‘Well, you’ve had a big week then,’ Natasha says, when I update her on my news about the houses. She seems more shocked than impressed, and I get a little defensive.
‘No point wasting any more time.’
‘Do you feel like you might be rushing things?’
‘Do you think I am?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’
‘I’ll take that as a “yes”.’
‘Have you started packing up the house?’
‘Yes. I’m not taking much.’
‘So you’re sorting through your belongings deciding what to take?’
‘Exactly. I want the new house to feel new, so I’m hardly going to take anything that has a memory attached to it. Except things for Zoe, of course.’
I started packing as soon as I walked in the front door from Mrs Schmitt’s place. I didn’t have any packing boxes, so I walked through the house with a laundry basket in my arms and I picked up the things that called to me – a few photos, one of Louisa and me at her twenty-first, one of me alone with my parents on my wedding day. There were plenty of other photos, but David was in all of them, so I turned them all face down as I walked around, even though it did nothing to cleanse his presence from the room.
I can’t wait to get out of that house.
‘What do your parents think about all of this?’ Natasha asks me quietly.
‘I haven’t exactly told them… not yet,’ I admit.
‘Hmm. That’s interesting.’
‘Well, Natasha,’ I say pointedly. ‘You’ll probably recall that they didn’t even want me to go home to David’s house. I did call Louisa to ask her for advice about which agent to use and she didn’t seem thrilled, so I’ll bet she’s mentioned it to Mum and Dad… but I haven’t really discussed the detail with them yet.’
‘Are you afraid of disappointing them?’ she asks me.
‘Why would they be disappointed?’ I frown.
‘You tell me.’
‘They want to protect me – that’s what they’ve always wanted.’
‘And… how do you feel about that?’
‘I’ve never let them,’ I admit. ‘It feels a bit too late now, the damage has been done.’
‘I know you were estranged from them for a long time. You’ve never really explained to me how that happened.’
‘It was Christmas morning, maybe seven years ago,’ I murmur.
The day was so hot – and we were supposed to have lunch with Mum and Dad, who didn’t have air conditioning, so I’d worn a singlet and skirt. Louisa had just started seeing a new guy she’d met at the pub. Johann was a German backpacker, in Milton Falls only for the summer to work on the cherry harvest – not likely to be a long-term relationship, but still, my sister was excited to have a date for Christmas for the first time in a while.
I was so happy that day, which made everything somehow worse – the contrast between joyous morning and miserable afternoon seemed cruel, the timing unfair – wasn’t Christmas supposed to be the happiest day of the year?
We’d exchanged gifts and Dad was barbecuing seafood for lunch, so we were all sitting outside under the awning complaining about the heat and wishing for a breeze or rain or something. We’d already had a few glasses of wine, and Louisa and I were giggly and generally having fun.
Then Johann decided he’d start a water-fight. He approached Louisa and I with a bucket of water and threw it right over us – catching us by surprise. We squealed and dissolved into fits of laughter and promises of imminent revenge, and just as I stood to go for the hose, David announced, ‘I’m so sorry, I have a headache coming on.’
Everyone stopped. They all looked at him, and so did I, only to find his gaze had settled right on my cleavage. I was genuinely confused because there were storm clouds in his eyes and he was hiding it well from the others, but I could see that he was enraged. He offered me a tight smile. ‘Why don’t you stay and catch a cab home?’
His words didn’t match his expression, not one little bit. I was bewildered, but while I didn’t want to leave, I knew the safest option was to go with him. So I looked at my family and I gave them an apologetic shrug, then turned back to David.
‘No, I’ll come with you now and make sure you’re okay.’
‘I’m absolutely fine,’ he said, ‘It’s just a headache. Maybe the cheap wine.’
It hadn’t been cheap wine at all, and it was unlike David to throw barbs at Mum and Dad – generally he was cordial to them, his usual charming self. That’s when I realised that whatever I’d done, David was absolutely furious. He took my hand then, and squeezed it – hard. Too hard for a warning. It was a precursor.
‘I really don’t mind if you stay,’ he said quietly, but his eyes still said something different altogether, so I apologised too and we walked out, hand-in-hand. As soon as the front door closed behind us and we were alone on the street he released my hand and started to walk faster, his footsteps heavy and fast. I fell behind him, my own steps hesitant. My heart was thundering against my chest, and I was frantically replaying the morning in my mind, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong.
Then he turned, and he grabbed my shoulder – his grip was too hard, the movement too rough – and he pulled me hard against his torso. He stared down at me, a long and intense stare, and it only broke when he pulled his head back, his nostrils flared, and then he spat on my face.
Public displays of anger were very rare from David. He was always so controlled – even later in our life together once things escalated, he’d hold off until there was no one around to witness his rage. For him to dare to treat me like that on the street in front of my parents’ house meant that he was completely out of control.
‘You wore that top just to turn him on, didn’t you? Slut.’ David hissed at me, and then I finally looked down. The bucket of water had left my singlet virtually translucent. ‘You knew he was going to be here. You loved his attention all morning.’
‘Get your damned hands off my daughter!’ Dad shouted and I stumbled away from David, shocked and humiliated. I turned towards the house and I saw Dad running at us – his face beetroot, from the heat or the exertion but also, undoubtedly, the hard set of fury I could see in his jaw and his posture. I knew then that Dad had seen the whole thing play out. Dad saw him spit on me. Dad heard him speak to me like that. Dad is going to lose his mind. David is going to kill him. Dad stopped between David and I, drew himself up to his full height and said flatly to me, ‘Get inside. Now.’
‘Fuck off, Tom,’ David snapped, and reached around to grab at my wrist again. Dad pushed him back, and although he barely even budged at Dad’s attempted to protect me, it seemed to give David a shock. He drew in a long, slow breath, then raised his eyebrows at my father, the mask of rage he’d been wearing calming until he once again looked cool-headed and aloof. I knew that was an act, but I doubted Dad would see through it. David then tilted his head towards me and said quietly, ‘This is none of your business. I suggest you take yourself back inside and leave me with my fiancé.’
‘She’s my daughter, David,’ Dad was livid now, so angry he could barely form words. ‘You’ll never lay a hand on her again, do you hear me? I won’t have it!’
‘Olivia,’ David said, and he looked right into my eyes. ‘Get in the car.’
‘Don’t you dare, Livvy,’ Dad gasped, and he pointed towards the house. ‘Why are you still out here? Go inside to your mum and Lulu.’ When I didn’t move, Dad raised his voice, but it was rough with his desperation to get through to me. ‘Go on! Get inside so we can keep you safe!’
I was standing between them now, and I looked from Dad to David and then back again.
‘Did you think of going inside, Olivia?’ Natasha asks me quietly.
‘We’d just gotten engaged,’ I say, gnawing my lip. ‘The announcement had just been in the papers a few months earlier. Everyone knew we were going to get married.’
‘So you felt loyal to David?’
‘Yes. I knew that if I did go inside with my family, David would lose his mind. If he was already angry enough to spit at me on the street, there was no way he was going to stand idly by as I walked away from him. And I really didn’t want them to know, I was just so embarrassed at what I was putting up with, even then. I knew my parents and Lulu would be devastated if they knew how bad my relationship with David was, so I thought if I could leave with him and calm him down, I could just explain it all away later... somehow. I’d tell them he was under a lot of pressure with the business and he was tired and hot and he had a migraine and he didn’t mean it and it was a one off. Plus, I guess… ’ I swallow, and start to pick at the cuticle on my thumb so I can avoid Natasha’s patient gaze. ‘I had this awful feeling if I went back inside, Dad was going to cop it instead of me. And David had a good foot on Dad, not to mention twenty-five years of youthful athleticism. I knew Dad would come off second best and be humiliated in the process.’
So I got into David’s car. My whole family was screaming at me by that stage, and as David drove furiously out of the street, I stared out the window and I cried silently. I didn’t realise what I’d done – it was days before it sunk in that I’d made a choice that was bigger than the moment.
‘They bombarded me with texts,’ I murmur. ‘Calls, texts, visits to the house and Mum even came to work. They tried so hard to get me to leave. I couldn’t risk anyone at work finding out what had happened, and honestly, I couldn’t bear to hear their desperation. I tried to keep in contact with them by making my relationship with David off limits when I spoke with them, but they couldn’t help themselves. They did come to the wedding, but only after I begged them to, and Dad refused to walk me down the aisle… Louisa refused to be a bridesmaid.’
‘How did you feel about that?’
‘Abandoned,’ I whisper. ‘I understood that they thought they were doing the best thing for me, but it just made me feel like they’d given up on me. They hadn’t, of course, they were just sick of me telling them to stop trying to help… but it just made me feel all the more isolated. After that, David always told me that even if I left, they wouldn’t help me – and of course, I believed him because I knew how disappointed they were in the decision I’d made. It felt like he was all I had left.’
‘How do you feel about it all now, Olivia?’
I inhale and then exhale on a groan as I run my hand through my hair.
‘When I look back on it, I feel like I’m looking in on the life of a woman with no spine – a woman who mustn’t have known any better, but the thing is, I did know better. I was raised in a great family by two strong, amazing parents. I was university educated, David wasn’t even my first boyfriend. If you’d asked me before I met David if I’d ever let a man control me, I would have laughed at you. I suppose I didn’t realise that’s what was happening at the time.’
‘These things can evolve gradually. Is that what happened?’
‘Yes. Like maybe there were just tiny seeds of it in the early days of our relationship, but over time, it grew into a vine that wrapped itself around my whole life.’
‘When you finally left David after Zoe’s birth, you went to your parents, didn’t you?’
I clear my throat and nod. ‘Yes.’
‘Why did you go to them? You just told me a minute ago that David had convinced you they wouldn’t help.’
‘I was prepared to beg them if I had to. Besides, I had to get out to keep Zoe safe, and I really only had two options. Them, or… ’
I trail off, and Natasha finishes for me.
‘Sebastian.’
‘Yes,’ I nod.
‘So, why Tom and Rita?’
I shift awkwardly on the chair and try to shrug nonchalantly, but instead, I hiccup and I realise I’ve been sobbing as we talked and I’d barely even been conscious of it. I reach for the tissue box, clean myself up a little, then admit in a whisper, ‘I couldn’t let him see me like that… I was a mess, my throat was black and blue with bruising and I was quite hysterical. Plus, I felt like Mum and Dad were the first people to try to get me out, so as scared as I was that they wouldn’t help me, I still wanted them to know that I’d finally found the courage to leave.’
‘And they’ve obviously been supportive in the months since.’
‘They have, they’re amazing. And I know they don’t mean to, but sometimes… they do crowd me. Even this morning I told Mum I didn’t need her to walk me here today, but she insisted and she’s in the waiting room right now.’
‘Why did you go back to David’s house?’
‘Well, there was media in town swarming around like flies, and Dr Eric kept giving me tablets to take that made me feel so spaced out I couldn’t even summon the energy to want to move anywhere. But I hadn’t so much as visited Mum and Dad’s place for almost seven years and it didn’t feel like home any more. Eventually I realised that what I actually needed was to be alone. So I went back to David’s house, and then everyone really started freaking out.’
‘They were scared for you, weren’t they?’
‘They thought I was going to top myself,’ I say wryly. ‘I almost had to throw them out of the house just to get some time alone.’
I had to promise Dr Eric I’d call him – ‘anytime, day or night’ – if I had suicidal thoughts, and I had to agree to stay on the antidepressants and the other catalogue of drugs he gave me for various things, but eventually the fuss all died down and everyone stopped freaking out about it.
‘Tell me why you needed to be alone.’
‘I wasn’t used to having people around me like that. I’d just grown so used to solitude during my life with David. There was work, and there was each other, and the rest of the time I was alone. And as hard as it was on my family, I knew that it was only natural that I needed to withdraw back into that shell to grieve.’
‘David isolated you, didn’t he?’
‘I didn’t see it that way at the time, but… yes. The only real friend I’ve had over the last few years has been Seb… ’ I break off, and glance at the clock. Three minutes to go. I look back to Natasha, and she gives me a gentle smile because we both know what she’s going to say.
‘Are you ready to talk about him yet?’
I shake my head.
‘Today has been tough enough.’
‘Despite everything you’ve been through, I don’t think I’ve seen you cry like you have today. Why is this topic so upsetting?’
‘Because… ’ I tear at the tissue in my lap for a while as I plan the words to explain, then I admit, ‘My family is the best, you know? And when I think about what I’ve put them through… ’
‘What who has put them through?’
I shake my head sadly.
‘No, I own this one. It was my decision to choose David that day.’
‘I’m not sure I agree with you there, Olivia. Maybe next week we can talk some more about power and control.’
‘Well, that sounds super fun,’ I say wryly, as I take one last tissue to dry my face, then rise.
Later that night, I tuck Zoe into my bed and I wander across the hall into the study. I look at the action list on the board, and my stomach spasms – did I eat today? I can’t remember, Dr Eric is not going to be impressed. I promise myself I’ll do better tomorrow, and I pick up the green marker, and I put a big green tick beside ‘sell David’s house’, and another one next to ‘buy new house’. I smile to myself, but then I hover the marker over ‘find care for Zoe’ and if I had a single thing in my stomach, I’d probably throw it right up.
I set the marker down, and I tell myself that I’ll try again tomorrow.
As I’m lying in bed with Zoe in my arms, I’m not actually sure if I can take the next step. I know that I need to find someone to look after Zoe so I can go back to work, and I need to get back to work. It’s the next step – the only way to move out of this phase of grief and isolation and back into the community in a very real way.
I think about what it’s going to be like to work alongside Seb again. I don’t even know if it’s at all fair of me to go back to work there with him. He loves me, and if there’s a single shred of me left that can love in that way, it’s set aside only for him.
But love isn’t always safe. Sometimes, love can hurt, and sometimes, it can cause immense pain and even chaos. I know because the love I had for David has done this to me, and I’ll bet Sebastian knows it too now, because the love he has for me has done this to him. I shiver closer to Zoe at the thought of this. I feel a lot of regret, but the crushing weight of my heaviest shame comes from the way that I have hurt Sebastian McNiven.
And still, he’s visited me – or at least my doorstep – almost every day since I locked myself away in this house.
And if I want to work, it has to be with him – unless I want to commute an hour each way to work in the clinic over in the regional city nearby, Bathurst. Two extra hours a day away from Zoe, just to avoid meeting Sebastian’s gaze? Leaving her at childcare is going to be hard enough – I struggle to even imagine what it’s going to be like to let her out of my sight. I haven’t done it at all – not even with Mum. When pain comes that close to your family, you have to adopt a whole new level of protectiveness just to survive.
And I do need to face Sebastian. I need to force myself to figure out how to apologise to him for everything that has happened between us, and maybe take one of the baby steps towards letting him back into my life again, even in this small way.
Olivia Brennan, you can do this.
It’s a long time before my eyes drift closed, but I don’t reach for the sleeping pills Dr Eric has prescribed me – I wait it out, until I can go to sleep all on my own.