Tom held Ali away from him. ‘And you just got in the car with a complete stranger?’
Ali wavered on her feet. She looked like she was about to pass out. ‘Nothing happened, Tom. Jake drove me home, that’s it. I just… I just need to sleep.’
‘I’ll leave you guys to it,’ Jake said awkwardly, backing away towards his car.
Tom couldn’t bring himself to thank him. The truth was, anything could’ve happened on the way here, and Ali was in no position to remember five minutes ago. What if she’d blacked out? What if…?
He closed the door and walked her towards their bedroom.
‘Are you home?’ Ali asked him as he filled a glass with water from the ensuite.
‘Drink this,’ he instructed.
She did as she was told, draining the glass so quickly Tom was afraid it was going to come back up.
‘Are you home?’ she asked again.
Tom watched as she stripped off her clothes in front of him. He didn’t know the answer to her question. But he’d come here tonight to support her, and that was what he was going to do.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m home.’
* * *
The clang and crash of glass woke Tom up. He lay still and listened. It was coming from the kitchen. The clock radio told him it was six twenty. The bed beside him was empty, the sheets rumpled and smelling faintly of vomit. The crashing grew louder, more frenetic. Tom sprang out of bed.
Ali was in the kitchen, pulling everything out of the pantry to search in the back recesses of the shelves. She was still naked. Her body looked wasted, slack, no longer firm and toned as it had once been. She twirled around to look in the cupboard below the sink.
‘Ali,’ Tom said.
She straightened, only just noticing him. Her hair was flattened on one side of her head and stood up on the other side. She had panda eyes from the make-up she hadn’t washed off last night. Her face was lined and haggard. For the first time, Tom saw the physical resemblance to Hazel, and it repulsed him.
‘Where are they?’ she demanded. ‘Where did you hide them?’
Tom had known these questions would come when he was tipping the contents of her stash of vodka bottles down the sink last night. But he hadn’t expected them at six twenty in the morning. He hadn’t realised things had got this bad so quickly.
‘They’re gone.’
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
‘I don’t want you to drink anymore.’
‘Please.’ She looked desperate. ‘I need it. I feel awful. Just a few mouthfuls… just enough to get me through this hangover, and then I’ll stop. I promise.’
‘No you won’t,’ Tom said. ‘Christ, Ali, what’s happened to you? Drinking vodka at six thirty in the morning? Can’t you see what this is doing to you?’
Desperation changed to fury. ‘You can’t just come in here and throw away my stuff. You don’t live here anymore, Tom.’
And now anger rose inside Tom. He grabbed her by the wrist. ‘You’re still my wife. And I’m not going to let you do this to yourself.’
‘I’m not your fucking possession! Let me go!’
He dropped her wrist instantly. ‘Ali, please. Talk to me. We’ve always talked to each other, ever since the beginning. We’ll ride this out together. You can beat this, I know you can.’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ she spat. ‘Get out of here, Tom. Leave me alone.’
‘No.’
‘It’s Tuesday. Run along to your job. I don’t have one anymore.’
‘No!’ he shouted.
‘Get out, get out, get out!’ Ali shoved him in the chest.
‘You can’t make me leave,’ he said.
‘GET OUT!’ she screamed in his face. Sweat beaded her pale skin. She was shaking uncontrollably, whether just from the hangover or alcohol withdrawal, Tom couldn’t tell. She looked crazy. Unhinged. Like someone else.
‘Ali, calm down.’ He tried to keep his own voice even, but that only whipped her into more of a frenzy.
‘Get out of here! I hate you! I fucking HATE YOU!’
Tom stepped backwards. In the moment he’d found out Elizabeth had died, he could never have imagined it would be possible to feel any worse. He could never have imagined hearing those words come out of Ali’s mouth—his Ali, the woman he’d assumed would be by his side forever. He’d been planning to withstand her protests no matter what she said to him. But this was too much. If she no longer loved him, what was the point?
The invisible thread that bound them together dissolved, as if it never been anything more than gossamer swaying in the breeze.
Before
‘Stop!’
Ali woke, the taste of the word lingering in her mouth. There were tears on her face; her heart still thundered in her chest. The nightmare flitted rapidly away and she chased after it, trying to grasp its tail before it escaped her again. The familiar black tendrils of fear clutched at her, dragging her down, stealing her memory and leaving her sitting up in bed, crying and shaking in terror.
Then Dad was there, smoothing her hair back from her face, sitting beside her and pulling her head gently onto his shoulder, rubbing her back in slow, reassuring circles.
‘It’s OK, princess. It’s OK,’ he soothed. ‘It was just a bad dream. I’ve got you. I’m here. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. I love you, princess. I’ll always be here for you.’
Ali buried her face in his chest as he murmured on and on, inhaled the earthy scent of him, allowed his warm bulk to drain the fear from her body. Finally, when her sobs had subsided into the occasional hiccup, she lay back down on her pillow and let her dad’s voice lull her to sleep.
Ali
Ali was adrift. The days passed by in a sodden blur. She remained in a constant state of intoxication to keep the contemptuous voice in her head at bay. She no longer knew what day it was. She didn’t turn on the television, read the paper, or check the news sites she’d trawled religiously in the past. Some nights, when she couldn’t sleep, she’d fill an empty water bottle with liquor and walk the leafy streets of Parkside, imagining the perfect families behind the windows of their perfect houses. From the spectacular light displays in their front yards, she knew it was almost Christmas.
This was the longest she and Tom had ever been apart, and regret filled her to the brim. She couldn’t crawl back to him now, not after the things she’d said to him. He thought they told each other everything, but he didn’t know she’d been lying to him, hiding her feelings from him, one at a time, ever since they’d first started trying to get pregnant.
First, her doubts about having a baby and the kind of mother she’d be. Then the growing sense of failure as the months slid by without a pregnancy.
She hadn’t told him about the way the blood had leapt out at her from the stark white of the toilet paper, a bright red smear that sent shock waves through her body. How it had hung from her in thick, dark strings, bringing with it feathery tendrils of brown tissue and clotted lumps; so much detritus from such a microscopic being.
She hadn’t told him how it had seemed like an admission of defeat to go through fertility treatment. Carrying a baby was the most primal and basic part of being a woman, and she had failed.
She hadn’t told Tom how, even once she’d fallen pregnant with Elizabeth, the paranoia still afflicted her, a constant undercurrent of fear that something would go wrong.
She hadn’t told him that she still checked for blood every time she went to the toilet.
In the midst of what should have been one of the happiest times of their lives, she’d allowed these fissures to form in their marriage, leaving them naked and unprotected when they’d been assaulted by grief.
And of course, the shadow underlying their whole relationship was her estrangement from Hazel. Tom had steadfastly refused to understand why Ali couldn’t let her mother back into her life, why her father’s long-ago promises to always be there for her only made her mother’s failure to do so hurt all the
more.
And now, if even Tom thought she was heartless and cold, well, maybe Ali didn’t deserve redemption.
Before
Ali hung behind Tom as he walked up the path to the house. She wished she hadn’t let him carry the Christmas pudding so she had something to still her nervous hands. She didn’t even like Christmas pudding, so she wasn’t sure why she’d offered to bring it in the first place.
For so many years she’d spent Christmas Day with Kayla and her family, but this year they were going overseas, and when Tom had found out that she would be alone, he’d insisted she come to his parents’ place with him. Never mind that they’d only been together for a couple of months and she’d never met them.
Tom turned around at the door and gave her a reassuring grin. ‘You ready?’
She reached out for the pudding. ‘Give me that.’
He patted her on the bottom and opened the door. ‘Stop stressing out. They’ll love you too.’
Too? Too! But there was no time to think of a response because there was a chubby toddler charging up the hallway towards them. Tom swept him up in his arms.
‘Ali, this is Carter, my nephew. Carter, this is my girlfriend Ali.’
‘Hi Carter,’ Ali said.
Then a middle-aged couple appeared, and a woman around her age, who Ali guessed was Tom’s sister. Smiles wreathed their faces. Ali held out the pudding to Tom’s mother, but the older woman put it straight down on the hallway table and pulled Ali into a hug.
‘Ali, it’s so lovely to finally meet you!’ She pulled back to look at Ali’s face, then hugged her once more, landing a kiss on her cheek. ‘Sorry, we’re chronic huggers. I’m Janet, and this is my husband, Angelo. Welcome, welcome. Come in. Thanks for bringing the pudding. Hi, Tom darling.’ She leant over to kiss her son.
Tom introduced Ali to his sister, Chloe, and brother-in-law Johann, as they all made their way gradually up the hallway, everybody talking at once. Ali’s head was spinning, but she couldn’t help smiling. Happy family. It felt like so long since she’d been part of one, and they had welcomed her so instantly and so completely that she could already imagine being one of them.
Tom
It felt wrong to be celebrating Christmas when his life had fallen apart. Every year, Tom and Ali had gone to his parents’ place for the customary oversized Christmas lunch. Ali would always make a pudding, despite professing to despise all the traditional trappings of the holiday (although Tom suspected she secretly revelled in it).
But now Christmas was here and Tom stood alone on the doorstep of his parents’ place. Chloe and Johann’s car was parked out the front, and Tom could hear the adolescent voices of his teenage nephews and the loud explosions from the video game they must be playing inside. A sudden impulse gripped him to leave, to turn around and get back in the car without telling anybody he’d been here.
‘Tom!’ came a booming voice from behind him, and he swung around to see his uncle leaping up the steps of the porch despite his towering frame. Anthony, his mother’s brother, had never come to the Christmas lunch before. Tom wondered whether his mother had invited him in an attempt to disguise Ali’s absence, or to make Tom feel less left out because Anthony was single too.
Single. The word tasted foreign.
His parents did an admirable job of covering the strained mood with false cheer, but the boys were too old now to distract everyone with excitement over Christmas. Ali’s absence was an open wound. But no one mentioned her.
Tom picked over his food. Plastered on a smile while everyone opened their presents. Tried not to imagine what might have been. When they’d first discovered Ali was pregnant, they’d decided that this year they’d buy a tree and decorations and do the whole Christmas thing, even though Elizabeth would only have been four months old.
When his mother was doing the dishes and his father was snoozing on the couch while the rest of the family watched television, Tom slipped away to his old bedroom. Sitting on the end of the bed, he rang Ali. He’d expected her to ignore his call, so he was surprised when she picked up on the first ring.
‘Tom.’ She was slightly breathless.
‘Hi.’ He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say to her. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Oh, is it Christmas already?’ Her words came out in a nervous gush.
‘You didn’t even know it was Christmas Day?’
An uneasy laugh. ‘I haven’t been getting out much lately.’
‘Do you want to come over to my parents’ place? It doesn’t feel the same here without you.’
She hesitated. ‘I… I can’t. Sorry.’
‘I see.’
Tom hadn’t rung with the intention to judge her. He’d just wanted to talk to her. But she was obviously drunk again. He knew he was foolish to have thought she might have changed since that night, but he hadn’t realised how much he’d wanted it until that moment.
‘Sorry,’ she said again.
‘Well, I’d better go,’ he said. ‘Enjoy the rest of your day.’
‘It’s good to hear your voice, Tom.’
Tom pressed his eyes shut. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. He wanted to get out of here and go to her. But there was something in her voice—something high pitched and weak— that was so horrifyingly like Hazel that he couldn’t bear to speak to her any longer.
‘Bye,’ he said.
Ali
When Tom hung up on her, Ali’s sadness flashed into anger. What they must be saying about her. What they must think of her. She had enjoyed being a member of Tom’s family, but she’d always known she wasn’t equal. Not quite.
Her mood slid into misery. For the first time in weeks, she switched on the television and tortured herself with a cheesy Christmas telemovie.
Later, when the sun had gone down but night had not yet descended, the phone rang again. The living room was dark, and Ali stumbled over an empty bottle as she followed the sound of the shrill ring.
‘Hello, love. Merry Christmas.’
Hazel’s voice instantly took Ali back to the days of her adolescence: the darkened rooms in their poky Housing Trust unit, the curtains constantly drawn against the natural light to keep Hazel’s headaches at bay. The foul-smelling dishes piled high in the sink until Ali washed them late at night to the soundtrack of Hazel’s heavy snore from the sagging secondhand couch. Right before she collapsed into bed, Ali would heave Hazel onto her side to prevent her from choking if she vomited in her sleep.
Before she could stop it, Ali was hit with an emotion she’d never felt for her mother before: empathy. ‘Hi.’
‘How are you? How’s Tom?’
Ali was surprised at how strong her mother’s voice sounded. It was rare for her to reach the end of an afternoon without getting through a bottle of wine, and it must be at least eight o’clock by now.
‘He’s gone,’ she said flatly.
‘What do you mean, gone?’ Her mother sounded confused.
‘He left me.’
‘Oh, Ali.’ Hazel gave a long sigh. ‘What a year you’ve had.’
Here come the waterworks, Ali thought.
‘Why’d he leave?’
‘He thinks I have a drinking problem. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?’
‘Oh, Ali,’ she said again. ‘Don’t end up like me, love. You’re better than that. You always have been.’
‘Bugger off, Hazel,’ Ali said sharply. ‘You don’t get to judge me.’
She pictured her mother flinching, as she always did when Ali addressed her by her name.
‘I’m the last one to judge you, Ali,’ Hazel said eventually. ‘I just don’t want to see you go down that road. I should never have taken that first drink.’
The glowing TV faded from Ali’s sight, replaced by the stark white of a hospital room. Hazel’s face, white against the white pillow, dark shadows under her eyes. A sling over her shoulder. Her voice, husky and strained: I should never have taken that job.
Dread shot through her, and she sat bolt upright. ‘Were you ever in hospital?’
Hazel didn’t answer straight away. ‘What do you mean, was I in hospital?’
‘When I was a kid?’ Ali clutched the phone so hard it hurt her hand. ‘I keep having this weird memory of you in a hospital bed.’
There was a long silence.
‘After all this time.’ Hazel’s voice shook. ‘You’re finally going to admit you were wrong?’
Something squirmed within Ali; a slippery, sinewy thing that she couldn’t name. ‘Wrong about what?’
‘You remember when I broke my collarbone?’
‘No.’ The slippery thing writhed and Ali wasn’t so sure she wanted to know anymore.
‘I know he told you it was just a nightmare.’ Hazel’s voice wobbled. ‘But I didn’t think you believed him. I mean, you saw it with your own bloody eyes.’
Ali’s hands shook uncontrollably just a bad dream and her breath useless started to come in nothing short, sharp bursts YOU’RE NOTHING.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Ali shouted down the phone.
Hazel’s breathing slowed down. ‘Do you want me to come around? We can talk about it now.’
The thing twisted inside her. Desperation rose in her throat. ‘What, you’re going to drive over here, are you? Don’t bother. I’ve got the Christmas special for company. The sick kid is going to get his wish any minute now.’
Guilt stabbed her at the sound of Hazel’s sob as she hung up. She hadn’t meant to be so caustic, but she just couldn’t hear whatever it was her mother had to say; she wasn’t ready.
She returned to the couch and reached for the bottle.
It was only as the invisible padding of drunkenness enveloped her that she realised something: through the entire conversation, Hazel had not slurred her words once. Her voice had been strong and warm, with a tone that Ali couldn’t remember hearing since before her father had died. Before she’d started drinking.
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