LILY LOOKED AROUND the almost empty bedroom at the bare walls and the pile of linen that had been stripped from the bed and dumped in the middle of the mattress. Daisy’s possessions had been packed into boxes, ready to be moved to her fiancé’s house at the other end of Bondi Beach, and for the first time in two years Lily would be alone in her house.
She hadn’t stopped to think about how she was going to feel but seeing the barren room with all traces of her little sister removed was confronting. It signalled the end of an era. An end she wasn’t ready for. She’d never lived here without company. She was happy for Daisy, of course she was, she’d found her person and was heading off to start a new life, but the empty room looked so final. So lonely.
Lily and Daisy had both made their choices, although the outcomes were very different, and for Lily her choices meant she’d have to get used to being alone.
She was an adult, she could manage, she reminded herself. She should be looking forward to having a whole house to herself, it was something she’d never experienced, but she was worried it wouldn’t be to her liking.
She’d grown up sharing a bedroom with another sister, Poppy. Until the age of eighteen when she’d moved to Sydney to study medicine they’d shared a room, clothes and dreams. When Lily had moved into university accommodation, she’d still shared common spaces, if not a bedroom, with dozens of other students. She’d only moved out of there when she’d got married.
As a child she’d longed for a room of her own, space of her own. She should be looking forward to this next chapter, but she was acutely aware of the hole Daisy’s departure was going to leave in her life. The hole Lily had filled by caring for her siblings. But all three of them were making their own way in the world now, forging ahead with their futures. They didn’t need her any more and she didn’t know how she would fill that gap without anyone to mother, without anyone to fuss over.
As the eldest of the four Carlson siblings she had always mothered her younger brother and sisters. Lord knew their parents hadn’t been interested in raising their own kids, so Lily had taken on that role more often than not. She should enjoy having no one to think about but herself, she should be looking forward to this next chapter, but she could already feel the weight of her loss and her past decisions weighing her down.
She hoped they weren’t going to crush her.
Too much time on her own would leave her with too much time to think and she knew where her mind would wander.
To Otto.
‘Is that everything?’ Daisy’s fiancé’s voice interrupted Lily’s thoughts and she turned her attention away from the past and back to what was going on around her.
Daisy nodded. She’d been taping the last packing box closed but she’d stopped what she was doing to look at Ajay.
‘What about that one?’ Ajay asked as he pointed at a flat white box perched on the top shelf of the wardrobe.
‘That’s not mine,’ Daisy replied as Lily’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t looked inside that box for years but she knew exactly what it contained.
Daisy stood up and started to shove her bed linen into a large bag as Ajay picked the final box up from the floor. He waited until she was looking at him again. Mindful of her hearing impairment he made sure Daisy could read his lips, before he asked, ‘I’ll take this to the car and wait for you there if you’re ready to go?’
Daisy nodded again before turning to face Lily. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come to us for dinner?’ she asked.
‘I’m sure,’ Lily replied. She knew the house was going to feel empty but Daisy was heading off to her new life, off on a new adventure with her fiancé and his son, Niki, and Lily didn’t want to intrude. She would find something to occupy her time, something to keep her mind engaged, something to enable her to ignore the quiet solitude because she knew she wouldn’t enjoy it.
She pasted a smile on her face as she hugged her sister and Ajay and waved them goodbye before returning to Daisy’s old bedroom intending to remake the bed. Perhaps that would help it to look less lonely. Less empty. As long as she could ignore the indentations in the carpet where Daisy’s chair and chest of drawers had been she might be able to pretend someone still occupied that room if the bed was made.
She crossed the room, intending to get the spare linen out of the wardrobe, but her attention was drawn to the white box that sat on the top shelf, taunting her. She reached out, planning to slide the wardrobe door closed, to put the box and its contents out of her mind. She’d make the bed another time, she decided. But instead of hiding the box away she found herself reaching for it and taking it off the shelf.
She sat on the bed and lifted the lid.
She brushed her hand over the tissue paper that lined the box. It crinkled under her fingers, daring her to remove it.
She knew this was the last thing she should be doing when her nerves were already stretched tight, when the loneliness was like a demon hiding in the shadows daring her to look his way.
If she ignored the shadowy corners in her mind, if she kept her gaze averted, her attention diverted, she could keep the demon at bay, but she wasn’t strong enough.
She pulled the top sheet of paper off and ran her fingers over the fabric that had been hidden underneath, feeling the tiny, delicate, fabric flowers that were scattered over the material, separating the individual petals from one another.
She slid one finger under the folds of milky white fabric that lay beneath the flowers. Despite the warmth of the late summer evening the satin was cool to touch.
She knew she should resist temptation. She knew she should put the lid on the box and hide it away again. The past was the past, there was no going back.
But her hands weren’t listening. They were working independently of her mind. She intended to pick up the tissue paper, to layer it back in the box but instead she hooked her fingers under the narrow straps of fabric and lifted the contents from the box.
She stood up with the straps looped over her fingers, as the skirt of the dress fell to the floor.
Lily stepped in front of the mirror and held the dress up against her.
The smooth satin of the skirt brushed over her bare legs as it hid her shorts. She swayed slightly and the satin swished over her hips. She pressed her hands tightly to her shoulders, holding the dress to her body, making sure she wasn’t tempted to try it on. She knew it would still fit her but she had no intention of wearing it again. Anxiety, skipped meals and an occasional break from work to go surfing had kept her weight constant and her figure was pretty much unchanged from the last, and only, time she’d worn this dress. On her wedding day almost five years ago.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as the memories flooded back.
She and Otto had been married for nearly five years but it had been two years since she’d last seen him, since she’d said goodbye, and somewhere along the way even their conversations had dwindled to discussions about the house they owned, their jobs on opposite sides of the world and the weather.
She could blame the time difference or their busy lives for their lack of communication but if she was honest she knew she’d avoided picking up the phone in an attempt to block out the past, to block out the reason she’d left.
She had never imagined their relationship would deteriorate so badly. What did that mean for their future? Did they even have a future?
She’d thought Otto would come after her but, when he hadn’t, she’d gradually begun to reimagine her life solo. That hadn’t been her intention initially but now it looked as if it was the only way forward. She’d avoided Otto, avoided the difficult conversations, avoided talking about their loss. She knew it was too painful for her to broach that subject but she had no idea if Otto was as afraid of that conversation as she was or whether he was just oblivious to her pain. To her sadness.
She knew Otto was an optimist. He looked on the bright side of life—always looked for the positives, was always in good spirits. His attitude had always been ‘why worry about the things you couldn’t change’ and he chose to focus his energy on the things he could control.
Otto had always been much more carefree while Lily was more serious. His personality had been a good foil for hers. Until one day when their differences had collided with each other instead of complementing each other.
Until the day that Lily’s dreams of a perfect life, of children and a family of her own, had been shattered.
She wasn’t pessimistic by nature but her positivity had taken a beating. She’d been distraught but Otto hadn’t understood her devastation. His mantra was ‘what’s done is done, move on, put it behind you’. His life hadn’t stopped, his focus hadn’t wavered. He’d forged ahead on his path, insistent that they’d get past the loss. But she hadn’t been able to. And one loss had led to another.
She hadn’t been able to handle Otto’s lack of support. She’d felt unsupported, misunderstood and miserable. And so she’d walked away.
She’d lost everything.
She opened her eyes, turning her back on the mirror, not wanting to look at the dress. It was a symbol of a future she no longer had.
She’d learned to compartmentalise her memories. She’d locked them away. It was the only way she’d been able to get through each day. She’d wanted to talk to Otto but they had barely spent any time together after the incident. No, she needed to call it what it was—the assault. It was two years ago but she hadn’t yet forgiven Otto for not keeping his word. If Otto had come home when he should have, she wouldn’t have been assaulted and they wouldn’t have lost their baby.
She had been more than five months pregnant at the time. She’d survived morning sickness, homesickness and immense fatigue all while starting a new job and had reached the point where she’d been enjoying the pregnancy and was excited about the future. She’d known Otto had been less excited, the pregnancy hadn’t been planned, advancing their timeline, but she was certain he’d change his mind once he held his child in his arms. She delighted in reaching the milestones, in feeling her baby kick. Feeling the hiccoughs and watching as her stomach moved and stretched as the baby performed somersaults in her womb. She’d lain awake at night, uncomfortable but happy, dreaming of the life they would have, their family of three, and had been convinced it would all work out just as she pictured.
And then it had all gone wrong.
She knew it wasn’t all Otto’s fault. The blame lay with the man who had assaulted her, who had punched her in the stomach, stolen her bag and left her lying on the ground as he’d run off. But if Otto hadn’t changed his plans, if he’d left work when he was supposed to, she wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wouldn’t have lost their baby.
Anger had become intertwined with her sadness, leaving her feeling bereft, adrift and alone. Unsettled and upset, she’d fled London, leaving Otto and their marriage behind. After two years she’d learnt to put the past aside in order to face each day. She hadn’t forgotten what had happened but she was learning to live with it.
Forgiveness was a different story. She knew it was important but it was something she had struggled with. Perhaps one day she could learn to forgive if not forget.
She sighed. She hadn’t wanted to give up on her dreams, on the idea of marriage and a family, but it was time she faced facts. Her marriage was over.
She didn’t have to completely give up on her dream of a family but it was time to acknowledge that her dream was going to look different, had to look different. She could have a family but it wouldn’t be with Otto.
She still wanted that perfect life and while she might not be able to change the past it didn’t mean she had to give up on her future.
She folded her wedding dress and put it back into the box, covering it again with the tissue paper. For a brief moment she thought about seeing if either of her sisters wanted to borrow it. They were both engaged but while it would fit Poppy it would be too big for Daisy and was it bad luck to borrow a wedding dress from a marriage that hadn’t lasted?
Technically Lily and Otto were still married, but her marriage and her life were in limbo.
It was time to face facts—Otto wasn’t coming back.
In the back of her mind she’d always expected that he would come for her and she’d kept extending the timeline in her head. She’d made excuses: he was busy—working and studying for his fellowship, they’d been living on opposite sides of the world and the global pandemic had made travel to Australia from London all but impossible. But Otto’s fellowship was due to finish this month, international travel was back on the agenda and there was still no sign of him coming home.
She wondered what his plans were. Surely he would have told her if he was coming back to Australia? He had Italian parentage on his mother’s side, he could decide to stay overseas, and the fact he’d said nothing made her think he was settled in England, that he’d given up on them. On her.
If he wasn’t coming back she had two options. She could go to him or she could move on without him.
She still loved Otto. She’d never stopped loving him. But she’d blamed him for failing to protect her. He’d promised to look after her, she’d trusted him to do that but he’d let her down.
She knew she wasn’t blameless either, she’d failed to protect their child and that knowledge had been hard to accept and she knew it had contributed to the situation she found herself in now. She knew she’d run away. She hadn’t been able to cope with seeing Otto every day. He had been a reminder of her broken dreams. They should have been able to help each other but instead all Lily had felt was a gaping divide between her emotions and his, her needs, her feelings, her hopes and dreams and his.
And she hadn’t been able to bring herself to return to London, to go back to Otto. She still struggled to comprehend how their fairy tale had gone so wrong. The past two years had seen them drift further and further apart until she felt as if there was nothing left any more. And, while they lived on opposite sides of the globe, she knew their problems were unsurmountable.
Should she go back now? Give their marriage a chance?
Without realising, she shook her head. Since the day she’d announced her unexpected pregnancy it was clear they were on differing timelines and nothing had changed. Otto would have told her if he wanted a family now. She would have told him if she was prepared to wait. It was that simple.
It had taken her some time to come to terms with the loss of their first baby but she had never wavered from knowing she wanted to be a mother and the unexpected pregnancy had only made her want that sooner rather than later. And now that her siblings were all settling down her biological clock was ticking overtime. In the past few months her brother and two sisters had all found true love and Lily had been left reassessing her own future. Otto had stopped asking about her plans a long time ago but it was clear in her heart, if not her head, what she wanted. She wanted a family. It was that simple.
She had to move on.
She couldn’t go back.
She couldn’t face returning to the place where it had all gone wrong.
She’d failed him but he had failed her too. He’d let her down, he’d lost her trust and she didn’t know if he could win it back again. Or if he even wanted to.
She had wondered if they would ever be able to resolve their issues but the more time that passed, the more unlikely that seemed.
In her head she knew it was too late for their marriage. Surely if they were meant to be together they would have found their way back to each other by now.
What was left to fight for? What was easier to give up? Otto or her dreams of having a family? What was more important?
Her heart ached but she knew the answer. It was time to move on. The time had come to move forwards.
She put the lid on and slid the box back onto the shelf, relegating her wedding dress to her past, the decision made but not made lightly.
She shut the wardrobe door and checked the time. It would be mid-morning in London. She and Otto needed to have a frank discussion but she couldn’t call now. He would be at work but even if he answered the phone she wouldn’t know what to say. She needed time to prepare.
She would delay for one more day. What difference would a day make now after two years? She’d use the time to make some notes, to sort through her thoughts, to prepare her argument.
There was a lot to resolve but it was beginning to look as though it would be better just to start again. She’d waited long enough.
She wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand as she closed the bedroom door. It was time to take a leaf out of Otto’s book and do something about the things that were under her control.
Otto was woken by the flight attendant serving his breakfast accompanied by the pilot’s announcement that they were on schedule for their arrival into Sydney. He stretched his shoulders and adjusted his seat as he tried not to think about how much he’d paid for his spot in business class. He’d slept well, the expense had been worth it and if he was going to worry about the price he shouldn’t have booked the fare. He could afford it. There were probably other things he could have done with his money, there always would be, but the ticket was paid for, what was done was done, and he wasn’t going to feel guilty about the extra luxury and comfort.
He’d been raised to work hard. To save money, to not live beyond his means, to be charitable. Money wasn’t for frivolous things. His upbringing had been religious, nothing extreme, but he and his brothers had been taught to look after others, to be charitable.
His mother had always made them put their own money on the plate at church, she’d instilled in them the importance of giving back. She had died when Otto was thirteen but he continued to be charitable as a way of honouring her memory. He still missed his mother but it was what it was. He’d learnt not to wish things were different, not to worry about the things he couldn’t change. That mindset had come about as a direct reaction to his mother’s death, a defence mechanism. He realised that wishing she hadn’t been on the road at the same time as a drunk driver wasn’t going to bring her back and so he’d learnt to worry about what he could control. To fix the things he could.
He shook out his napkin and tucked into his breakfast. Flying business class was a luxury but he refused to add more guilt to his conscience. He had enough already.
He’d worked non-stop for the past two years and he needed to take a break and if the only break he was going to get was on a long-haul flight from London to Australia that would have to do. Working hard had been a choice, a deliberate measure to combat loneliness. Finding himself with time on his hands—time he hadn’t wanted—he’d filled those hours by studying, working and volunteering for extra shifts, offering to work on all the holidays, including Christmas.
Keeping occupied had served its purpose. It had left him with no time to think about anything other than medicine but he’d reached a crossroads and he needed to take stock of his life, to work out what he wanted to do next.
He could have stayed in London, he’d been offered a position in the hospital there, but he’d also been offered a position at Bondi General, replacing a surgeon who was retiring. Receiving an invitation to his sister-in-law’s wedding had been an added persuasion, the extra push he needed to set a date to get on the plane. But even without that, when he weighed up his options, he knew he only had one choice. He had to come home. There was one thing he had to prioritise above all else.
His marriage.
That was assuming he still had one.
He hadn’t seen his wife in almost two years. For the past seven hundred and eight days he and Lily had had a marriage in name only. They’d shared nothing but phone calls since Lily had packed her bags and walked out of their London flat.
He hadn’t tried to stop her from leaving. She’d told him she needed to go and he’d believed her. But he’d never intended to let her go for good.
Living on the opposite side of the world from his wife during a pandemic wasn’t ideal and the time difference and their busy schedules hadn’t conspired to make it easy. Their phone conversations had been brief, superficial and never particularly satisfactory and the calls had become progressively shorter, less frequent and less revealing.
Now, he had no idea what she was thinking. When they were first married they’d spent hours talking about their hopes and dreams but all of that had changed after Lily left. They never discussed their feelings in their phone calls and he wasn’t sure how she felt about him, their marriage, their past or their future now. Had the passage of time healed her wounds? The loss of their baby had affected her deeply. It wasn’t something they talked about at great length but he knew she’d taken it hard. Should he have encouraged her to talk to him about it?
He knew he hadn’t because he didn’t want to upset her and because he didn’t want to see the accusations in her eyes. He’d felt guilty. His actions had put her in a vulnerable position. He hadn’t been the one to cause her physical harm but the emotional injuries had scarred Lily just as badly and he still felt guilty.
Would time have healed the wounds? Would she have forgiven him? Would she be happy to see him?
He’d felt so confident when he’d been making plans to return to Australia. He had visions of what his future would look like. But as the plane flew over the Australian continent he began to wonder if he was wrong.
He wasn’t sure he believed that absence made the heart grow fonder. His feelings for Lily hadn’t changed in the past two years, they’d always been powerful. He’d remained faithful to her, he had made a promise to her on their wedding day five years ago and it was a promise he intended to keep. But he didn’t know if Lily would have done the same. Had their separation changed her? Maybe there was a time limit on absence.
He hadn’t been able to fix her two years ago. She’d been broken and he’d had no idea how to put her back together. After losing the baby there was so much they’d never spoken about. Where did that leave them?
Two years was a long time. Was it too long? The loss of their baby had torn them apart. Did they have the tools to put the relationship back together? Did Lily want him back?
He hadn’t told her he was coming back and he knew it was because he’d been afraid she might have told him not to bother.
His trepidation grew as breakfast was cleared and his arrival was imminent. He wondered what sort of welcome he was going to receive. Would Lily be pleased to see him?
He felt the descent begin and he looked out of the window at the city as the plane approached the airport. It was a glorious summer’s day, the harbour shimmered under the sun’s rays and the iconic bridge stretched over the water, curving against the blue sky.
He was home.