by Lilly Mirren
It'd been hard to think of a Christmas gift for him. Everything he loved had something to do with surfing or sport. The gift she'd bought him before they left on their honeymoon was stashed in the closet at their apartment in Emerald Cove. A brand-new wet suit with his name scrawled along one sleeve in blue. She couldn't bring that out now; it'd only make things worse.
"I got you something," she said, holding it out to him.
He glanced her way, which was more than he'd done in hours.
"Thanks." He took the box in one hand, let his hand fall to the bed and returned to staring at the window. The glass panes were covered by thin white curtains; beyond them lay a parking lot, concrete and vehicles stretched out to meet a busy street where the blare of a horn punctuated the steady hum of engines.
She slipped her hands together, her fingers twining with one another for comfort. "Don't you want to open it?"
She offered a hesitant smile. He sighed, shook his head.
"Come on, it's Christmas."
His gaze was steely; anger boiled beneath the surface. She could almost feel its sting in the look he shot her.
"You don't have to… I just thought we should celebrate at least a little bit. Nothing big, you know. Your parents are out getting Christmas lunch, they found a place that serves roast. They should be back soon. So, why don't you open your present before they get back?"
She was sitting on the end of his bed and slid a little closer over the covers until she could lay her hand on his where it held the gift.
He shifted his hand so hers fell off, landing on the soft covers alone. Her eyes smarted with tears as her hand slid back to find solace in her own lap.
"Fine," he said. He tugged the paper from the gift, studied the watch with a frown. "Thanks."
She smiled. "You're welcome. I hope you like it. The sales guy said that it even works underwater."
His eyes narrowed. "Is that so?"
She grinned. "Yep."
"And when exactly do you think I'll have need to use that feature? Huh? All the underwater diving and swimming I'll be doing?"
Her heart dropped as her smile vanished. "I…uh…sorry, Brad. I didn't think…"
"Forget it," he snapped. He pushed the watch onto his wrist and fitted the clasp in place. Then his eyes drifted shut. "Can you just leave me alone?"
She stood to leave, then turned back to face him, her cheeks flushing with warmth. "I'll go, but you don't have to talk to me like that. I didn't mean anything by it, and you know that. I love you and wanted to give you a gift, wanted to celebrate Christmas with my husband. Is that a crime?"
His eyes opened, and his gaze landed on her with a flash. "Your husband?"
"Yes!" She was shouting now, releasing the pain of everything that'd happened, the accident, the surgeries, the hours spent pacing across hospital tiles not knowing what the future might hold, the silence, the anger that simmered beneath the surface of Brad's sullen rejection of his new normal. "Yes, you're my husband. You're supposed to love me, to treat me with some kindness. But all you've done is shout at me, push me away… You won't even let me kiss you. What's wrong, Brad? Talk to me, tell me what's going on in that head of yours. I need to know."
His nostrils flared. He pushed his hands on the bed to leverage himself up higher against the pile of pillows that cushioned his back and head. "You want to know what's going on in my head? Trust me, sweetheart, you don't want to know that." He chuckled, a sinister, horrible sound that chilled her to her core.
"Yes, I do," she whispered, unsure that it was the truth when she saw the look in his eyes.
He shook his head. "Fine, I'll tell you. I'm angry - it's not fair. This isn't right. Why did this have to happen? I don't want to live like this. I can't live this way. Without surfing, the beach, the outdoors, I have nothing!" His voice rose with each word until he spat the last at her.
She strode to his side, took his hand in hers and squeezed it so he couldn't pull away. Tears blurred her vision, and her throat tightened so much that it ached. "Nothing? That's not true, you have me."
He jerked his hand from her grasp. "I don't want you."
When his eyes shut, she gaped and tears cascaded down her cheeks. "You don't mean that. You're upset, that's all it is. I'm your wife, we promised to love each other forever."
He sighed, focused his gaze on her face, his voice chill. "That wasn't me, it was a different person. I'm not the guy you married any longer. I'm half a man, not even that. I'm nothing. You didn't sign up for this, and neither did I. I don't want to be married, I don't want you. I want to be left alone." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Please go away."
Meg stumbled from the room, tears blinding her. She reached out both hands to grasp the doorframe as she went, then spun into the hallway with a gasp, pain squeezing her chest, her throat, her gut. He didn't mean it, couldn't mean it. Where was the loving, kind, patient man she'd married only weeks earlier? He'd genuinely loved her; she was sure of it. Only, now he wanted to push her away right when he needed her the most. She'd thought their love was stronger than that, that the bond they shared was special. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she'd been wrong all along.
She leaned against the wall, sliding to the floor until her legs were bunched against her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Sobs wracked her body, and her heart ached in a way she'd never experienced before, in a way she didn't think was possible.
"Meg, honey?" Sharon's voice roused her.
She lifted her head.
"Meg, are you okay?" Sharon rested a hand on Meg's shoulder as she squatted in front of her. "What's wrong, honey?"
Meg's tears only fell harder at her mother-in-law's kind words. "He doesn't want to be married. Doesn't love me anymore. He said so."
Sharon shook her head slowly, lowered herself onto the floor beside Meg and set down a paper bag that smelled of roast meat and gravy beside her feet. She slid an arm around Meg's shoulders and gently pushed Meg's head onto her shoulder, then stroked her hair back from her face. "Oh, honey, you know he doesn't mean that. He's been through so much, is facing a whole new way of life that has him in so much pain, so much sorrow. He's grieving the life he had, the life he wanted, and you were a part of that."
"Has he said anything to you?" Meg asked, sniffling.
"He doesn't want you to have to live your life taking care of him."
Meg raised her head, her eyebrows knitting together. "But I'm his wife. If someone has to take care of him, it should be me."
"But you're both so young, he doesn't think it would be fair. Besides, he's in too much pain to make any sense at the moment. He needs some time to come to terms with what's happened."
"What can I do? Every time I go near him, he yells at me and tells me to go away." Meg inhaled a long, deep breath as her sobbing subsided. She rubbed the back of her sleeve over her nose, wishing she'd thought to bring a box of tissues with her when she ran from the room.
As if reading her thoughts, Sharon dug around in her handbag and gave Meg a small pack. Meg pulled out a tissue and blew her nose, a loud honking sound that brought a smile to Sharon's face.
Des stood silently nearby, a brown paper bag in each hand, his moustache drooping at the ends as if in solidarity with how they were all feeling. The Santa hat on his head stood in stark contrast to the white hospital walls and his red-rimmed eyes.
"I think the best thing for you to do right now would be to go home to Emerald Cove. You can start working on getting things ready for him. You've got a second-floor unit, so that's not going to work. You'll have to get settled somewhere that's wheelchair friendly…there's plenty to keep you occupied. And it's probably the best thing for you, for now."
"Go home? But I can't leave him…" She couldn't abandon him, even with the way he was treating her. It didn't seem right.
"As I said," Sharon continued, "Brad needs some time to process everything, and we'll be here with him. The doctor says he can travel in a couple of weeks, and we'll bring him back to Brisb
ane with us where he can access the best physiotherapy. Then, when he's ready, he can join you in the Cove."
Meg's lips pursed. It made sense, but something inside her rebelled against the idea of leaving her injured husband behind in a foreign country.
"I don't know…"
"You have to get back to work, you'll be the sole breadwinner…at least for a while," Des added in a gentle voice.
"That's true… My boss has been amazing, but I know they'll be suffering without someone to fill in for me if I stay much longer."
"Brad will be fine, we'll take care of him," Sharon said, patting Meg's arm.
Meg leaned over to embrace Sharon. "Thank you. I don't know what I would've done without the two of you here to help."
Sharon blinked back tears. "We're family now, honey. We love you, and Brad does too… He'll come around. I'm certain of it."
Meg wasn't so sure. She'd seen the hatred in his eyes, heard the acid dripping from his words. How could they ever get back to the place they'd been a few weeks earlier - blissfully in love, unaware of anything but each other? Thinking about it brought fresh tears to her eyes, so she shoved the memories of their brief honeymoon back down into the depths of her mind. She couldn't function, couldn't do the things she needed to move forward, if she let the images of their passionate few days as husband and wife hover in her mind's eye.
Sharon stood with a grunt, and she and Des carried the paper bags filled with their Christmas lunch into the hospital room. She heard Sharon wish Brad a Merry Christmas and his murmured response. Why couldn't he be so kind to her? He was taking out his frustrations, pain and grief entirely on her. He must blame her in some way for the accident, for his injuries. But that didn’t make sense.
She'd spend Christmas with him, then she'd pack up the hotel room and head home to Emerald Cove. The thought buoyed her spirits for the first time. She missed home, her friends, her work at the salon. Missed the quiet happiness of her life. The life she'd thought she'd be returning to with her husband by her side. She'd decorated the unit with a Christmas tree and fairy lights, hung mistletoe over the front door, made the brand-new king-sized bed and covered it with the newly purchased blue-striped doona, all the while smiling at the thought of sharing her life, her home, her bed with her new husband when they got back from Hawaii.
And now she'd be going back alone.
She stood, wiped the tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her cardigan and braced herself. Then, with her head held high and a smile pushed onto her face, she strode into the hospital room.
Chapter 14
Sarah
The smell of eggnog lingered in Sarah's room, and the empty glass sat as a reminder on the bedside table, next to a plate with crumbs from the sugar cookie in the shape of a Christmas tree she'd eaten the night before while watching a few minutes of The Santa Clause before falling asleep.
She ran a tongue over her furry teeth and slung her feet over the side of the bed. She should've taken the time to brush them. Now a foul taste in her mouth pushed her to the bathroom where she reached for her toothbrush. She yawned and tugged the hair back from her forehead to study the wrinkles that'd extended themselves around the corners of her eyes in the past few years.
With a grimace, she added toothpaste to her toothbrush and cleaned her mouth vigorously. It was strangely comforting to sleep in her childhood bedroom on Christmas Eve and wake up on Christmas Day in the same place she had for so many of her formative years. It'd been late by the time they'd finished eating dinner, then dessert, and talking over everything that'd been going on in each other's lives that they'd missed with so much time apart.
There was an ache in her chest for the old days, the times when she, Adele and Ethan spent almost every waking moment together, when they'd ride their bikes down the road in front of the house, past the bed and breakfast, through Emerald Cove to the beach with towels slung over their shoulders. They'd run down the too-hot sand, then fling themselves into the ocean to dive through waves, body surf, laugh and tumble all the way to shore, only to begin all over again.
They'd had so much fun together, knew everything there was to know about each other and now hardly saw each other at all. That was how it was to grow up, she supposed. Still, she missed them and made a decision to call them more often. Even if talking on the phone wasn't nearly the same as seeing someone in person, it was better than nothing.
As the hot water from the shower ran over her head and down her back, Sarah wondered again whether she'd made the right choice by moving to the Cove. In the weeks since she arrived, she'd barely gotten any work done. With the renovation, family commitments, helping her mother with various odd jobs and the cafe books, she found her time each day ran out before she had time to do much, and even when she did sit down to work, internet access was sporadic.
Finally, last week, she'd had broadband connected, but by then, most of the staff in the office had taken leave for the holidays and she couldn't reach any of them. She stepped out of the shower with a frustrated sigh and slung a towel around her dripping body.
By the time she'd dressed, she could hear voices in the kitchen, along with the muted tones of Christmas music. She found her family seated around the outdoor dining table on the expansive back deck. Birdsong warmed the morning air, the warble of a magpie, the chatter of a noisy miner.
She sat with a grunt, smoothing her hair back from her face with one hand. "Good morning, all. Merry Christmas!"
"Merry Christmas," Adele replied with a smile as she spooned yoghurt over a bowl of cereal.
Sarah reached for the muesli and filled a bowl with it, then poured cold milk on top.
"Did you sleep well?" Mum asked.
Sarah nodded, yawned. "Yes, thanks. I always sleep like a log in that bed. I love it."
"So, Mum, are we going to open presents after breakfast? We used to do it first, then have breakfast when everything was opened…" Ethan grinned.
Mum chuckled. "Ah, I miss those days, when you were all so excited to wake up at the crack of dawn. You'd rush out to the tree and gather around it, whispering so loud you'd wake your dad and me…" She faltered, her smile fading. "I guess those days are behind us."
Sarah's lips pursed. She hated what her father had done, but there wasn't anything she could do about it.
"How are things in Darwin, Adele? Is it as hot as they say it is?" she asked her sister, hoping to change the subject.
Adele swallowed a mouthful of cereal. "It's hotter. Ugh. I'm so glad to be back in Emerald Cove with the sea breeze and the cooler weather. But I do love it up there. It's a pretty young population, and I'm getting the chance to fly a lot more than I would down this way."
Adele had finished her pilot training right out of high school and moved to Darwin soon after to get as many hours in the air as she could. As the baby of the family, she'd always pushed herself to stand out, be different, do the unexpected, and training to be a pilot was her way of doing that. At least, that was how it seemed to Sarah, who'd always done what she could to protect her little sister. Now there was nothing she could do; it was completely out of her hands.
"Any interesting men in Darwin?" Sarah asked.
Adele grinned. "Lots. But no one in particular, if that's what you're asking."
"And how about you?" Ethan asked, taking a bite of toast. "I heard you ended things with your writer fiancé. I'm kind of out of the loop… Care to bring me up to speed?"
Sarah's cheeks warmed. She didn't like talking about her love life, though she'd known the questions would come. "He wasn't right for me, that's the gist of it. I suppose we could've kept going the way things were, but I wasn't happy."
"Is that why you moved back to the Cove?" Adele asked.
Sarah exchanged a glance with her mother. How much had Mum told her siblings about what was going on with the cafe and the debt their father had left her? She didn't know and so figured it best to keep things as vague as possible until she'd had a chance to talk to her mother
about it.
"I wanted to be here to help Mum. It was also convenient to get out of Sydney, since Jeremy hasn't accepted that it's over yet. I needed some space, that's true, but also wanted to come home for Mum."
Ethan studied his toast, and Adele's lips pinched together.
"And she's already been a big help," Mum added. "We're going to have so much fun together."
Sarah offered a tight smile. The tension in the air was palpable. What bothered her siblings so much - the fact that their father had run off with a younger woman, or that she was talking about it at Christmas?
"Thanks, Mum, I hope having me here will make a hard situation a little easier for you."
Mum nodded. "Thank you, sweetheart. It does."
"Do you mean because of Dad, or is there something else going on?" Ethan asked around a mouthful of toast.
"Because of Dad, the situation Mum's left in—" Sarah started.
"He's coming back," Adele interrupted. "You know he'll come back. He's not thinking clearly. That woman has obviously confused him, or tricked him, but he'll be back. He loves you, Mum, and he loves us. He's going to remember that soon, and he'll come through that door, all smiles…" She inhaled a long, slow breath. "I know he will. It's going to be okay."
Mum's face clouded, and her lips pursed. "Yes, darling. Of course."
Sarah frowned. "But what if Mum doesn't want him to come back? He's completely ruined everything. He can't come back now, can't expect things to go back to the way it was. That's not how this works."
Adele stopped chewing, stared at her sister with wide eyes. "What do you mean? Why would you say that?"
Mum left the table, hurrying into the kitchen. With her back turned, Sarah couldn't tell if she was crying. She sighed, rubbed a hand over her face.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up - not on Christmas morning. Let's have a nice day together, we can talk about it another time."
Ethan's eyes narrowed. "No, it's too late for that. What did you mean? Why wouldn't Mum want Dad to come back? That's what we all want, isn't it? This is our family, he's made a mistake, but we can't write him off over it."