It was almost ten and Henley thought about the times she would have welcomed walking into a quiet house, but that was before Rob, Emma and Luna had left. She spotted Emma’s stuffed rabbit under the kitchen table and tried to push back the tears that were burning her eyes. She turned around and got back in the car.
She knew that it was a bad idea going to Pellacia’s house. When she got there she sat outside with the engine running. She watched the front window for a few minutes. Television light flashed through the gap in the curtains. She jumped when someone tapped loudly on the window.
‘How much longer are you going to spend sitting in your car?’ asked Pellacia.
Henley rolled down the window.
‘Rob’s gone, Emma’s with him. Even Luna has gone,’ she said, turning off the car engine. ‘I can’t stay in an empty house. It’s too quiet.’
‘Well, you’d better come in then.’
‘Why didn’t you go back to your in-laws?’ Pellacia asked, closing the front door behind him.
She pretended that she hadn’t heard him. She walked into the living room, aware that Pellacia was watching her every move. There had been some additions to the photographs on the mantelpiece above the empty fireplace. A smiling baby boy. Another of a woman who had the same eyes as Pellacia, but who had now forgotten he was her son.
‘How is she?’ Henley asked.
‘No better, no worse. Last week she thought that I was Uncle Tony. He died when I was twelve.’
Henley’s mind went to Ramouter and his wife. She couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to watch your wife or your mother slowly lose their capacity to remember you.
‘Losing again, are you?’ Henley picked up the Xbox control pad from the sofa. She knew Pellacia wouldn’t want to talk anymore about his mum.
‘Yeah. Playing against my nephew in Melbourne,’ Pellacia said. He was still standing in the doorway. ‘The jammy little bastard.’
I shouldn’t be here. We’re acting like kids, Henley thought to herself. She tried to think of something to fill the awkward silence.
‘I’m not staying,’ she said, unpausing the game.
‘Course you’re not.’
‘He’s going to know it wasn’t me that beat him.’ Laughing, Pellacia turned off the Xbox and switched the TV to the news.
‘You can give him my username if he wants to play a proper gamer again.’
They said nothing for a while, just watched the news with the subtitles on. No one but close family and friends knew that Pellacia had only partial hearing in his left ear. They were sitting close together, but not too close. There was still space between them, but not enough space to stop his arm from occasionally brushing against Henley’s.
‘Why are you here, Anj?’ Pellacia asked.
‘Because I’m pissed off and my house is too quiet.’
‘You didn’t have to come here.’
‘I know that I didn’t, but you get it. This job, what it does to you.’
‘But isn’t that why you married Rob? You wanted someone outside of the job. Someone who didn’t know what the job did to you. That’s the reason you gave me.’
Henley didn’t answer. That was what she had told herself when she had made her decision to finally end her relationship with Pellacia and be with Rob.
‘You could have just called. Sent a text.’
‘Wow. Anyone would think you didn’t want me here.’
Henley knew she was taunting him. From the second Pellacia had seen her car parked outside his house, it was inevitable what was going to happen. Henley wasn’t sure whether Pellacia had pulled her towards him or whether she had pulled Pellacia towards her. She just felt his mouth on hers.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he murmured. Henley slipped her top over her head and he began to kiss her neck, his hand pushing its way into her jeans.
‘I know,’ Henley replied, her breath catching in her throat. She missed him too, but she couldn’t say that aloud. Right now, all she needed was for Pellacia to take her away from all of the loss, violence and self-doubt that was drowning her.