When I Lost You: A Gripping, Heart Breaking Novel of Lost Love. (29 page)

T
he emptiness
of that awful week with Leo had been the wake-up call I’d needed. I was coming to terms with the reality that my marriage was dead.

The trip to see him had been a desperate act by a desperate woman, and when it turned out to be a bigger failure than I could ever have imagined, I realised that he was actually right. I still couldn’t understand why, but there was no doubt that he was more committed to that job than he was to anything else – even a future with me, and even his physical safety.

When Leo did return from Istanbul, we shuffled around the house as if we were room-mates rather than spouses. We were each careful to stay out of the other’s way, and we spoke to one another with an artificial level of politeness. But beyond the practicalities, we did not talk. I didn’t want to be the one to bring up the subject of a separation – not
yet
anyway – but I had decided that when Leo did, I would calmly agree. I even called the management at my apartment building and had them cancel future holiday bookings and arranged for some things to be moved out of storage to prepare my apartment for my return, but beyond that, I made no plans.

For several weeks, we stayed in a polite but emotionless limbo. But then my period failed to show, and all hell broke loose.

I
decide
to surprise Molly a few days later, and I arrange for Tracy to come later in the day than she usually does. I skip my swim to rest all morning, and then just before Molly is due home, I greet Tracy.

‘I hope she doesn’t faint,’ Tracy remarks, as she’s setting me up in the supportive harness. ‘She is pregnant, after all. You should have warned her.’

‘I wanted to surprise her.’

‘Well, she’ll certainty get that,’ Tracy chuckles. A few minutes later, we hear the elevator doors, and Molly calls out, ‘Hey, Leo! Are you here?’

‘Yep,’ I call back, and Molly follows the sound of my voice into the open living area where I have been training. Her eyes widen as she sees Tracy, and she gives us both a curious smile.

‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘Oh,’ she says, and I see confusion cross her face. I glance at Tracy.

‘Ready?’ I ask, and Tracy nods, so I put my hands on the standing frame and take a deep breath, and I rise. Once upon a time, I could run ten kilometres with less effort than it takes me to make two steps now – but I do it – I lift my left foot, and as I shuffle it forward, I whisper under my breath
heel
, and then I lower it slowly, and whisper again
toe
. My hands shake as I force the frame forward, and then I repeat the motion with the other foot.

After two steps, I am completely shattered and Tracy moves the chair behind me to catch me just as I collapse back into it. I am exhausted from this process in a way that still seems impossible – but I
did
it, and I raise my eyes to Molly, expecting to see excitement and joy and pride on her face.

Instead, I see a level of disappointment and fear that she cannot hide. This is not a micro-expression that I could have misread – this is a long, frozen moment that leaves me in no doubt at all what she thinks about my progress.

The wave of triumphant buzz I had been riding disappears in an instant as our eyes lock. I have felt like this before – disappointed by her, and disappointed in her – every time something wonderful happened with a story and she dismissed it or refused to even discuss it with me. My chest feels strangely tight.

‘I… um… I should go, Leo,’ Tracy says hesitantly. I nod, and she leans towards me and starts to unclip the harness.

‘Leave it,’ I say abruptly, and she scurries from the room as if the tension emanating from Molly and me might injure her somehow. I do not look away from my wife, not for a second. I am inexplicably furious
with her, and I recognise that I am familiar with that emotion too.

This is the missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle of our life, that thing that I have not understood at all since I woke from the coma – it is the central piece upon which all of the other parts to
us
hang. She has
said that our relationship broke down because I worked too much but I
suddenly understand that for me the point of failure was actually Molly’s stubborn, selfish refusal to
support
me. This brutally disappointing moment feels just like the dullness of her tone when I’d call her to tell her about some amazing development in a story, and the almost bored way she’d ask me every single fucking time I had to leave,
do you have to go?

After everything we have been through, I cannot believe that today I have stood before her – against all odds, after so much excruciating work – and that she cannot even bring herself to be happy for me.

‘Are you going to say something?’ I prompt.

Her gaze drops to the floor momentarily, then she raises it stubbornly back to mine. ‘I know I should be excited,’ she says stiffly. ‘And I know it makes me a terrible person that I am not. But
you
think you took two simple steps –
I
know that you just took your first two steps away from me again.’

‘This is the problem. This was
always
the problem,’ I snap at her. The hurt I feel is almost blinding – the sense of betrayal breathtaking. ‘You have never supported me, Molly. You want me to be like some bloody pet that you keep at home to play with. Is the wheelchair a
bonus
to you because it anchors me here?’ She raises her chin and stares at me, a fury rising that I know will soon answer mine, but when seconds pass and she does not speak, I try to hook a reaction out of her to hurry this argument to its inevitable conclusion. ‘You never wanted me to walk again, you wanted me to be stuck here.’

‘I
told
you,’ she says, ‘I knew you would walk again. I
knew
that you would never let this hold you back. And I also told you that we would end up right back here where we started – at the problem between us that has
no solution. And if it makes me the worst fucking person on earth that I was hoping that your injury would mean you were stuck here safe with me so that we could be happy, then so be it.’

‘How can you even say that to me?’ I am all but snarling at her now, and I unclip the harness with furious, jerking movements, but I cannot get out of the portions that rest around my pelvis, so I leave them fixed as I wheel myself towards her. ‘My job is everything to me and the fact that you could only give lip service to it shows me how little you understand me.’

I manoeuvre myself all the way over to where she stands near the kitchen and I stop a metre or so back from her. We stare at each other, and the silence and our breathing is ragged.

‘Why are you so determined to kill yourself for that fucking job, Leo?’

She does not shout – the words are delivered with a deadly potency, she does not need to raise the volume of the sentence. I am incensed anyway by the selfishness of her anger, even as I feel my own frustration spiralling and building right along with it. My rage pulses red in my chest and my face feels hot. More than anything now I want to shout at her. I want to slam doors and storm out and go to the gym and punch a punching bag until my knuckles are bleeding.

But I can’t. I can’t do any of that, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. Instead, I stare at her so hard that my vision goes blurry. I can’t understand how she can miss such an obvious truth in all of these arguments about my work.

I have never understood her viewpoint on my job – but then again, I’ve never
really
understood why she wanted to be with me in the first place, or how she can fail to see what’s so blindingly obvious about what drives me.

‘I
have
to,’ I say. My voice breaks and I don’t know what that means – but I’m too angry to shut up long enough to figure it out. ‘Don’t you understand that?’

‘But
why
?’ she whispers, and at the desperation in her tone something inside me breaks free.

‘It’s for
you
! It’s for you and your fucking father and all of the people in our lives who know that I’m not good enough for you! You know as well as I do that if I don’t have this job, I am
nothing
.’

I seem to have stumbled upon a ‘stop’ button to our argument, because neither one of us knows what to say to all of that. I feel as though I have just accidentally left myself standing naked in front of an enemy at war.

‘Leo,’ Molly says. She’s completely calm, and that should calm me – but it doesn’t. My heart is racing faster and faster. I’m sweating – I
need
to get out of her apartment, away from this argument, before I lose whatever is left of my pride.

‘Just leave it, Molly,’ I groan, and I push the chair past her, into the hallway and towards the elevator.

‘
No
,’ I hear her say behind me, and then she takes the handles of my wheelchair and spins me round, and my anger resurges because I have
told
her not to do that and
fuck, I hate this powerlessness
. I might have shouted those things at her, but I can’t speak – I can barely breathe. My chest feels ever-tighter and I am working so hard on keeping my face neutral that I can’t really concentrate on much else. I certainly can’t look at her. I won’t see her pain in case it softens my anger, and I won’t see her pity unless it pushes me over the edge.

Molly drops to her knees in front of me and she takes my hands in hers and presses the backs of my fingers against tears that have appeared out of nowhere to cover her cheeks. I lean back in my chair away from her and I still don’t look at her – I
can’t
look at her.

‘I won’t stop you going,’ she says flatly. ‘I won’t
ever
stop you going. But before you do, you need to know something.’

She is waiting for me to make eye contact again, and I’m still not sure I can do it without showing her how deeply she has hurt me, and how furious I still am. But the seconds stretch and I realise that the only way I am getting out of there is to let her say her piece. I drag my gaze back to hers, and if I thought I was hurting before, I am in agony after I finally face the mirrored pain in her eyes.

‘Leo Stephens,’ she whispers, and then she gives me a teary, almost pleading smile as she chokes, ‘You have never needed to be a hero to be
my
hero.’

I look away, and I feel the stupid tic at my jaw, and those words delivered with surprising softness land like daggers in me anyway. She’s not done yet, either. I hear her draw another heavy breath and her voice is low as she adds, ‘You promised me we wouldn’t end up back here. You
promised
me there was a solution – a compromise. Well,’ she stands suddenly, and she steps away from me. I look to her expectantly, and she raises her eyebrows as if issuing a challenge. ‘Go
find
it so we can be a family.’

I
ask
the van driver to take me to the terrace. For a while I play with Lucien in what’s left of my courtyard, and eventually Mrs Wilkins brings me a cup of tea and her legendary scones. We share them at the dining table. It’s like an ordinary, pre-Molly afternoon in my old life, except that my apartment now looks like something out of a
Home Beautiful
magazine.

After Mrs Wilkins leaves, I stare at the chair-lifts on the stairs for a while before I lift myself onto the seat. It takes a while to figure it all out, but eventually I hook the wheelchair onto the side of the chair and turn the machine on.

Molly wasn’t kidding when she said it was slow. It takes almost a minute to rise from the ground floor to the bedroom, and then another minute to get up the remaining stairs to my office – but the destination is worth the wait. I actually give an odd laugh of relief when I see my desk come into view.

I look at my books for a while, then take myself to my desk and I stare at the computer – the laptop is closed. I pull it towards me, intending to open it, but a letter was resting beneath it and that immediately captures my full attention. As I pick it up, I feel the definite shifting of something in my mind. All of the other memories have come back to me slowly – almost like an image loading on a poor internet connection, pixel by pixel swimming into focus. This time it’s more like a bucket of ice water dumped unceremoniously over my head. As I stare at the piece of paper and I read the address, the last few pieces of the puzzle of my mind start to fall into place.

The letter is from Brokeshaw Solicitors and their office is right next door to the bar where I
thought
something special had happened with Molly. I don’t read any further than the letterhead before it becomes completely overwhelming. I close my eyes – hoping I can slow down the barrage of memories by blocking out the visual trigger that’s causing them: it doesn’t work.

I’d arrived at the solicitor just in time for my appointment at 4 p.m. I had walked from the
News Monthly
office to give myself time to think. I thought I would be ready by the time I got there, but as I was about to walk up the stairs, my legs froze. I can stand in a battlefield and dodge bullets and feel only exhilarated, but
that
day, standing in an ordinary stairwell in a very safe city, for the first time in my life I felt a real sense of panic.

I couldn’t do it; I just could not go in. So I slipped my phone from my pocket and I dialled, and I lied: I told the receptionist that I’d been caught up in a meeting and I would be at least half an hour late. Then I turned around and I walked into the bar next door. I sat at the bar and I ordered a Scotch and stared into it as the ice-cubes floated around the top.

Molly
. All I could think about that day was Molly. When I closed my eyes, I saw her in my mind – a montage of the extremes of the moments of our life together – screaming anger, hysterical sobbing, gentle smiles and radiant love.

She had betrayed my trust, and she had hurt me, and I was so burnt by the lack of support that she’d offered me. All I’d ever wanted was to be someone worthy of
her
. All I’d ever wanted was to deserve her love – but the harder I worked to be the kind of man to deserve a woman like Molly, the more I disappointed her. It was a situation where I couldn’t win because the very thing that I needed to feel worthy of my wife was the same thing that had destroyed my relationship with her.

In the bar that day I had wanted to fix things with Molly. In that moment, I wanted to be with her so much that it physically pained me to be apart from her. I had missed her – my
whole
life
was missing her – but I felt crushed under the weight of failure and guilt, as if I had squandered a once-in-a-lifetime gift.

How had I let the best thing that had ever happened to me go to waste?

Eventually, I got up, and I walked next door and I went inside and talked to the solicitor. I gave him no details – he didn’t need them. I just set the wheels in motion and told myself I was doing what needed to be done.

I open my eyes. My glasses have fallen onto the desk and there are drops of moisture beside them. I pick them up, and the text of the letter swims into focus.