Thomas drove Aida into Adelaide. Elsie stayed home with the baby. Since the night of the tea with David, Elsie had been alternating between staunch sniffling, bouts of irate silence, and fits of outright sobbing, pushing Thomas’s arms away when he tried to hug her.
Aida had been quiet. Uncertain, but steely. Refusing to discuss anything, unanswered questions hanging over all of their heads.
A short way from the bus terminal, Thomas pulled the car over to the kerb. He turned off the engine and looked straight ahead. They sat without speaking, watching the cars pass them on the street. Up ahead the bus terminal was a stream of activity: buses came and went, passengers appearing and disappearing from their steel bellies like things sucked in and out of rock-pools by the tides.
Without Elsie, they were two similar pieces without the hinge that held them together. Loose, adrift.
He had been practising the line all morning, but when he went to speak his throat betrayed him and he had to stop and cough a couple of times before starting again.
‘I know you miss your . . . daughter. Nothing could replace her. But I want you to know that I consider you as much Millie’s mother as Elsie.’
Aida took his hand from the steering wheel and cupped it between her own. Then she placed it above her breast. Beneath his hand he could feel her heart beating, thudding rapidly as if she was out of breath. She lifted his hand and pressed her lips to his palm.
‘Open the boot for me,’ she said. ‘Help me with my case.’
So he did. He took the keys from the ignition and they got out of the car. He opened the boot, lifted out her trunk, and shut the lid again with a thud.
Aida stood on the footpath, the handle of her case gripped in one hand, her handbag strap in the other. Her dark green dress had short, cuffed sleeves and was cinched in with a belt at the waist; the hem ended above her knees. Her dark hair was set in large rolls, the front swept across her brow. She looked as beautiful as Thomas had ever seen her; he knew why Elsie loved her. He wanted to put his hands on her waist, where Elsie’s hands always were.
‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘If Mum arrives before I do, the whole fiction about the bus being earlier than the timetable stated goes out the window.’ She smiled then, and Thomas’s heart sank.
Aida hugged him, and her lips lingered on his cheek. ‘I promise I’ll ring often. And write letters.’ When she pulled away her eyes were glimmering with tears. ‘I need to do this. I need to figure some things out. You’ll be okay.’
‘Perhaps, but –’
‘Elsie will be okay, too.’ She turned to go.
‘Aida, wait.’
She paused, looking back at him over her shoulder. Her expression was pained.
‘Are you coming back?’
‘Thomas, I –’
‘Are you?’ He tried not to sound desperate.
Gesturing towards the bus terminal, she said, ‘I have to go.’
He watched her go; the click of her heels faded into the sounds of the traffic, her skirt swishing, swallowed up by the crowd.
Powerless, Thomas climbed back into the car and drove home.