Absolution (14 page)

“What?” Jack stared at him incredulously. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know. Just can’t see myself doing it, that’s all.”

“You’re not your father.”

Callum shrugged casually but Jack decided to leave it for now. The timing was all wrong. Callum would need a few beers under his belt before they broached that subject again.

“Do you and Jane ever talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think she’s into the whole marriage idea either.”

“In general?”

Callum studied his shoes. “I don’t know. Yeah. It’s complicated.”

Ally’s voice rang out from inside the house. “I can’t find my coat! Jack!”

“Hanging on the hook by the back door!” Jack yelled back, rolling his eyes. “Jesus – I’m in for lifetime of telling her where her shit is, aren’t I?” he mumbled under his breath. “Hurry up!” he yelled. “I’m going gray out here!”

“Yeah, yeah!” she yelled back. “Not my fault you got faulty genes!” Then, more quietly, “Sorry Tom.”

Jack heard his father chuckling on the other side of the wall.

Callum grinned up at him, squinting into the sun. “Geez, grandma was feisty too, back in the day. I’ll make sure I include this in the fiftieth anniversary speech. Let me get my notebook – you got a pen?”

“Dude – final warning.”

Ally stood in her bedroom, surveying herself in the full-length mirror. Her most comfortable jeans concealed her braces. Tonight, for reasons she didn’t dare explore, this was important. She had pulled her freshly rinsed hair up into a high ponytail and changed into her favourite t-shirt.

After overdoing it at the pool tonight, she would normally have stayed in her wheelchair and given her sore muscles a chance to rest, but with Jack here that wasn’t an option. She needed to show him how strong she was, and to do that she had to be upright. She ignored the nagging truth that the illusion of feeling in control was just that.

Jack was here and she was scared to death. What was even more frightening was her reaction when he had asked if she wanted him to stay. All she heard after “if you want me to stay, I will” was a resounding “yes!” blazing through her subconscious. It had been all she could do to keep from shouting it out loud. Part of her wanted to hide in her room until he left. But the part of her that wanted to talk to him won, and she found herself turning around and heading out of the bedroom.

As she made her way across the hall to the living room, she heard movement in her studio. With mounting apprehension, she turned towards the back of the house instead, stopping in her studio doorway. Jack was standing in front of the painting she was currently working on, his back to her.

“It’s not finished yet,” she said quickly.

He turned to face her, doing a double-take to see her standing. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to poke around. I was just curious.”

“It’s fine,” she lied.

He nodded graciously, turning his attention from the unfinished canvas in front of him to the stack of finished paintings that leant against the studio walls. The tension mounted. It was like he was inside her head, poking through her most intimate thoughts. She felt sick, watching as he ran a finger over one of the canvases.

“These are amazing,” he murmured.

“Thanks.”

He moved slowly along the stacks of finished pieces. Stopping in front of a stack of two, he eased the front canvas aside and stared at the painting behind for several moments. She frantically tried to stem the rising flood of panic that threatened to choke her as she followed his gaze.

The background was midnight blue. A deep red torso floated in the foreground, the limbs feathered away to mere wisps, a mass of dark, tangled hair suspended in mid-air. The face was featureless except for black eyes, which stared out emptily from within their sockets. There was a ragged hole in the chest, where the heart should be, and the chest cavity was exposed and bleeding a deeper red, dripping down the torso to pool at the bottom of the canvas.

The empty eyes captivated her as much now as they did then, transporting her back in time.

She had spent weeks creating the haunting image he stood staring at now. It was a dark time, everything was a mess, nothing seemed to fit – she didn’t seem to fit. Nightmares plagued her. She couldn’t eat. The pain in her back seemed constant and frequently overwhelmed her. She went days on end without ever leaving the house. She couldn’t see a way out of the darkness, the tunnel seemed to get longer and longer, and the light at the end had disappeared.

So she painted. She worked relentlessly until she thought she had exorcised the demons from her mind. But the painting had not had the cleansing effect she had hoped it would.

She was still in two minds about exhibiting it. Her desire to exhibit the entire ‘Evolution’ series meant that she had to, but she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to allow the world to see it just yet. Seeing Jack looking at it now reinforced that fear. She felt violated.

Don’t. Please don’t.

But he asked anyway.

“What is it?”

The silence that followed soaked up his words and the air seemed pregnant with anticipation.

Taking several moments to gather her frayed emotions, she smiled tightly. “Self portrait of the artist?”

The silence grew heavier as he stared at her from across the room, the sadness in his face hitting her squarely in the chest. She had to get out. Turning away from him, she moved toward the kitchen.

“I wasn’t much fun to be around for a while there,” she said over her shoulder, relieved to hear him following her across the hall. “Ready for that coffee?”

“Sure.”

She positioned herself between the table and the countertop, setting the coffee pot and two mugs on the table. Jack took a seat opposite her as she rested her crutches against the table, lowering herself into a chair. She was grateful when he began to pour the coffee, afraid that her trembling hands would betray her. Small talk seemed beyond them so they sat in silence.

“You didn’t have to ditch the wheelchair, not for me,” he said, handing her a mug of steaming coffee.

“I didn’t do it for you, I did it for me.”

The lie stuck in her throat as she took the coffee mug from him, her fingertips brushing against his. His eyes reached into her soul until she couldn’t stand it any longer. Her gaze fell to her hands instead, firmly grasping the coffee mug on the table in front of her.

“Can I ask you something?”

Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might leap out of her chest. “Sure.”

“Dad and I, we didn’t talk about… I mean, I’ve been wondering. What changed? I thought the damage was irreparable – permanent. And yet, here you are, walking, and it’s like some kind of miracle. How did it happen?” 

Her heart sank. She was really going to have to say this – here, now, with him staring at her with hope in his eyes.

“The damage to my spine
is
irreparable,” she said carefully, not wanting to lead him on. “And it
is
permanent. But I had an opportunity, one that changed my life. I learnt how to work with my body, instead of against it. Learning to walk with braces and crutches gave me back some of the freedom that I lost. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. I try to split my time between braces and chair now, depending on what I need to do. Long distances are easier with my chair. Accessibility is better with my braces.”

She tried to sound confident, matter-of-fact. In control. Through the silence that hung over them, the air seemed to explode with questions.

“I don’t understand,” he frowned. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to – I mean, how is that even possible?”

“I compensate. It’s a technique. To an extent, I can still control the way my legs respond, even if they aren’t getting the messages from my brain. Braces keep my legs straight, giving me the support I need to stand. By using the muscles in my hips, my back and my abs, I can raise my hip. My leg follows and the rest is just forward momentum. It has its challenges – I mean, I have to see what my legs are doing in order to direct them – but it’s better than being in my chair all the time.”

“I had no idea,” he mumbled, as her words sank in. “So, you can’t feel anything – at all?”

His eyes were heavy with sorrow. She tried to rise above it, to tell herself that she could do this, purely because she wanted so badly for him to see how well she was handling everything – how together she was. But it wasn’t that easy. This was Jack. He knew her inside out – at least, he had, once upon a time. She couldn’t smoke-screen him as easily as she could everyone else. What if he saw the truth, despite what she said?

She found herself staring at her coffee cup again, her heart racing. “Below my hips, everything is pretty much numb. The best way I can explain it is that my legs feel like they’re packed in ice – not cold, just kind of… disconnected from the rest of me, if that makes any sense. Sometimes they tingle, sort of like pins and needles.”

Almost like they’re waking up but they never do.

“Does it hurt? I mean, the pins and needles thing?”

“Not really. It takes me by surprise sometimes, though, sort of comes out of the blue, y’know? It can be a bit uncomfortable. My neurologist says I’m lucky, overall. I don’t have any muscle spasms, just a bit of back pain sometimes. Callum helps me with massage and exercise, and I swim. That helps.”

She found herself wanting to downplay everything, not wanting to scare him. She waited, giving him time to process. After a few moments, he ran a hand through his hair and sighed, sitting back in his chair.

“I’ve replayed that night over and over in my head,” he said, staring blankly at the coffee mug in front of him. “I dream about it – the accident. Sometimes it feels like I can take control of what happens, like I can change things – some things. Nothing important, though. It doesn’t matter how hard I try or what I do, I can never change how it ends.”

She thought about the running dream. It was different all the time, but the overall feeling of helplessness remained long after she woke up. Was it the same for him?

“I think about what I could’ve done differently, what might’ve happened if I’d done this instead of that – if Callum hadn’t needed a lift and we’d taken the bike instead of my car, if we hadn’t taken River Road… if we’d just been somewhere else – anywhere else – at that exact moment.”

She sat mesmerised, staring at the top of his bowed head. “I don’t remember any of it. I don’t even remember waking up that morning. I remember the day before, and I remember waking up in the hospital. The rest is just… gone.” She made an attempt at humour to lighten the mood. “I’m kind of pissed off, to be honest. I’ve only ever been to that one Pearl Jam concert and I can’t even remember it.”

He didn’t smile.

“The two most dangerous words in the English language – what if,” she said, the wistful smile fading. “They can drive you mad. You can’t spend your life wondering about what might’ve happened. It doesn’t matter how much we want to change things, the fact is we can’t. The only thing we have control over is the present and the future. The past is gone, over. We have to move forward – we don’t have a choice.” 

He reached across the table and laid his hand gently over hers. She fought the urge to pull away, the gesture so familiar yet so terrifying. Afraid to look up, she watched as he slowly turned her hand over, gently running his fingertips over the calluses at the base of her fingers. She cringed, trying to ease her hand out of his, but he held fast.

“Please don’t,” she whispered. “I hate them.”

“Why do you hate them?”

“Look at them – they’re ugly.”

“They’re not ugly,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “You should be proud of them.”

She glanced up and found she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his, now molten pools of green. She wanted to dive in suddenly – to get away from all of this and start again.

“You should be proud of yourself,” he insisted, squeezing her hand. “You’re incredible. So much stronger than I was – than I am.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” she argued, feeling wholly unworthy of praise.

“There’s always a choice, Ally. I should know. I was scared and I did the wrong thing. I wish I could change that – believe me, I do,” he said with quiet conviction. “I don’t deserve to ask for another chance, so I’m not. Just know that I’m going to try and make it up to you somehow, even if it takes the rest of my life. I’m not asking you for anything except to let me try. That’s it, that’s all.”