The second day without Luke was harder than the first for both of us. I woke in a big empty bed, surrounded by possessions that would most likely have to be itemised, negotiated on and split up.
I thought about how Luke had worked so hard all these years to provide for Max and me — to give me the dream house I had always wanted, in the location I had always wanted. This house had stretched us to our limits, but he had made sure we got by. I had felt for so long that I had lost Luke to the Patch, but I had actually lost him to my own wish fulfilment.
I walked around our house, barefoot, squeezing the carpet between my toes. Max wasn’t awake yet. I ran my hand over our teak dining table, mid-century Australian design, with orange leatherette chairs. Luke and I had fallen in love with this table at the Chapel Street Bazaar. This is where we had sat every night for dinner, where Max learnt how to read and did his homework. He’d created craft on that table from the age of two. If I looked carefully, I could see scrapes from where he’d misjudged the use of his scissors, there were glue marks and indentations from his writing. His very first off-page scribbles were on this table in red texta, spirals like a snail’s shell. I had to have this table.
Our couch in the living room was a vintage Avalon three-seater. We’d always planned to have the cushions recovered. There was breastmilk stains on the carved teak arms from those early newborn days when my breasts had overflown with milk and Max and I were struggling to attach properly. I’d always loved those white splashes on the woodwork. No one else had ever noticed them, but I knew what they were. I’d never wanted to clean them off, because they were so precious to me. Those marks of mine told a story of Max’s newborn days, when I’d sat for hours and hours on that couch, with his face at my breast, his lashless eyes looking up at me curiously, his tiny clenched fist on my bare skin, and I was the only person in the world who could nourish him. I had to have the couch, too.
I lay down on the couch cushions, which needed re-covering, my head on a pillow, and wondered against the odds whether Luke and I could work this out, so that no one needed to lose any of this. Maybe Luke and I could keep Max and this house and everything in it by keeping each other. I could forgive him, we could move on. This would disappear as a mere blip in our lives. I could call him and tell him that everything would be all right.
But then I changed my mind: these things were just things. I still had half a lifetime ahead of me — who did I want to spend this with? And Max, he would be out the door in ten years’ time, it would just be me then, and I had to consider what I wanted life to be like afterwards. Would this couch still be so precious then, or the person who I was with? Who was I going to grow old with? A man whom I would perhaps resent? There was too much water under the bridge now, the crossing was damaged. No, I needed to be with someone I could love forever, who would love me forever. I needed to start fresh, make the break, forget the furniture, the carpet, that red Le Creuset dish. Even if it meant a life of struggle, living on my freelancer’s wage, eking out an existence month to month, at least it would be a true life.
I rolled over on the couch, it wasn’t even all that comfortable, and who knows what was living under those covers since 1970. I thought about all of the boring stuff that I would have to get through in the coming weeks and months. I’d have to see a lawyer. I’d never seen a lawyer before. It sounded horrible. I’d also need an accountant, I’d have to get my head around all our finances and that sounded equally tiresome. How was I going to keep up with all my work and find time to do all this life-changing administration?
Where would Max’s original birth certificate live? At Luke’s place or my place? What if the other parent needed it for something? Who would have his keyboard? He was supposed to do piano practice every night, but where would it live? Maybe we would both have to have one. And what days would we have him? I wanted Max for at least four nights. My heart was going to be so lonely not being able to kiss him goodnight every evening. Both of us should have him for at least one weekend day, so that we could spend good quality time with him. Luke worked Saturdays so maybe he should have him Sunday to Tuesday and me Wednesday to Saturday. We’d have to talk about all of this and reach an agreement. At least with all that had happened, I thought that Luke would try to be as accommodating as possible, because as far as he knew, it was he who had upset all of this.
Max finally awoke and came out in his pyjamas. His body was warm and cosy, his cheeks flushed, he had sleepy breath and he sat on my lap, his long legs dangling down to the ground. I could see that his eyes were puffy and red.
‘You all right?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘What have you been thinking about?’
‘Just you and Dad. About what’s going to happen.’
‘You can ask us anything, sweetie. If there’s ever anything that you’re worried about, you should speak to one of us. It’s not going to get nasty. Your dad and I are always going to be good friends still. Whatever happens, we’ll both be at all your special things together, sports games, school concerts, that kind of thing.’
***
Breakfast felt particularly solemn. Luke had always taken charge in the kitchen every morning, but that day it was me, trying desperately to pep things up.
‘What do you feel like?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You can have anything. Do you want bacon and eggs?’
‘Sure.’ But it was Luke who always cooked our big breakfasts on Sundays, that was his thing. He’d let me read the weekend supplements, while he worked in the kitchen preparing breakfast for Max and me. He would serve us sides of mushrooms and tomatoes, and give us freshly-made toast halfway through. He would say, with keen anticipation, ‘How is it?’ His pleasures in life were modest: as simple as making us happy by feeding us.
My bacon and eggs was a disaster. The yolks broke and the smoke alarm kept going off because the pan got too smoky. I ran back and forth between the kitchen and the smoke alarm in the hallway, waving a tea towel to blow the smoke away. The alarm was an audible reminder of the chaos in our lives, piercing our ears and warning the neighbours.
‘I’m sorry about the yolk,’ I said, placing Max’s plate down in front of him. His egg was overcooked and there was nothing runny and yellow to dip his toast into. He surveyed his broken egg, cooked by his broken mother, but somehow he held it together and reassured me, ‘That’s okay. Thanks.’
We hired some DVDs, pulled the curtains shut and ate popcorn and chocolate on the couch. One of the DVDs got stuck in the player. Usually I would have waited until Luke could fix it. But in this new life of mine, it was just me. I had to rise to these new challenges. I let Max play with the iPad while I tried to fix the DVD player. It took half an hour to locate and read the instruction manual. When the damned DVD drawer finally popped open I felt a huge wave of satisfaction. For a moment, I felt as though I could conquer anything on my own.
We had fish and chips and a coleslaw salad for dinner. It felt particularly quiet at the table, just the two of us. This was the time of day when Luke and Max would bounce jokes across the table at each other. Luke had always known how to make Max laugh and talk about his day. For the first time I felt dreary, uptight, not sure of how to make conversation; I felt like a mother, not his friend. I tried to recall how Luke did it, but nothing came naturally.
After Max was in bed, I was lying on the couch watching Grand Designs on catch-up TV when I heard Luke’s car arrive in the driveway. I wasn’t expecting to see him. He knocked softly at the front door. I let him in, wondering whether this was the moment when he would beg to come back to me.
‘How’s he going? I wasn’t sure whether or not I should ring to say goodnight to him,’ Luke said. We walked down the hallway and sat at opposite ends of the couch. He looked tired and restless.
‘He’s all right. You can ring him whenever you like. He always loves talking to you. He’s doing all right. It’s still sinking in, I think.’
Luke looked at the television. ‘We’ve seen this one. They don’t even finish the project in the end. They run out of money, remember?’
‘I thought it seemed familiar.’ I switched the TV off with the remote.
‘How are you going?’ he asked, leaning forward on the couch, clasping his hands between his legs. His face looked so drawn.
‘Flat, I guess. I made a few calls yesterday. That was so hard. Have you told your parents?’
‘It was horrible. I mean, I didn’t tell them everything. Just that we were trialling a separation. Is that okay?’
‘Sure. You can say whatever you need to. I didn’t tell my parents everything either.’
‘How’s Max? Tell me, really.’
‘He’s being very brave. He misses you, though. And he’s scared about what’s going to happen next. Last night, when I was tucking him into bed, he said he wanted you there all the time. That broke my heart. Because of course he would, you’ve always been such a good dad.’ I reached out and took his hand in mine. Luke squeezed his eyes shut, as though he couldn’t bear to hear such things. We sat like that for some time, neither of us speaking, pain massaging our hearts with cold fingers.
‘Suzi said a strange thing to me,’ Luke said to me eventually, lifting his head and looking straight at me. ‘Apparently months ago you said that you wished that I would meet another woman. That some beauty would come along and you could exit stage left. What the hell would you mean by that?’
Suddenly I felt the universe weighing down on me, pushing me into those old sofa cushions. ‘Do you believe that I said that?’
‘Why would she make it up? Besides, you’ve been so odd lately – all those conversations about affairs and being bored, and the way you acted around—’
‘How come you’ve been talking with her? Did you stay there last night?’ My stomach twisted. ‘You could at least have let all of this settle.’ I thought of my own lonely, miserable night in bed. Instead, he must have been comforted by Suzi, by her tender touch and her reassuring words. All the other pain I had been feeling felt like a mere graze, this new revelation felt like a slashed stomach. ‘You can go, I don’t know what you’re doing here, telling me this.’
‘I’m telling you that was a strange thing to say.’ And he got up off the couch slowly.
My heart was beating, I felt confused, jumbled and properly angry. I led him down the hallway and opened the door. ‘You know, you’ll never be cruel enough for her. She’s in love with Martin Bryant,’ I sneered as he stepped outside.
If he heard me correctly, he chose to ignore it. He walked right on out, back to his lover, I supposed: the bitch I had introduced him to. I went and laid back down on the couch, in a truly dramatic fashion, willing hot, passionate tears, but my eyes were dry. All I felt was the deepest misery, fear and depression — that I’d chosen that woman and now she was going to be a part of Max’s life.