by Max Henry
My mum needs me: she was fine on her own before she had kids.
I’m supposed to find a job: they employ people in Burbank.
I have scheduled appointments with her: she could transfer my counselling to another shrink at another practice.
Cam and I are too different from each other: variety is the spice of life.
Apparently, hating the way somebody stores their belongings isn’t a valid excuse not to be with them. Who would have thought? But then again, I did always know. Just like I know I did the right thing by leaving how I did. Giving Cam the space to breathe. Giving her a sign that no matter how long it takes for her to be ready to move on, I would be waiting.
If she’s even found it.
I start the car with a healthy rumble, and idle out of Mum’s driveway as I begin the trek back to the place I should have returned to weeks ago. I set myself a limit, made sure Cam would be the one to let me know she was completely ready to leave her past behind, but who was I kidding? How long did I really think I could wait?
Hopefully, it’s not too late. Hopefully, she feels I’m worth a second chance.
Hopefully, she’s still there.
THIRTY-ONE
Cammie
“I don’t want it, Mum.” I thrust the piece of notepaper back at her, frustrated that she just won’t listen.
“Would you stop being so stubborn?” She pauses, glancing at the removal men who carry my solid oak sideboard toward the truck, and lowers her voice. “I’ve had enough of seeing you mope around the place when all it would take is one damn phone call to sort this out.”
She snatches my wrist, wrestling me as I try to break free of her hold. I grit my teeth, forcing my hand into a fist so she can’t try to give me the number again.
“You’re behaving like a child,” she says vehemently.
“Because you’re treating me like one,” I whisper-yell in return, eyeballing the men as they jostle the furniture around behind her.
My mother stares at me, her lips pursed. It’s a look I haven’t seen since I accidently spilled nail polish on her carpet as a kid.
Before I can predict her next move, she reaches out and shoves the paper down the cleavage of my top, into my bra.
“Mum!”
“Take it,” she grits out, spinning away.
I retrieve Duke’s number, ridiculously enraged that a slip of paper connected to him in some vague way has touched such an intimate part of me. I clear my throat, garnering Mum’s attention as she heads for the house.
She turns, her head shaking slowly, her jaw hard as I lift the paper between us and shred it.
“Fine,” she snaps, getting the attention of the removalists. “Wallow in your damn misery then.” She tosses her hands in the air, marching back into the near-vacant house.
I’m pissed at her, partly because she won’t let the issue go, but mostly because I’m redirecting the anger I feel at myself for not having the guts to do exactly what she says.
I should call him. Make a friendly gesture, and touch base to see how his job-hunt is going, how his family is. Yet the thorns in my heart twist in the septic wounds left by his touch, his kisses, when I think of how to end the call.
I’d be a love-struck teenager telling him, “No, you hang up first.” I wouldn’t be able to do it, especially if our conversation cemented the fact that there’s no chance of there ever being an “us”.
“We’ve only got the beds to go and then we’re done,” the older of the two removalists says, coming to stand beside me. He points to the way they’ve stacked the rest. “We can fit some of your boxes in the gaps if you know which ones you don’t need right away.”
The truck will sit loaded in their yard for two days until I take ownership of my new property. Turns out Amanda knew her shit, and the house sold for a tidy profit within three weeks. Seeing Jared turn up on my doorstep with the contract and a celebratory bottle of wine cut the last tether I had to sanity, leaving me afloat in a sea of doubts.
The largest, that any life I create from here on in will ever be as good as what I once had.
Nine years ago, when I held Taylah in my arms for the first time, this isn’t what I saw in my future. Standing alone on the porch of the house I thought I would die in didn’t even cross my mind. I honestly fell in love with this place, believing I’d never leave. That I would spend the rest of my life making memories here with my daughter, my family, even grandchildren.
And yet, here I am, watching my possessions get bundled into the back of a truck, wondering how I’m going to fit them all into the new place. It’s got the same number of rooms, but a smaller footprint. It’s all I could afford, applying for a mortgage on my own.
“I’ll go shift some boxes to the door here for you,” I let the removalist know. “Make a pile that you can take from.”
“That would be brilliant.” He gives me a tight nod before relaying the message to his off-sider.
I head into Taylah’s room to gather the couple that hold the belongings of hers I decided to keep. My eye catches the school uniform still hanging in the wardrobe. I need to donate it, but in the never-ending list of things to do when shifting house, I forgot.
“Cam?” Mum calls from the depths of the house.
“Yeah?” I drone back, still not over her performance with the phone number.
“Do you have any blankets left out? I’ve pumped the airbed for you, so I thought I may as well put the bedding on it.”
“Beside the French doors,” I shout as I reach out and pull the uniform from the rail.
My hand hangs in mid air as I frown at how unusually heavy the blouse and skirt are. I step backward, intending to lay the outfit on the nearby boxes, when the reason for the added weight tumbles to the floor. What on earth?
“Where are you, Cam?” Mum calls from the hall.
“I’m in here.” I squat and retrieve the notebook, turning it over as she appears at the door.
“Did you mean these ones?” Her eyes narrow as she spies what I have in my hand. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know. I just found it.” I’ve got no idea what’s inside, but I know one thing for sure: this notebook isn’t mine. I’ve never had a grey one with the imprint of waves on the cover.
“Open it up.” She gestures to the book with the blankets in her hands. “Whose is it?”
“I don’t know.” I murmur as I flip the front cover open. The handwriting is messy, masculine, but I know that it’s not Jared’s.
“I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready,” Mum says softly. “I’ll put the jug on—have a coffee ready to go.”
“Thanks.” I have a gut feeling that I might need a wine, though. My fingers track over the decorative text scribbled on the first page.
echoes in the storm
The handwriting is choppy, dark lines scratched over each other, evoking a sense of thunder and lightning, wind and hail. Chaos.
With the book held in my hands, I slowly fold my legs and drop to the floor in the strip of afternoon sun that spills in the window. The light illuminates the thin pages, showing the mass of writing behind. I turn the sheet over, my throat thick with apprehension as I prepare to dive in.
They say man’s greatest enemy is himself, and I never understood the depth of that idea until I killed my first stranger in the name of freedom. You’re repeatedly warned that you can never truly be prepared for how it feels to take another man’s life. Of course, you bullshit yourself with the theory that you’re out there to kill the bad guys, that you won’t feel cruel because you’re ridding the world of the evil scum that slights the face of the earth.
But then you shoot him. He doesn’t die with the first bullet, of course, because you’re new to this and, well, killing a man isn’t quite the same as taking down a buck on your uncle’s back block.
He barters, pleads with you, but you don’t understand it all because the guy talks a whole different language. But you get the gist of it. You realise tha
t you do care because this guy … he’s you. He’s a man who fights for his ideals as well. A guy who fights for his country. His freedom.
And so the next guy you shoot, you spend a bit more time lining up, because fuck knows you don’t want to hear that all over again. You get quicker, sharper, but not because you want to be the lean, mean, killing machine you fantasised over when you first enlisted. You do it because you don’t want to fuck up. You don’t want to hear their words, their cries.
Their humanity.
You disassociate to survive. Close off the parts of you that mean you feel compassion, love, and empathy. Lo and behold, you become a fucking universal soldier: robotic, detached, and clinical.
Yet, when you come home, that mindset doesn’t magically vanish the second your foot hits home turf. It is you. You are the war, and you are death. Family, they see the change, and they try to connect. But nothing works, because of course you’ve shut down all channels to the things that used to make you happy, the things they know you like.
They don’t know this new guy. Nobody does, least of all you.
He’s a stranger to everyone.
That’s where you came in, Cam.
I rest the book in my lap, my heart thundering in my ears. Closing my eyes, I will my pulse to ease off and concentrate on taking deep, equalising breaths.
It does stuff-all to help.
My finger twirls in the end of my hair as I continue with the journal Duke left for me, clearly knowing that one day, I would find it.
You were the echo in my storm. At first, all the little things you did differently irked at me. They niggled, annoying the shit out of me constantly. I thought it meant we couldn’t get along, that there was no chance we’d work out. But you know what I figured out when Archie phoned to tell me the car was ready?
They were like the faint call of home, lost in the wind and the roar of thunder. It was you calling me, hoping I’d hear you and find my way out of the dark that I had lost myself in when I detached from life, when I shut off to survive.
You, Cam, were my echo. My call back.
And fuck it all if I didn’t find home in the end.
A single drop hits the page, blurring the words I’ve yet to read. I dab at it with my sleeve before wiping my cheeks, panicked that I’ll ruin even one of his precious words and miss what it is he wrote to me.
As I write this, I can hear you crying in your room. You think I left, but the truth is I made it as far as the end of the driveway. I stopped to check the road and found myself staring at the spot you told me Taylah lost her life.
I realised then that I couldn’t leave you without telling you how you saved mine. But letting you know now, while you’re upset and angry … you wouldn’t believe me. You’re mad I’m going home, and I get that, babe, I really do. But I think you need this as much as I do.
We both have loose ends to tie up before we’ll get a proper chance at making it.
You need to stand on your own two feet for a while to remember how strong you are against the winds of change.
So this is me, in the dark with only my goddamn torch to light the page, thinking of where I can leave this so that you’ll see the truth when you’re ready to.
I know where. And if you’ve found it, it means you do now, too.
It means you are ready.
I’ll be waiting for you, Cam. Waiting for you to hear my echo.
“Mum!” The notebook hits the floor as I launch from the room, swinging myself through the doorways to find her where she said she’d be—in the kitchen. “Mum.”
“What?” She sets her coffee mug down. “What’s going on, Cam?”
“I need Duke’s number,” I pant.
Her face falls. My heart is crushed. “Oh, love. I deleted it after I wrote it down. I figured if you wouldn’t take it today, you wouldn’t ever need it.”
I frown, looking around for her bag. “He phoned you, though. It’ll be in your call history still as an unsaved number. Where’s your bag?”
“In the car.” She launches to her feet, hurrying out the door.
I jog after her, my heart beating so fast it’s almost a solid vibration. The removalist spots me as I drop off the porch, bypassing the stairs, and heads over.
“We’re done for the day, so unless you’ve got anything urgent, we’ll be back in the morning to load up the last of it.”
I glance over at the younger guy as he straps the bedframes to the side of the truck. “Uh, no. Thank you.”
He offers a goodnight and heads to the rear of the truck as his offsider jumps to the ground.
I couldn’t care less what they want to do. All I need is my mother’s phone. She skids to a stop beside me, her Chucks kicking up dust in the gravel.
“Here. You do it. I don’t know what to look for, or where to find that kind of information.”
Despite my panic, I manage to chuckle as she passes her phone over. The removal truck pulls away while I unlock the screen. My finger swipes up, left, taps the screen again and again, but it’s still not fast enough. I need it now. I need to call him and tell him that I hear his voice very fucking day, and I’ve only just figured out which way to go.
“Cam?” Mum asks, still beside me.
“Hang on.”
“No, Cam.” She nudges my arm.
I look into her eyes as the thunder of the storm grows louder, enough to drown out my erratic heartbeat banging a bass drum in my ears. Only it’s not thunder—it’s the rumble of a car that I never thought I’d hear again.
It’s the sound of home coming to me.
THIRTY-TWO
Duke
Fuck. She’s sold the house. The anxiety I’d managed to get a lid on these past six weeks hammers to life in my chest as I turn up the driveway, only to be greeted with the grill of a huge fucking truck. Jesus.
I slam the HQ into reverse and backtrack to the road to let the guys out.
Just in time, I hope.
The second the truck clears the gateposts, I curve over the grass to get in behind the vehicle and pull up Cam’s drive. My fingers beat to an imaginary rhythm on the steering wheel as I take the final bend around the trees and see the house come into view.
With her standing outside.
Thank fuck. Small miracles do happen.
Screw parking the car properly. Screw even turning the damn thing off. I shove the door open at the same time as I wrench the handbrake on, and step out to face the music.
Clara gives me a quick wave as she steps backward, and turns for her car. Her daughter, on the other hand … I widen my stance to brace for Cam as she literally leaps the final half a metre between us.
“I heard you,” she cries, burying her face in my neck as she wraps her arms and legs around me. “I heard your echo every day, Duke.”
“You found it.” Fuck that makes me happy. So fucking happy.
Cam pulls back, her hands on my face as I hold her to me. “Why are you here?” Her eyes search mine as her mum’s car pulls away behind us.
“I couldn’t wait any longer. It’s been almost two months.”
“I know.” Her forehead touches mine as she closes her eyes. “I couldn’t call.” She pauses, swallowing hard. “I wanted to, but hell …” Cam leans her head back, unshed tears caught in her lashes as she looks to the sky. “I couldn’t bear to hear your voice again if you would have said that you didn’t want me.”
“Fuck, Cam.” I drop her to the ground so she can stand. “I do want you. But you had to be sure. I had to be sure.”
She simply smiles, her hand tracing the side of my neck as she watches it with a dreamy look in her eye. If I can give her reason to look that way day in, day out, then my future is in her hands. Where she goes, I’ll follow.
“I missed you so much,” she whispers. “It was hard at the start.”
“Babe.” I kiss the woman to bring her back to the present, soft and slow. “Don’t take yourself back there. Let’s just look forward, okay?”
This is where we differ. As much as I recognise that the past has shaped who I am now, I’ve realised that the future is entirely dependent on my attitude, whereas Cam places so much stock in what’s gone by, as though the failures of her past dictate the choices of her future. It doesn’t have to be like that.
“I didn’t handle things well, Duke.” She clings to the front of my shirt, her brow set in a hard line. “I got drunk; I did stupid shit.” She laughs, bitter and short. “A few nights after you left, Susie and Bevan took me to the pub to try and loosen me up. They left me there with the little brother of a girl I went to school with.”
“Cam …” If this is going where I think it is …
“I have to tell you, Duke.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Hear me out, please.”
This woman realises I know how to kill without remorse, right?
“He brought me home.”
I pry her hands off me, taking a step back. “Don’t.”
“Helped me get to bed.”
“Stop it, Cam!” I pace back to the HQ; the engine is still running. I could go. Just get in and go before she says it.
“Listen to me, Duke!” she counters. “He put me to bed, offered to stay, and you know what I said?”
I don’t want to hear it. I can’t. “If you’ve got any ounce of respect left for me,” I warn her, “you won’t tell me.”
“I said he should go because I’m in love with someone else.”
What?
“Did you hear me, Duke?” she says, her footsteps approaching. “I said I love you. I’ve known since then that there’s no getting over you, just learning how to live without you.”
She gasps as I spin and grab a hold of her sweater to pull her to me. “Tell me again. Tell me to my face.”
Cam twitches a smile, inching closer. “I love you, Duke.”
“Fuck, Cam. I’d be stupid not to tell you that I love you, too.” Her eyes fill with unshed tears as I take her face in my hands. “I knew that the second I walked back up your driveway in the dark, no light, to write you that damn note.”