by Nina Blake
‘I see,’ the man said. ‘I’ve got a couple of important business meetings that can’t be cancelled, but we’ll be there as soon as we can. Don’t think we’ve abandoned you. In fact, we’ve got a few ideas on how we might be able to help you.’
Stefan figured he’d give his father the benefit of a doubt. The man was probably loathe to make an ill-formed judgment when the only information he had was second-hand. Still, Stefan’s gut was telling him there was something wrong with this situation.
Also, he was well aware that speaking over the phone wasn’t the same as seeing his parents face-to-face. It’d have to wait.
‘Hang on,’ James said. ‘Your mother’s just walked in the door.’
There was a kafuffle and raised voices, and then Stefan heard his mother’s voice come down the line. ‘Darling, I can’t believe it’s you. How are you?’
He didn’t feel like going over the same ground a second time. ‘Physically, I’m fine. I’m all in one piece, but I can’t remember you or Dad or anything else.’
‘Are you eating enough?’
Stefan shook his head, amazed at the question. ‘That’s the one thing you don’t need to worry about.’
‘Are you able to take care of yourself and do the basics?’
‘I don’t need a nurse to bathe me if that’s what you mean, but doing the simplest things can be difficult. I can’t remember...anything.’
‘Is she taking care of you?’
There it was again—that word, she —as though Claire’s name didn’t deserve be spoken. Stefan knew that his mother must be alluding to something, but he had no idea what and he didn’t have the energy to be bothered finding out.
‘Claire is definitely taking care of me,’ he said. ‘She’s doing an excellent job.’
‘Hmm.’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s a gem.’
‘We’ll be there soon. Hang on ‘til we get there.’
As if he could do anything else. He wasn’t giving up. That was something inside him, something Stefan could feel, even if he couldn’t remember it. He certainly wasn’t going to take some drastic action or commit suicide in the time it would take his parents to reach him, though it occurred to him that even if he’d been in the most dire of straights, they wouldn’t have be here to help.
He had an all new appreciation for Claire. She’d given him so much more than they had. So had her mother, for that matter. She’d been calling Claire daily, hadn’t just left Claire to go through things alone. She’d dropped by. And she made a damn fine lemon cake to boot.
This didn’t make sense. His parents were supposed to be on his side. Claire’s mother had made it clear her allegiance was to her daughter, but had done more for him than James and Barbara Porter.
Still, they were his parents, even if that didn’t mean much to him. But he couldn’t help feeling disappointed, as if something was missing.
They simply didn’t get it.
Between her mother and sister’s constant calls, Claire felt like lately she spent half her time on the phone. Sophie was on the other side of the country, but Claire wasn’t going to let a few thousand kilometres come between her and her sister.
‘How long until you finish work?’ Claire asked.
She was determined to find out more about her sister’s pregnancy and how she was coping. They’d had the Claire-Stefan discussion last time, so they could have the Sophie-Jeff-Junior conversation.
‘Yesterday was my last day,’ Sophie said. ‘But if I’d known how I’d felt, I’d have left work sooner. Also, there’s mostly men I work with, and they just wouldn’t have had a clue.’
‘So how do you feel?’
‘Fat.’
‘No, really?’
‘I feel like an elephant. Baby elephants have a gestation period of twenty-two months and that’s what this feels like. I have a lot of sympathy for the female elephant right now. It feels like I’ve been pregnant for a hundred years.’
‘How long to go?’
‘Four weeks exactly, if Junior is on time.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ Claire said. ‘And, seriously, have you been feeling okay?’
‘Tired, mostly. My back hurts and my ankles are swollen, but I’m so happy and excited, I can’t believe it’s really happening.’
Claire could believe that. She’d imagined it happening many times to her. She longed to have a child. Claire had other goals in life but the yearning inside her to have her own little one felt different, like it ran deep, to her core.
She wasn’t stupid, and knew that though her biological clock was ticking, but there were still plenty of good years ahead of her. It wasn’t like she’d missed the boat completely, but her whole life was so far out of whack that she wasn’t in any position to have a child.
That didn’t stop her thinking about it.
‘I don’t want to rub it in,’ Sophie said. ‘And I hope it’s okay if I talk about it. I didn’t mean to complain about this whole pregnancy thing.’
Sophie deserved all the happiness in the world. Claire just wanted a little for herself, too.
‘Of course, it’s all right.’ She said, deciding to lighten things up. ‘For your sake, I only hope it’s a human child and not a baby elephant.’
Sophie chuckled. ‘At this point, nothing would surprise me.’
‘I’ll visit you after the baby is born,’ she said. ‘I won’t be able to get time off work right away, but I should be able to make it by the time the baby is a few months old.’
‘Whenever you get here, I’d love to see you. Jeff would, too. But that’s enough about me. That wasn’t why I called. I wanted to hear how you were coping.’
‘I’m hanging in there. Stefan still hasn’t remembered anything. He’s him but not him, if you know what I mean I don’t know how else to explain it.’
‘You’re still in love with him,’ Sophie said. ‘That’s it.’
‘For crying out loud, we’ve been separated for six months. I’ve got on with my life, my career and my friends.’
‘Claire, I’ve got a brilliant job where I’m well-respected and they’ll miss me now I’ve gone. But work goes on.’
‘I know the job I do is important, and I’m valued at work. There’s no question about that.’
‘That’s not what I mean. Work won’t come to a standstill because you’re not there. It’s not the same.’
Claire figured she might as well come out with it and confess. ‘I’m trying to tell you something here. I was offered a promotion at work, even though there were others who’d had more experience than me.’
‘That’s fantastic, sis. Congratulations.’
She took a deep breath. ‘The job was supposed to start immediately, so I had to turn it down.’
‘I see.’ After a pause, Sophie added, ‘I knew it. I knew he was bad for you.’
‘Another opportunity will come up. It’s only work. Isn’t that what you were trying to tell me?’
‘It’s not your career I’m worried about. I was hoping you’d meet someone who might care for you and give you the love you deserve.’ Sophie added, stressing the word, ‘Someone who’s not Stefan.’
‘I won’t let myself get hurt again. I learnt the first time.’
Claire wasn’t stupid, wasn’t a masochist, and she certainly wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. She’d loved him once but that hadn’t been enough to keep their marriage together. It wouldn’t be enough now.
This time, that experience could be a shield, protecting her from the pain. She’d go through the motions of looking after Stefan and setting him up in a new life, and then she’d step back.
She’d leave him.
Chapter Nine
‘Stefan,’ Claire called out a second time.
It had been a dramatic afternoon. She’d popped in to work, supposedly for a quick meeting, but the discussion had taken much longer than expected. Now, she felt tired but exhilarated. Most of all, she felt g
lad to be home. With Stefan.
Claire dropped her bag and briefcase onto a dining chair, and turned to see him coming out of the kitchen, humming softly.
He looked good in a pair of jeans—always had. He also looked good in the navy shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to show off his sinewy forearms, and the shirt was untucked, following the contour of his hips. It emphasised the width of his shoulders.
She liked Stefan much better in jeans than a suit. Casual dress made her feel more comfortable, and she needed that after the day she’d had.
She’s only been looking a few seconds, but Claire felt like she’d been staring at him too long. Then it hit her—she recognised the tune he was humming. .
‘That song,’ she said. ‘It’s Only Women Bleed, by Alice Cooper.’
He looked at her blankly. ‘Who’s she?’
About to explain Alice Cooper was a man, Claire shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Pointing towards the kitchen, she asked, ‘What were you up to in there?’
‘Cooking,’ he said. ‘Or at least preparing a meal. It’s late, and I thought you’d be wanting dinner soon.’
Much nicer than coming home late after work to an empty apartment, throwing together the world’s quickest stir-fry and eating alone, Claire thought he’d read her mind. Or, possibly, heard her stomach growling from afar.
That morning, she’d taken Stefan to the shops in the neighbourhood and shown him around, so he could be a bit more independent. Then he could do simple things like buy fresh bread and groceries, or go out by himself for a coffee.
Stefan handed her a glass of chilled white wine, their fingers overlapping briefly as she took the glass. His touch was reassuring, comforting even, the most natural thing in the world. The wine’s fruity aroma wafted up to her nostrils, and she could almost taste it before taking her first sip. A crisp, refreshing chardonnay—the night was getting better by the minute.
For years, Claire had refused to drink, refused to be selfish like her father. It had taken her a while to realise that she wasn’t weak like he had been, and accept that it wasn’t a crime to enjoy the occasional drink. The realisation allowed her to appreciate moments like this all the more.
‘I was longer at the office than I’d expected,’ she said. ‘My client’s mother was distraught, and I didn’t want to cut the meeting short and leave her in a state. There were a few other things that couldn’t wait, so I had to deal with those too.’
Her client, Wayne, was only sixteen and was basically a good kid but he’d done one bad thing. He’d disobeyed his parents and gone to a party where there was too much alcohol. Any amount of alcohol was too much for a sixteen-year-old as far as Claire was concerned but that was a different matter.
Another kid had started a fight, with Wayne on the receiving end. There were witnesses, several of them sober, who confirmed Wayne had been getting pummelled before finally striking back with one big punch. That single blow had caused irreparable damage to the other boy’s sight and the child’s parents were pressing charges. It was a tragedy.
Stefan settled down on the sofa close to her.
‘Was it Wayne who was upset or his mother?’ he asked.
He’d remembered the boy’s name, Claire noted.
‘Both,’ she replied. ‘It’s such a horrible situation. The poor kid has to live with partially blinding another boy. He has changed schools, move away from friends because he can’t handle the guilt. His mum’s upset because she doesn’t believe it was Wayne’s fault, but at the same time she feels sorry for what’s happened to the other child. There’ll be no winners at the end of this.’
‘Will he get off?’
Claire nodded. ‘I’ll make sure he does.’
‘Then you’ll make a big difference in their lives.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I didn’t deal with cases like that, did I?’ he asked.
Claire slid her glass onto the coffee table. ‘You dealt with cases a heck of a lot bigger than that. You led a team of fifty lawyers, and your court cases always made the front page. There were big bucks at stake on both ends, for your clients and for Turner Chisholm.’
‘The cases were big, sure, but it was always about the money, wasn’t it?’
Claire pursed her lips, trying to come up with the right words. ‘Not quite. There’s a flow-on effect, so if the big corporations you were representing had gone under there would have been hundreds of jobs lost, hundreds of lives affected.’
‘Interesting argument.’ Stefan held her gaze, his pale eyes glimmering with an emotion she hadn’t often seen in them: compassion. ‘Your work isn’t just a series of cases though, is it? You deal with real people, real lives.’
‘I like to think so.’
Claire was proud of her work, even if she didn’t deal with high profile cases where millions of dollars were at stake. The money had never mattered to her.
Looking back, she’d been so young. She’d ended up studying law almost by accident, and had applied for several scholarships. She was eventually accepted for law, making her mind up for her. ‘Claire, what was it that drove me? Did I do my job just for the money?’
She shook her head. ‘You already had money. Your parents are loaded. You wanted just to be the best and you were.’
Stefan seemed to consider what she’d said, and then changed the subject. ‘I’d better bring out dinner.’
‘Do I have time for a shower first?’
He stood. ‘Sure.’
Claire ducked into the bathroom, emerging ten minutes later feeling refreshed. She felt much more comfortable in jeans and a-tee shirt.
Walking into the living room, she sniffed at the air, noticing a rich buttery aroma that reminded her of the French bakery around the corner. Claire stopped, staring at the space between the two sofas. Stefan had shifted the coffee table, spread out a chequered picnic rug and was looking up at her expectantly.
A feast was spread out before her. There were little quiches and a baguette, which she’d correctly guessed were from the local French bakery. There were also water crackers, camembert cheese, marinated chicken wings and fresh strawberries, along with a few other goodies.
The spread looked too good to be true. Stefan also looked too good to be true, sitting cross-legged on the floor and staring up at her with a rugged smile.
Claire sat on the rug opposite him. ‘I guess you found your way around the local shops, then. How did you know I love quiche?’
‘I didn’t. I asked for suggestions at the delicatessen. I hope you approve.’
Smiling, she picked up her wine glass, waited until he picked up his, and then clinked glasses. ‘I always approve of good food.’
‘I thought I’d start off easy, and perhaps try cooking tomorrow night.’
Claire nodded. ‘Fine by me.’
For the last couple of days she’d been doing all she could just to keep her head above water. She’d gone from one stressful situation to another: from the hospital, to home, to Turner Chisholm, to dealing with Sophie over the phone, and then back to her latest case at the office.
But Claire had been through worse a couple of years ago. She’d lost a part of herself and struggled with that pain, but she’d got through it on her own. Stefan had been there at the time but he’d never understood and, somehow, him being there had only made her feel more alone. God, she was glad that was behind her.
Stefan reached across for a chicken wing, dropping it onto his plate. ‘A couple of people phoned while you were gone.’
‘Really?’
‘Veronica Ford called to remind us about drinks at the law firm tomorrow. They’re expecting us.’
‘You still want to go, don’t you?’ Claire asked, still aware that he hadn’t seemed keen in the first place.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘You need to get out and talk to other people, feel like you’re part of the human race. We don’t have to stay long, if you don’t like it.’
‘Okay, then.
Your sister phoned, too.’
‘Again? I’ll call her back later.’
‘We had an interesting conversation.’
Claire cringed. ‘About what?’
‘I’m not sure. She asked me lots of questions, mostly ones I couldn’t answer. I got the feeling it was some sort of test.’
Claire nodded. ‘That sounds like Sophie. Did you pass?’
‘Not sure about that either. She told me that I had to take good care of you or I’d have to answer to her.’ Stefan’s brow furrowed. ‘She sounds scary.’
‘She cares for me, that’s all, and she’s very hormonal at the moment. She’s pregnant, so you’re lucky you didn’t cop it worse!’
Sophie’s words rang through her head. You’ll fall in love with him all over again. You’ll be hurt again.
Her sister was wrong. Her words weren’t a prophecy. Claire pushed it to the back of her mind and tried to empty her mind.
After Claire had finished eating, she stretched out on her side, and propped herself up on one elbow. ‘How do you like Sydney?’
Stefan leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. ‘So far, so good. I wandered through Elizabeth Bay while you were gone. It’s very pretty.’ He paused, raising one eyebrow. ‘I like what I’ve seen so far.’
Claire wondered how she was supposed to take that, and decided to ignore it. She just had to stay focused.
‘There’s a lot you need to learn and find out about if you’ll be living here.’
‘You mean when I move out into my own place?’ Stefan asked.
‘Yes.’
He looked down. ‘I’m not looking forward to that.’
‘You’ll be okay living on your own. You’re a smart guy, and if you need anything, I’ll only be a phone call away.’
‘But I can’t stay here indefinitely?’
Claire had to be firm. This time she couldn’t let him walk all over her. ‘No, you can’t. I know I had to go in to work this afternoon but that shouldn’t happen again, so for the next two weeks, you’ve got my full attention. I’ve put everything else on hold for you. But, after that, I have to get back to work and back to my life. You’ve got to understand that.’