Page 146 of In Sheets of Rain

58

Until The End Of Time

It was winter and Michael had a cold. He coughed endlessly. He made a poor patient. I reluctantly decided to take his advice and visit my family. I told him it would only be for one night. He told me not to hurry.

I felt out of sorts driving South toward my hometown. I wanted to be caring for Michael, but he wouldn’t let me. I supposed it was some macho manly thing. Not wanting to admit they’re sick.

Whatever it was, he was going to have to get over it. I’d give him one night and then by tomorrow; I’d be wiping his brow and spooning chicken soup into his feverish body.

Mum was helping at a church fair when I got there. So, I spent the afternoon listening to Glenn Miller with Dad and talking about Clive Cussler mysteries.

He wanted a new Jag. But it was just a dream. Mum wanted to go back to England again, he said. I wasn’t sure he was up to it. I made him a cup of tea, and he insisted I put more strawberry jam on his sandwich.

“Mum’s not here to see it,” he whispered to me.

My sister turned up with the kids, and I spent a few hours playing on the floor with Legos and Barbies. Sharon told me she’d seen Sean. I tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. But she was determined to tell me he’d moved to their city with his new girlfriend.

Even my hometown was no longer a bolt hole.

My mother swept in not much later; a large, gift-wrapped parcel of meat in her hands that she’d won in a raffle. She bustled about the kitchen banging cupboards and complaining about the jam left on the bench to Dad and asking me if I was comfortable in those tight jeans.

And I thought perhaps my hometown had not been a bolt hole for some time now.

We all sat down to a roast meal. Dad shuffled in and sat down in his big office chair that swivelled. The kids got food on the table cloth. Nobody said anything.

My mother turned to me, partway through the meal and asked, “Where’s Michael?”

“He’s sick and needed some peace and quiet to recover.”

“You left him?”

She said it as if I’d left him permanently.

“Of course not,” I replied.

“But you’re here, and he’s there, so I’d say you left him. And when he’s ill, too. What is wrong with you, Kylee?”

I pushed a roast potato around in the gravy and said nothing.

Dessert was a bust; I couldn’t eat it.

I left after dinner when I’d been intending to stay the night and started the three-hour journey back to Auckland at half-past eight in the evening.

I refused to cry. I white-knuckled the steering wheel and didn’t stop to pee even though my bladder was about to burst.

Michael was sleeping peacefully in the bedroom when I finally made it home as if he hadn’t had a cold at all.

I climbed into bed, and he wrapped an arm around me, kissed me on the side of my neck, and went back to sleep. I lay awake and listened to the cars out on the street and a neighbour’s tree rustling.

In the morning, Michael rolled over and stared at me.

“I told you to stay the night,” he said.

“You were sick.”

“I knew it wouldn’t last long. You didn’t need to change your plans for me. Especially driving home in the dark like that.”

“I wanted to,” I said scowling.