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‘I was hoping you might tell me. I still don’t understand why you felt the need to drive him over to your mother’s place in the middle of the night. Nor why you slept in his bed afterwards. Now he’s creeping around, listening at doors. He looks scared as hell.’
‘He’s about to start university, with all the stresses and insecurities that brings. I think we can forgive him a few road bumps in the lead-up.’
Erin takes both his hands, squeezes. ‘What about you and me? Are we OK? Even vaguely? Because it certainly doesn’t feel like it. We haven’t really talked since the barbecue. If there’s something you want to say, I’d rather you just took the plunge and came out with it.’
‘Like what?’
Erin leans closer, searches his eyes. ‘I don’t know. But you’re jumpy as hell. Worse than Max, even. You’ve started talking in your sleep, thrashing about.’
‘Honestly, Erin, there’s nothing.’
She holds his gaze, squeezes his hands harder. And Joseph recalls his conversation with Max at Claire’s graveside:
Do you still love her, Dad?
Of course I do.
Are you sure? Because you don’t act like you do.
I love her as much as I always did.
I’m not trying to make you feel bad. It’s just … if things keep going the way they are, you’re going to lose her. The only reason I’m telling you is because I don’t want you to end up alone.
At the time, he’d angrily shrugged Max off. The boy’sanalysis had been clinical – sharp enough to cut. Now, though, Joseph sees that his anger had blinded him to something important: not merely the truth of his son’s words, but the love, empathy and understanding wrapped up in them. They were, indisputably, the thoughts not of a monster but of the boy he raised with Claire. Is there a clue in that? A source of hope?
He forces himself to study Erin’s face, seeing the laughter lines and worry lines that have begun to appear around her eyes and mouth, the subtle signs of aging.
One of the intimacies of love rarely described is the slow reveal of a partner’s mortality, evidenced in degradations of flesh. Taking that journey together, Joseph knows, is a painful privilege – but it’s filled with as much beauty as pain. Because the essence of a person never diminishes until it leaves, even if mind and body do. Time and experience leave scars that tell stories as poignant as those left by childbirth.
The pain of Claire’s passing nearly broke him; but he’d accompany her on that journey again, a thousand times, and die another thousand at the end.
And now, here, he has the same painful privilege. His love for Erin is different to his love for Claire – maybe it’s only possible to love one person a certain way – but this love is just as real, just as strong. In some ways, tempered by the loss in which it was forged, it’s even stronger.
The realization forces him to confront another truth: just as he has to protect his son from the situation unfolding around them, he has to protect his wife. What’s almost too unbearable to contemplate is the knowledge that he might not manage to do both.
He watches the delicate movement of Erin’s throat as she swallows. The gentle pulse of blood in her neck. If she stares into his eyes much longer, she’ll doubtless read the truth in them. Fortunately, his wife’s instinct for when to press andwhen to relent seems as reliable as ever. Releasing his hands, she stands. ‘That guy creeped me out.’
‘Me too.’
‘The way he was looking at those photographs, staring at Tilly and Drew.’
‘And Max,’ Joseph says. ‘What’s his brother like?’
‘Kind of intense. But nothing like that. Did you pick something up for dinner?’
‘Ah, shit. Sorry.’
‘When Tilly gets home, how about I phone in an order to Mr Wu’s? I’ve a hankering for some chicken chow mein and crispy chilli beef.’
‘Deal,’ Joseph says, although he can’t think of anything worse. Since his huge lunch at Meghan’s, he’s started to feel nauseous again – and his intensified awareness of what’s at stake has hardly reawakened his appetite.
Erin slaps his shoulder, smiles. ‘I’ve got one bit of good news. The estate agent called while you were out. We finally got a viewing on your mother’s place.’
Joseph blinks. ‘When?’
Erin looks at her watch. ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘right about now.’
TWENTY-FIVE