six months ago, I’d never thought possible. Six months ago, I’d escaped and reinvented myself. I’d left my previous life and started a new one — one that unintentionally included the man standing beside me. Lawson Drake: my toad, my prince ... my knight in shining armour. Without him and his sheer deter
mination to rescue me from myself, I wouldn’t be standing where I was, looking down at the gravestones of my husband and daughter for the very first time.
Lowering to my knees, I reached forward and traced my fingers along the letters: Q U I N N, desperate to touch her, feel her. But the marble beneath my fingertips was cold and had me jerking back my hand.
“I can’t,” I said, standing up.
Lawson took my hand in his and lowered himself to the ground beside Quinn’s grave, directing me to sit on his lap. He then guided my hand back to her name and placed it over the letters, placing his hand on top of mine.
I gasped, strangled for air at finally being close to my baby girl once again. “Quinn,” I sobbed, leaning in and pressing my cheek to her headstone. “Mummy loves you, and I’m sorry for being away for so long. But I’m here now. I’m here, my angel, and I promise I’ll never stay away for long ever again.”
Crying, I embraced my daughter in the only way I knew how, the only way life said I could. I conveyed everything in those moments that I would have conveyed on the day of her funeral. I said I loved her, missed her, was so very, very proud of her and treasured the time we’d spent together. I said I would always think about her and promised to never again bury her memory. But most of all, I said I was sorry. Sorry that she was taken so soon, that her time with me was so short, and that I never got to hear her say the word “Mum”. And then I sang her a lullaby and told her it was time to sleep.
Standing up, I reached my hands down to Lawson and pulled him to his feet beside me. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much you being in my life means to me,” I said, wrapping my arms around his chest.
“You don’t have to,” he replied, kissing the top of my head. “I’ll give you a few moments to say what you need to say to Tristan.” He pulled away, slowly. “I’ll just be over there by that tree.”
I nodded and watched him walk away before turning to read the inscription on Tristan’s headstone:
Here lies Tristan David Munroe
08/12/1985–13/09/2013
Loving father of Quinn Estelle Munroe
Devoted husband to Estelle Louisa Munroe
A moment in time can never be rewound.
A man’s love for his family will always stay bound.
“Damn you, Tristan,” I whispered, choking on a sob. “Damn you for being so stupid.” Kneeling down, I touched the inscription that told of him being a devoted husband. “You were devoted in every way and loved me as much as one possibly could. I can’t deny that,” I admitted, more to myself than him.
Releasing a pained sigh, I continued. “I ... I miss you. I miss you and Quinn so much it hurts. I miss our mornings in bed with Quinn lying between us, and how you’d make her giggle when you played peekaboo. I miss watching you rock her to sleep in your arms, and hearing you through the baby monitor telling her that she and Mummy are your entire universe. Damn you, Tristan,” I cried, this time releasing some of the anger within.
Closing my eyes and regulating my breathing, I reminded myself that all my emotions were allowed to escape, and that each of them played a part in dealing with my loss. “That fateful day can’t be rewritten. I know that. I also know that if it could, you would do everything within your power to change what happened. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you can’t do that. I’m sorry that one lapse in judgment resulted in you losing your life and taking our daughter’s along with you. I’m sorry, Tristan.” Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my wedding and engagement rings and then dug two shallow holes, one above Quinn’s grave and another above Tristan’s. I dropped my engagement ring into the hole for Quinn and covered it over. “Here you go, baby girl. I always promised to give you this one day.” I then dropped my wedding ring in the hole for Tristan and covered it up, too. “And I want you to have this. Look after it for me, and look after our little angel,” I said, kissing my fingertips and placing kisses on both their headstones. “I love you both and I always will. See you next time.”
Standing up, I turned around and found Lawson waiting patiently under the tree just as he’d said he would. Seeing him there made me smile. It also gave me a sense of gratitude and hope. Life was funny like that ... there was a lot of give and take, a lot of up and down, of doors opening and closing, of loss and of things found. And that’s exactly what my life thus far had been. I had lost so severely, lost everything I’d held dear. But then, after much time had passed, I’d found a man who not only fixed my stupid car, he fixed my broken and tormented heart. He discovered my almost extinguished light.
He discovered Stella.
E X T E N D E D
E P I L O G U E
Joy ... a feeling of delight and great pleasure. Happiness. It’s that moment when everything in your world is right, that moment when light tends to bounce off the surfaces surrounding you, highlighting the small — and what would normally be perceived as insignificant — elements that form part of our life. Like the shimmering reflection on the surface of the dam, not fifty metres to my right. Or the white-gold diamond engagement ring and wedding band sparkling from their perfectly placed positions on my finger.
I smiled and rotated the rings that signified the eternal bond, promise and love that I shared with my husband, Lawson. I always rotate them, as a reminder that life has many directions we can take. We just have to make the conscious decision to take them. And I’d done just that; took a leap of faith and travelled down a path that led me to finding another love of my life.
Three years ago, on an overcast yet mild and beautiful autumn day, Lawson and I exchanged vows in the gazebo of Pittstown Strawberry Farm, the very gazebo I stood in now. Our ceremony had been small, intimate and romantic. It was fun, laid-back and unconventional. It was everything Lawson and I are together; it was perfect.
We’d both inwardly acknowledged, then openly discussed the strawberry farm as the place where we had realised, for the first time, that we loved one another. It was also the place where Lawson proposed.
Looking down at my engagement ring and rotating it, yet again, I remembered that day when he’d hidden the ring in our favourite strawberry bush and waited patiently — and arrogantly, mind you — until I’d found it.
“Make sure you get every berry in that bush, Princess,” he’d said, leaning back on his hands.
I’d fired him a dirty look, thinking the shithead was being bloody lazy. But he’d only heightened my annoyed state by looking at me with a cocky smirk that, at the time, I just wanted smack off his face.
“Feel free to do it yourself, Toad,” was my response.
“Nah, it’s all good.”
At that point, I’d turned and faced him, jaw dropped, eyes wide. He’d waggled his eyebrows in response and nodded toward the bush again. “Quickly, we haven’t got all day.”
I’d plunged my hand deep into the bush while keeping my eyes steady on him in a show of are-you-fucking-happy-now-arsehole, which was when my hand had hit a hard, slightly furry and cube-like shape. It definitely wasn’t a strawberry.
The confused expression I displayed must’ve indicated to Lawson that I had found the ring, because his face had lit up and he sat forward. “Found one?”
What happened next was me pulling out the ring box, gasping and handing it directly to him, only to immediately snatch it back and open it up.
“I want to be your king and you my queen, Princess,” he’d said, reaching over and taking the ring from the box. “Marry me.”
And, well ... the rest is history.
Well, not quite.
Shielding the sun’s rays from my eyes, I searched the strawberry field in front of me, spotting Lawson crouched down. He was counting, each number louder than the next, until he reached ten.
“Ready or not, here I come,” he yelled, standing up. I laughed, noticing our twenty-month-old daughter, Ella-Quinn, not even two metres from him on her knees, bum in the air, and her face buried in her little chubby fingers.
“Where’s Ella? I
can’t find her,” Lawson said, loudly and with emphasised drama.
I stepped off the gazebo and jogged toward them, joining the charade. “Can you see her? She’s very good at hiding.”
Lawson shook his head in admiration as he stood over Ella. “No, Mummy, I can’t. I think she’s gone.”
She let out her adorable giggle, my favourite sound in the world.
“Oh no, Daddy. What will we do?” I asked, reaching Lawson’s side and resting my head on his shoulder.
He lowered his voice. “We’ll have to make another one.”
I laughed, but then swallowed heavily. “Actually ... we already have,” I confessed, dropping my hand to caress the spot that housed our unborn baby.
Lawson looked down at my stomach, then back to my face, his eyes practically bulging out of his head. “We have?”
“Yes, we have. Apparently we made one seven weeks ago —”
Before I could finish what I was saying, my husband’s lips came crashing down on mine. His kisses, whether soft and sensual or hard and passionate, always left me breathless. And this one even more so, because it took me by surprise.
“We’re having another baby?” he mumbled against my mouth.
I nuzzled his cheek with my nose and pecked him on the lips. “Yeah, we are.”
Pulling away, he laced his fingers and rested his hands on his head, the smile he wore totally infectious. “We’re having another baby?”
“Yeah,” I giggled.
“We. Are. Having. Another. Baby!” he shouted. “Did you hear that, Ella? You’re gonna be a big sister.” Lawson bent down, scooped Ella into his arms, and lightly tossed her into the air before catching her.
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