Sweet From the Vine

by Jacquie Underdown

  He wanted to hold her against him, feel the warm press of her body until he didn’t know if it were his body heat or hers.

  He wanted to wake to her beside him and know that they would have an adult conversation together over a lazy Saturday breakfast.

  During the last long couple of years, it was as though he had given away that part of him that was a man—a man separate from being a father, brother, son and business owner. That part of him that he had shared with Rachel.

  With her gone, he had forgotten how to be that man without her. He was learning it all over again, and it was harder than he had anticipated.

  He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

  Yet here he was standing before this horrible crossroads of wanting to move on and live his life and yet struggling to do so.

  Chapter 21

  Saturday morning, Matilda planned to do nothing all day long. One of those days where she didn’t get out of her pyjamas until midday and didn’t eat anything remotely healthy.

  She was going to waste time trawling through social media liking cute animal videos and uplifting quotes from friends. Then she might read or binge-watch a Netflix series. Maybe both.

  While married to Oscar, she barely took the time to do nothing. Oscar was a focused person, constantly working or networking, and it filled her with guilt to take a break.

  That was the first thing she had done when she moved out of their home, and it was a guilty treat—a reward.

  So far, that sensation of luxury while doing nothing at all hadn’t dissipated. After the long few months creating the entire campaign for the Mathews Family Vineyard’s new line, and dealing with the loss of her barely-off-the-ground relationship with Mitch, she had earned a break.

  She had slept in until nine am—something she hadn’t done since she was in her early twenties. For breakfast, she ate croissants with a thick layering of Mum’s home-grown and homemade strawberry jam.

  When she was a young girl, she’d eat the jam from the jar. It tasted nothing like what you’d get from a shopping centre, but more like sweet, fruity sunshine.

  The weather was quite warm today, nudging the high twenties. Her skin ached for her to go outside and enjoy it. So she grabbed her laptop and a coffee and sat on the back deck.

  Amidst the heat, the mountains held a hazy appearance. A breeze blew in, moving the long blades of grass like they were rakish dancers.

  She would have to organise a slasher. Without cattle to keep the grass down, it would have to be done manually. But that was for another day to worry about.

  After a long sip of her coffee, she lifted the lid on her laptop and opened Instagram. She trawled through the hundreds of pictures from celebrities like Dwayne Johnson and Chris Pratt, as well as myriad makeup artists.

  On days like today, she could watch hours upon hours of makeup vlogs without even blinking. They were a secret fetish of hers.

  The celebrity posts were interspersed with posts from the friends she’d left behind in San Fran—pictures of the bay, various plates of food, faces after sweaty workouts, new relationships.

  She clicked over to Twitter, but she had grown bored of it of late. It seemed everyone had gone much too aggressively political.

  Next was Facebook. Much of the same that was on Instagram, though with the addition of some cute cat videos.

  She scrolled through her newsfeed, catching up with various posts about nights-out, concerts, grievances.

  She stopped when she saw her ex-husband’s face, tagged by a mutual friend. Not wanting to dwell on her past, she scrolled her mouse to keep moving by, but stopped when she saw the word ‘congratulations’.

  Perhaps he had been given a promotion, got engaged to his new girlfriend, which he had acquired exactly six weeks after she had split from him.

  She hastily rolled back up and enlarged the picture, though she hadn’t needed to enlarge it to understand immediately what the congratulations were about. A shock of betrayal moved through her.

  Her face drained of blood—now cold.

  Eyes bulging, she studied the two images in the picture. First of Oscar who was facing side-on looking at the camera. He had his arms resting on the hips of his girlfriend.

  His girlfriend, an athletic woman with dark hair, wore a crop top and low-slung jeans, her stomach exposed. Her hands cradled just below the smallest of bumps in her lower abdomen.

  To the side of their smiling face, right near the bump was bright blue text saying ‘three months pregnant’.

  The horrible garish font and colour they had chosen for the text (like, what were they frickin’ thinking?) wasn’t the only problem with this picture, but rather what it said without any words about Matilda.

  She jerked back from the picture, gasping.

  ‘He’s having a baby,’ she whispered, revulsion transforming the pitch of her words into something so foreign and deep sounding. This revelation sloshed in her stomach like spoilt cream.

  Her eyes darted away from the screen, unable to even look at his face. Despite being halfway across the other side of the planet, she ached to run even further away from him, this proximity much too close.

  She slammed the lid of her laptop down and stood. She couldn’t manage a full breath. Her head was light as she stepped a few paces, hands on her hips. Eventually, she stopped and hung her head, gasping.

  Through her mind were all the conversations, the heated arguments, the yelling matches where she reasoned with him, then corralled him and, in the end, pleaded with him with tears, trembling lips and shaking hands to please reconsider having a child with her, but he wouldn’t budge.

  Then her last move where she offered him an ultimatum—not as a threat, but so he understood the reality of how much she desired children—where she would leave the marriage.

  And his cool words delivered to her with his professional calm still starred in her thoughts, ‘If that’s what you think you have to do, then that’s what you do’.

  So she left.

  And now, a little over one year later, he was having a baby with another woman.

  ‘He didn’t want to have children with me,’ she murmured. ‘What’s so wrong with me?’

  The pain of that realisation was like hot glue burning through her veins, it scorched every extremity, but mostly her heart.

  Coupled with her inability to make things work with Mitch, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was something wrong with her.

  Was she too strong-willed? Too assertive? Boring? Unattractive?

  She lifted her hands, interlacing her fingers on the back of her head as she sucked in her next breath, desperate to fill her aching lungs.

  ‘How could he do this?’

  Divorcing Oscar was incredibly difficult—it took a lot of courage; it had hurt. Many many nights she cried and doubted if what she was doing was right. But this revelation was much worse than all of that pain put together. This was a personal rejection. This was something she hadn’t prepared herself to have to deal with.

  Seeing that picture was like Oscar standing her up in front of an enormous audience and being demanded he pick from myriad women lined up beside her whom he’d shoot, then choosing her.

  She had been through much in her life, come up against some real arseholes in her career, been called all kinds of names, but this rejection, to feel its exquisitely painful claws puncture her heart, destroyed her sense of self.

  She should be more poised than this, more resilient. The headstrong, confident women she had emulated her entire adult life wouldn’t allow this man to reduce her selfworth like this.

  Yet, Oscar was doing exactly that to her because to see him having a baby with another woman proved what she had already suspected—that she wasn’t the one to have walked out on that marriage, it was already over before then. He, years earlier, though he never came out and said it and perhaps wasn’t consciously aware of it himself, had rejected her already.

  Her phone vibrated on the tabletop beside her comput
er, frightening her. She marched to it and picked it up with jittery hands. Ellie’s name flashed on the screen.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, all too aware of her breathless voice.

  ‘Matilda. You okay?’ She had obviously picked up on the emotion in that single word.

  ‘Not really.’ Matilda squeezed her eyelids shut as tears threatened, but she took a shuddering breath inwards, pushing back the building emotion.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘My ex-husband is having a baby,’ she blurted.

  Silence, followed by, ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered unable to manage more volume.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She squeezed her forehead with her thumb. ‘Me too.’

  ‘If I didn’t have an urgent arrangement to prepare for a wedding, I’d come right over and be an ear while you vent.’

  Matilda shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You must come to this Christmas party tonight. Blow off some steam with me and Amy. It will be good for you. Dress really sexy, and we’ll post pictures of you on social media so Oscar-fucking-baby-maker knows what he’s missing out on.’

  ‘It’s too awkward, Ellie, with Mitch there. Working with him is fine, but a Christmas party … it’s a little more personal. I don’t think I can handle Mitch, not on top of this news.’ Truthfully, she couldn’t bare his rejection that sat unspoken between them in the air like tiny blades that cut her.

  Ellie sighed. ‘Screw Mitch. We won’t even talk to him. We’ll sit right over the opposite end of the table. I’ll come pick you up. Sitting around moping isn’t going to help.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Fine. Text me if you change your mind, and I’ll be there in a flash. I’m really sorry about Oscar. That’s horrible news to get. But don’t let it take away your own future. The fact that he’s out having a baby with someone who would be half as great as you, doesn’t mean you won’t find your own happiness down the road.’

  Tears really did spring then, she couldn’t help it. ‘Thank you,’ she choked out. ‘That’s really … lovely.’

  ‘I’ll give you a call when I finish work, to check how you’re going, okay?’

  ‘Okay. Thanks, Ellie.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

  Matilda hung up and stood unmoving for a long while. ‘Stupid arse-hat bastard,’ she grumbled as she picked up her computer and went back inside. With this revelation hanging over her head, she couldn’t have a do-nothing day now.

  She showered and dressed, which felt like the most disappointing part of the day, then headed outside to water the fruit trees and the flourishing row of lilly pillies. They had grown an inch or so since she planted them.

  Anger still blistered through her as she unwound the hose, turned on the taps and sprinkled water over the vibrant foliage until it seeped into the dark soil.

  When her phone rang again, she groaned. But it could be Mum, and it would be helpful to vent. When she pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen, her stomach flipped to see Mitch’s name glowing.

  For a moment, she contemplated not answering. But, at the end of the day, he was her boss and he paid her well. It could be work-related—unlikely, but it was possible.

  ‘Hi, Mitch. What’s going on?’

  ‘Matilda. Hi. Um … Sam said you weren’t going to the Christmas party tonight?’

  She pressed her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes. Of course he was ringing about the stupid Christmas party. In all her internalised, woe-is-me brain straining, she hadn’t drawn that connection.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t think it would be … I don’t know if …’ God, her brain bandwidth was running on empty at the moment.

  ‘You’re a valued staff member. We would all really like it if you could make it.’

  She dropped her hand to her side and rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, but it will be too awkward.’

  ‘Come on. It doesn’t have to be awkward.’

  She blew out an exasperated sigh. ‘Look, honestly, Mitch, I—’ Am so deeply hurt that you don’t desire me like I do you? ‘—I don’t want to be near you in such a setting. It’s fine at work, but …’

  Silence, then, ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth.’ And it was. Since he’d ended what had so briefly started between them, she had been moving around with weights attached to her legs and a dimmer switch in her brain. Seeing him and knowing she couldn’t touch him or kiss him, only made it worse.

  He had hurt her, plain and simple. Hurt her because she had thought him worth her patience, yet, quite obviously, he hadn’t come to the same conclusion about her.

  That made her jealous. Jealous of a woman who was no longer even alive. Jealous that Rachel had managed to maintain this hold on him.

  And then, she felt like the worst person on the planet for even harbouring those resentments. How could this be Rachel’s fault by any measure? It couldn’t. It wasn’t.

  ‘No, it’s not what I want to hear,’ he said with a low voice. ‘I feel like the biggest arsehole.’

  Her body vibrated as that stirred the resentment deeper. ‘Well, Mitch, maybe you should start thinking about how others feel instead of focusing on how you feel all the bloody time.’

  Yes, it was harsh. Yes, he was bearing the brunt of her anger towards Oscar. But it held truth. Bereavement or not, it didn’t give him the right to discount how she felt all the time or give him some sense of entitlement to be a whiplash inducing arse.

  Silence again, then, ‘I see.’

  She rubbed her forehead. ‘Look, Mitch, I’ve got things to do. I hope you all have a good night.’

  And then she hung up.

  Not her proudest moment, but in her current state of mind, it was all she had.

  But her insistence on not attending the Christmas party was given a sharp shove in the opposite direction when Amy and Ellie pulled up in the driveway at five o’clock that afternoon.

  Matilda was back in her pyjamas and onto the fifth episode of Big Little Lies. They practically manhandled her into a sexy, low-cut red dress, a Mrs Claus hat and outrageously high heels, then drove her to the Christmas party.

  As she walked up to the vineyard’s restaurant, which was closed to guests tonight and booked for staff only, she caught a flash of her reflection in the windows.

  ‘Girls, I think this outfit is much too sexy for a work-do,’ she growled, giving each of them the side-eye.

  They giggled, linked their elbow to hers.

  Ellie said, ‘Well, you certainly won’t go unnoticed.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  Chapter 22

  Mitch’s lips parted on his long exhale, and his eyes, without his control, bulged when Matilda walked through the doors of the restaurant with her arms linked to Ellie and Amy.

  What an entrance! Wrapped in a revealing red dress, hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail and topped with a cute Santa hat, she was like an image from his fantasies (not the Santa hat part, but definitely the dress and heels).

  Matilda had always been beautiful, effortlessly so, but to see her now stole his breath away.

  ‘I am the luckiest man alive,’ Sam murmured beside him.

  Yes, Ellie was stunning, Amy too, but Mitch only had eyes for the woman in the centre of that trio.

  So Ellie and Amy must have convinced Matilda to attend tonight after all. Relief filled him to see her here. He had felt like the world’s biggest arse when she had told him no on the phone and then hung up on him.

  And it had hurt.

  She was right, though, when she grumbled that he only thought about his own emotions. To hear those blunt words had shifted his perspective.

  Grief had an insidious ability to turn one’s focus inwards and compromise the facility to see outside of one’s shrinking world.

  For such a long time now, despite going through the motio
ns of living and daily activity, he had been operating from a small focal point. His ability to cope with much beyond his and Sophie’s immediate needs had been limited.

  Yes, he had considered Matilda’s emotions, but he had not once put them before his own.

  But now that she had so effectively pointed that out, he wanted to be different.

  He hoped he could. Although, this understanding had come too late. The damage was done.

  The staff trickled in, some with partners, some on their own. Music played loudly over the speakers as the chef served them up a great array of traditional English Christmas foods—roast turkey, stuffing, and vegetables. Wine flowed freely.

  Matilda sat at the opposite end of the long table with Amy and Ellie. She didn’t say much more to him than hello when she first arrived.

  They shared the presents they had bought each employee, ranging from bottles of champagne and beautifully designed flower gift boxes for the female staff and bottles of barrel-aged whisky for the men.

  Staff danced, his brothers included. But Mitch couldn’t relax, couldn’t let go completely.

  He watched Matilda move around the dance floor, laughing, happy, but he knew her too well to ignore her obvious reservation. Her smiles weren’t quite as big as usual. Her laughs were a little forced. She was here and giving it her best effort to enjoy herself, but she didn’t want to be.

  He sat back in his chair and a stone weight dropped in his guts—this was all because of him.

  Not until the staff began to ebb home, and Matilda soon followed, did he anticipate going home to his quiet house and sleeping in his bed by himself. Like a hand was squeezing his heart, he resisted it. He wasn’t sure, not tonight, if he could face it.

  Sam sat down beside him. ‘Hey, you’ll crack your face if you frown any deeper.’

  Mitch shook his head. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

  ‘Do what?’

  He pointed in the direction of his house. ‘Got home to that silent house. Wake up alone in my bed. Change Sophie’s shitty morning nappy. Do the whole morning-breakfast-all-over-the-floor routine. Spend the entire day in my own head while intermittently exchanging conversation with my toddler.’