AARON COULDN’T HELP the ripple of anger that went through him as he remembered how helpless Rosa had looked at that restaurant. It took him some time to realise the cause, and even then he could only put his finger on one small thing: the fact that he’d let things go too far.
He shouldn’t have slept with her. He knew that and yet, every time he thought back to the day it had happened, he didn’t see how he could have avoided it.
They’d somehow woven a spell around themselves that weekend. Though he didn’t know how that spell had gone from hurt and accusation to a deeper understanding of their issues. Their fears.
What had been missing in their marriage to make them end up like that? It had gone so wrong, and he’d thought things had been good between them. But clearly there’d been layers they’d barely explored.
Those questions had kept him up at night, and each time the buck had stopped with him. And he’d been forced to realise that he’d been doing something wrong. That maybe his approach of keeping his thoughts, his feelings to himself until Rosa extracted them from him had been wrong.
He’d got it wrong. Again.
He still felt the stirring of anger when he pulled into his driveway, though now it was tainted with guilt that tightened in his stomach. He took a breath and then got out of the car, moving to the other side so that he could carry Rosa into the house.
But she was already opening her door when he got there. The look in her eyes had anger and guilt spinning in his body again, making tracks he didn’t think would ever go away.
Her gaze met his, and there was a recognition there that was replaced so quickly with caution that it did nothing for the way the emotions churned inside him.
‘I can walk.’
He didn’t reply. Instead, he stepped aside and waited for her to get out, standing close enough that if she needed him he’d be there. It sounded like a metaphor of some kind, but he couldn’t find the energy to figure it out.
She staggered slightly when she stood, and she braced herself with a hand against his chest. And then she looked at her hand, removed it and straightened.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled. He made a non-committal noise in response. He waited for her to walk in front of him, and then followed. He didn’t bother guiding her. He’d driven to their house; she knew her way around.
He watched as she left her handbag on the kitchen counter, kicked off her shoes and took off her jacket, hanging it on the coat rack. It was so familiar his heart stuttered, nearly stopped. He needed to get a grip.
But then, it was his fault. He’d been the one to bring her here. And then she went straight to the couch, sat there gingerly, and he knew he’d made the right decision.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Nothing.’ Then she shook her head. ‘Actually, I didn’t get to finish my tea, and that’s about all I can keep down these days.’
He nodded and went to the kitchen to make her tea. He made himself a cup of coffee, thinking that he’d had enough to drink, though a part of him disagreed.
He handed her the tea and then sat down on the adjacent couch. There was a moment of silence, when he thought they were both thinking about how weird it was. The last time they’d been there together, they’d been happy. Or not, he thought, reminding himself that the last time they’d been there together, she’d left.
His hands tightened on the coffee mug.
‘I really would have been okay,’ she said into the silence.
He acknowledged her words with a nod. She bit the side of her lip, held the mug between her hands.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
More silence. They should go to bed, he thought. But now, with her there, going to bed didn’t feel right. Not to the bed they’d shared, and not to any of the other rooms in the house. Because she was there. She should be with him. In his bed. In their bed.
He hadn’t spent much time there in the four months she’d been gone. He’d worked late, stayed at the office as long as he could stay awake. And when he did come home he’d sleep on the couch she was now sitting on, unable to go to their bedroom alone.
When he’d returned from Mariner’s Island, he’d tried. Told himself that he had to, since he was the one who’d made the decision to leave now. But when he hadn’t been able to sleep for the fifth night in a row, he’d realised that he hadn’t made that decision at all. That it hadn’t been a decision. More, it had been a defensive move. He’d leave before she left him. Again.
The thought made him nauseous.
‘I’ll think about staying here.’ She broke the silence again. ‘Which was probably your plan all along.’
‘My plan would have involved more than you just staying here,’ he told her. ‘But I appreciate it.’
‘You knew I’d agree. You’ve been much too quiet...’
The corner of his mouth lifted. ‘It’s not that easy.’
‘No.’ She sighed. ‘But you’re right. I don’t have people there. Not like I do here.’
‘Then why did you go there?’
If she was surprised by the question, she didn’t show it. ‘I didn’t really have much of a plan when I left here.’
‘Spur of the moment.’
Now her lips her curved. ‘Partly. But mostly it was me trying to run from what scared me most. Then,’ she added almost as an afterthought, and he watched again as her hand lifted, almost moving to her stomach, and then dropping back to the mug again.
‘And now?’ he asked softly, compelled by her gesture.
‘Now I have much more to fear.’ The vulnerability in her eyes when she met his gaze knocked the breath from his lungs.
‘You don’t have to be scared of it. Of this.’
‘Of course I do. There’s so much we don’t know. And this wasn’t planned—’
‘Isn’t that when you work best?’
‘Not with this. Not ever, really.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t do the unplanned because I don’t want a plan. I like plans. But for most of my life, plans haven’t worked out. Or they involved things I wanted to do but that my mother’s illness...’ She trailed off. ‘I had to be flexible. Or rebellious.’
‘And...marrying me?’ He forced himself to say it. ‘Were you being rebellious?’
She didn’t say anything for long enough that he thought their conversation was over. He was about to stand up, excuse himself when she started speaking.
‘I’ve done a lot that I’ve called spontaneous. I probably would have continued calling it that if it hadn’t been for our conversations. On the island. Now.’ She ran a finger over the rim of her cup. ‘The right word would probably be rebellious. Because that’s what I was.’ She lifted her eyes to his. ‘Small moments of rebellion against the fact that I couldn’t control so much of what was happening in my life.’
He breathed in slowly, deliberately letting the air in and out of his lungs. If he didn’t, he’d probably pass out waiting for her to speak.
‘Because of it, whatever I chose to do felt wrong. Whether I did it for myself or for my mother.’ Her gaze fell again. ‘If I did it for myself, guilt and uncertainty followed me. If I did it for my mother, it...wouldn’t change anything. She’d still be sick.’ She paused. ‘Even after she died, I was rebelling. I didn’t get the test because of it. And now I have to live with the guilt and uncertainty of that decision.’
She took a breath. ‘I did things that weren’t planned. Rebelled. But marrying you—loving you—was never part of that.’
The air he inhaled grew thicker, though by all rights it should have been easier to breathe. She’d told him their relationship hadn’t been a mistake. Yes, things had fallen apart towards the end, but at the beginning things had been good. So why didn’t that make him feel any better?
Maybe it was because all he could think about was how she’d told him she’d left because of him. Because of who he was.
He’d thought about that often over the past five months. Had figured it was the reason his mother hadn’t responded to his efforts to make a better relationship with her too. It was probably why his father—
No. That made no sense. He didn’t know his father. His father didn’t know him.
His father not being around had nothing to do with him.
Except maybe it did.
‘Aaron?’
It was messing with him. This whole thing was messing with him.
‘It’s been a rough day,’ he said gruffly. ‘We should get some rest.’
She opened her mouth, but then nodded. ‘I’ll take one of the spare bedrooms.’
‘No. Take the main bedroom.’
‘That’s not—’
‘Rosa,’ he said firmly. ‘Take the main bedroom.’
She let out a breath. ‘Okay. I’ll see you in the morning.’
She disappeared around the corner to the passage that led to the bedroom, and Aaron waited until he heard the click of the door before moving. But, instead of walking to the room he’d planned on spending the night in, he went to the sliding door, opening it to let the fresh winter air in.
He stepped outside onto the deck that gave him a perfect view of the dam the houses in their security estate had been built around. He’d known he wanted to live there the moment he’d seen it. And when one of his clients who knew the owner of the security estate had given him the details, Aaron had jumped at the opportunity to buy a property.
Months later, it had been his and Rosa’s.
His and Rosa’s. He’d taken that fact for granted. He’d believed that they were going to be a unit, a him-and-her-for-ever. But he’d been sorely mistaken. He realised now how often that happened. How he’d ignored it to protect himself.
He’d been mistaken when he’d thought his mother would change after recovering from cancer. That she’d be more responsible. That she’d begin to value her only son.
He’d been mistaken when he’d thought his wife would be with him for ever. When he’d believed that she hadn’t left because of him—as she’d led him to believe in the early part of their visit on the island.
He’d been mistaken when he’d slept with her. When he’d been so overcome by the love he still had for her that he’d let his feelings cloud his judgement.
And now he was here—so raw that he felt as if he were made entirely of abused nerve-endings. What was wrong with him that the people in his life didn’t want him? What more could he do to make them love him as much as he loved them?
He hung his head as the pain crawled through him. As it ripped its nails down him as on a chalkboard.
Because the answer was simple. He couldn’t do anything more. Because nothing he did would change who he was. And who he was wasn’t enough.