Run to Me (26 page)

‘So you’re still seeing him?’

I nod, and she yanks her arm free.

‘Well, I don’t know what you were expecting of
me, Abby, but I can’t back you. This is unforgivable.’ Her cheeks are flushed a
rosy red.

‘All right,’ I say.

She is openly gobsmacked ‘All right? That’s it?’

‘I told you. I’ve made my decision.’

‘To string him along while you share your bed
with a teenager?’

I step back and lean against the wall. Beside my
head is a framed photo of Kim and Bill holding toddler James and baby Isabelle.
James is more engrossed in the stuffed dinosaur in his hands and Kim is playing
with Isabelle’s dress. Bill is the only one looking at the camera.

I take a deep breath and say what I’ve wanted to
say out loud for months.

‘Don’t I deserve happiness, Kim?’

She glances at the photo too, and shakes her
head. ‘Ha! So that’s what you think you’ve found? Happiness with an
adolescent?’

I turn back to her. ‘Maybe you should stop
focusing on the age thing.’

Kim crosses her arms. She’s not giving me an
inch.

‘Look, the situation is wrong, I’ll admit that.
But the feelings aren’t. I shouldn’t have to deny myself…I don’t
want
to
deny myself…this…relationship.’

‘Relationship? My God, Abby. You’re more stupid
than I thought.’

I am so angry I point my finger at her. ‘Don’t!
Don’t you
dare
, Kim. You can have your opinion, but don’t you dare stand
here and judge me.’

‘Why not? Someone ought to judge you. Maybe that
will make you see sense. You actually think this kid can give you the life you
want? Do you
actually
think he’s going to stick around? What happens
when he gets bored?’

‘We’re done,’ I say, and try to walk past her,
but she grabs hold of me.

‘Abby,
please
. Don’t ruin you life over
some…
toy-boy
.’ The last word is spoken as though it is poison.

I shake my head, and try to pull myself loose
from her grasp, and then Luke is standing before us, frowning, and with
questioning eyes.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks, looking from me to
Kim and back again.

Kim drops my arm and sniffs loudly. ‘We’re just discussing
one of Abby’s students. That’s right, isn’t it? The one who has a crush on
you?’

I close my eyes, and the second I do I know I’ve
given everything away. I feel Kim brush past me as she heads back to the
kitchen, and I lower my head to the floor to open my eyes. I can’t bring myself
to look at him, so I stare at the toe of his left shoe. He doesn’t speak, but I
hear his breathing, short and raspy like an emphysema patient. I consider
walking away, explaining everything later, making up some dumb excuse for Kim’s
comment, but I know my moment has arrived.

I lift my head, and my eyes find his. It’s not
anger that confronts me, as I’d expected, but hurt – pure, shattering anguish.

Twenty

As soon as we’re in the privacy of our own home,
Luke starts throwing things. He picks up the telephone and slams it against the
lounge room wall. It makes a loud thud and bits of plastic go flying. Next is
my Peace Lily plant, which ends up in a pile of dirt and shattered crockery on
the kitchen floor. I let him carry on until he finally pulls himself together
enough to face me. His eyes are brimming with anger now, long gone is the
sorrow from earlier.

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head at
me. ‘Why, Abby?’

‘This hasn’t been working…’

‘Don’t you dare turn this around on me.’

‘Luke,’ I begin, slowly. ‘If you want to know
why then you’re going to have to accept that it was partly because of my
unhappiness…
here
.’

‘So this becomes one of those scenes where you
tell me how useless a husband I’ve been and that it was
me
who forced
you to fuck someone else.’

‘No! Can’t we forget about the cheating for a
second?’

‘Ohh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

I sigh. ‘Yes, I would, actually. Because it’s
not about that. I’ve been questioning this for a while.’

‘And you couldn’t just ask for a divorce?’

‘I’ve handled it wrong. I
know
that.’

Luke steps over to the fridge and pulls out a
beer. I watch, silently, as he takes it over to the window and drinks it
staring out into our backyard. I lower myself onto a bar stool, and wait.

‘I know things haven’t been right,’ he says,
finally.

‘We should have talked about it. But we were
both so busy.’

He turns around. ‘You mean I’m always so busy.
Just say it, Abby. You’re always bitching about me working so much.’

‘Only because I missed you. And I wanted us to
be
together
. Isn’t that what sharing life means?’

‘And what kind of life would we have if I wasn’t
out earning money?’

‘Life isn’t all about money, Luke. This is what
I don’t understand. Why would you choose money over
me
?’

He throws his arms up. ‘I chose money
for
you!’

‘But I don’t want your money! I want your heart.
I want your
love
. Don’t you get it, Luke? You were out there slaving,
and for what? You’ve managed to push me away, not make me love you more.’

We stare at each other for a long moment.

‘I wanted to be a priority in your life. I want
this,
’
I place my hand over my heart, ‘to be the most important thing.’

‘So, I don’t love you because I take my job
seriously? Is that it?’

‘No. You’re missing the point. Work is fine, but
when I get to the end of my life do you think I’m going to give a shit whether
or not I put in twelve hour days? Fuck no! I’m going to care about the people
in my life…’

‘Like you’ve cared about me? You call cheating
caring about me?’

‘This is the wrong I’m trying to set right,
Luke. Maybe I never, completely…’ I pause. How can I say this?

‘What? Spit it out, Abby.’

‘Maybe I never really loved you. Not in the way
you deserve to be loved.’

‘Ohh, so you
are
going to take some
credit for this worthless marriage, are you?’

I nod slowly. ‘I haven’t been the perfect wife.’

‘No shit!’

‘I know I put a lot of expectations on you.
That’s what I mean when I say maybe it wasn’t love. Because love wouldn’t want
you to change. Love would accept you just as you are.’

He scoffs. ‘Is that what this kid does, huh? He
accepts you
just as you are
?’

‘Luke, please. This isn’t about Paul…’

‘Don’t say his fucking name!’

‘This isn’t about him. Something is missing
here. I’ve needed something
more
. I cheated because I wasn’t happy, because
this marriage hasn’t been what I hoped it would. Because we haven’t done the
things we planned to.’

For the first time, Luke’s eyes come to rest
directly on mine, and he sees what’s really in them.

‘What are you saying? That this was some kind of
retaliation? Revenge against me because I couldn’t get you
pregnant
?’

I shake my head. ‘No, of course not. How can you
think that?’

‘It seems pretty fucking obvious Abby. You’re telling
me you were looking for something more, something that clearly I haven’t
provided for you, what do you want me to think?’

‘Luke…’

‘I’m not enough for you, right? I don’t meet
your requirements for the perfect husband. Maybe this kid will do a better job
than me, huh? Is that what you’re hoping? He’ll be the
man
you really want?’

‘It isn’t about choosing…’

‘Don’t give me that bullshit. You made your
choice when you decided to fuck someone behind my back.’

He is spitting the words at me and I know he is
right.

I take a deep breath, but still my next words
come out in a whisper.

‘I can’t give up the chance to have children.’

‘For God’s sake, Abby! This is all about you,
isn’t it? You can’t have children with me so you toss me aside like a used rag.
I’m nothing more than a failed sperm donor.’

I get up off the stool and make my way over to
him. He pulls away, sharply, from my embrace, but he lets me stand beside him.

‘No, Luke,’ I say. ‘It isn’t like that. Please.
I just thought we both wanted kids, but then you pulled away, and wouldn’t
discuss it. I thought you’d changed your mind. That we wanted different things.
Different lives.’

‘And that’s it, Abby. You never, not once, tried
to understand how it all affected me. You were so caught up in your own grief,
and disappointment. How could I keep going, keep trying, when I’d already
failed over and over?’

I step back, and fall awkwardly against the
kitchen bench. My stomach knots up with a wave of despair.

‘I’m sorry, Luke. I didn’t know. I didn’t
know
.’

‘Well now you do,’ he says, his voice still
harsh.

‘And this is what I mean. How could I have
not
known? Don’t you see, Luke? I haven’t really
loved
you at all, have I?’

The second the words are out I know they are the
absolute truth. I haven’t really
seen
Luke, really
looked
at him,
for years. I left this marriage a long time ago, way before Paul.

The reality of this makes me start to cry. Not
for my own sake, but for Luke’s. Somewhere back there, in the beginning, was
love, and intimacy, and passion. Now he’s hollowed out, broken, all because of
me.

I move to him, and claw his chest, the tears
still screaming down my cheeks. ‘
I
failed
you
. I ruined
everything.’

His hands stay by his sides, and he continues to
stare out the window. ‘Get off me, Abby,’ he says, with no hint of emotion.

I look at his face, all scrunched up and angry,
and it really hits me; what I’ve done. He won’t forgive me for this, no matter
how hard I cry, or try to explain. He won’t forgive me because he knows it wouldn’t
change anything anyway. Remove all the resentment, and betrayal, and you’re
left with only one thing; I choose Paul.

***

She doesn’t meet me in the park for our run. I
wait, sitting on the grass, for over an hour, with the damp seeping in through
the butt of my tracksuit pants and the cold air numbing my lips. It’s too
chilly to run anyway, but I still thought she’d come; that there would be other
ways to get our heart rates up today. I run over in my mind everything from
yesterday, but I can’t find the point where she lied to me. She expected to be
here. She wanted to come. I
know
she did.

That just leaves one thing; Luke. He’s stopped
her. He’s done something to keep her there.

I stand, shaking out my dead legs, and hit the
pavement. I jog a bit to warm myself up, but by the time I’m at the park gates
I’ve powered up to a run. I speed along the street, my shoulders knotted up
from the cold, but my feet and legs pumping hard. My lungs fill with ice-cold
air, making my chest heave and shudder, but I don’t slow down, and I don’t
stop. I keep moving, step after step, pushing through the pain. I don’t care
about the wind biting my face either; I just want to get to her.

With my heart racing, the blood starts to pound
in my right hand, under the white bandages on my palm. It feels like my hand
might shoot off completely. I shake it as I run, trying to move the blood
around, but it does nothing. I think about last night; the doctor pulling out
tonnes of black dirt, and bloodied gravel, before he stitched me up. I was
thankful for the painkiller, but I could still feel the tweezers in me, and the
yanking sensation. I turned my head away, because it was a rotten sight, and
even caught The Chief cringing behind me.

He was full of surprises last night, the old
Chief. He stayed with me at the hospital, and drove me home without complaint.
Hell, he even helped me get my jacket off when we got there. I still can’t
believe he defended me, with McFadden. That was pretty amazing. I half expected
him to pull up a stump; to watch me get my face pummelled. That would have made
a lot more sense. And it would have made telling him I’m leaving home easier as
well.

I’m still going, no doubt about it. But I can’t
guarantee his reaction now. Before, when I’d played it over in my head, he’d
yelled and threatened me, but it hadn’t done any good. In fact, it had
convinced me I was doing the right thing. Now I wonder what he’ll say. Will he
beg me not to go? Tell me I’m his kid, that I’m worth something? Cry? That’s
probably stretching it a bit too far. It’s still The Chief we’re talking about.

When I get to Stamford Street it seems like all
my prayers have been answered. I’m a few houses back, and I see her, walking to
the front door. I wave, and start to yell out, but then I see him. He throws
open the door and even I can hear it bang against the foyer wall. I pull up,
helplessly exposed, in the middle of the street, and watch her follow him
inside. She doesn’t notice me when she turns to close the door, but I see her
face and it’s full of anxiety. I sneak, as best I can, up their driveway and
perch myself amongst the shrubs under the lounge room window. I peer in, just
in time to hear something shatter. I see her blonde hair shaking, and then I
hear him asking ‘why’, in a voice reminiscent of The Chief’s angriest moments.

It’s obvious now; this isn’t a regular fight. He
knows about me.

I stay there, hunched down in the cold again,
listening to them argue. It tears at my stomach; the way her voice sounds. I
know she must feel like shit, and all I want to do is wrap my arms around her,
and remind her about yesterday, about everything. She’s got to know I’m in
this. For as far ahead in the future as I’m willing to look, I’m in this. I’m
not going anywhere.

I hear her crying now, and it takes everything
I’ve got not to burst through that door and smack him one. How can he be so angry?
He must have expected this. She’s said it herself, just now, she never really
loved him. Does that mean she loves me? Do I love her? I let that swim around
my head for a while, but finally it’s my gut that tells me the answer. I stand
up quickly, not because it’s cold, but because I can’t be out here, while she’s
crying in there. It’s just not right.

I move to the left, towards the front door, but
I’ve only taken two or three steps when I realise my mistake. I turn my head
and there he is, staring at me from inside, his face red and steaming. I
freeze, and I stare right back. He’s never met me, but it’s obvious who I am. How
many young guys sneak around her garden? Behind him, Abby sees me, and her
whole body relaxes, at least that’s what I imagine it does. I don’t really have
time to examine her; he is outside and on me in a flash.

‘What the
fuck
is this? What the
fuck
are
you
doing here?’

I don’t even see his fist coming; it collects me
right on the jawbone, and sends me flat on my back. Abby is there, holding him
back, as I scramble to my feet.

‘Look, mate,’ I say, showing my bandaged hand.
‘I don’t want to fight you, not with this, not ever.’ And it’s true. I’ve got
no beef with him, not like I did with McFadden. I just want his wife. Simple as
that.

‘Shut up!’

I nod, and rub my jaw, but I don’t run away. I
might not want to fight, but I know he’s got something to prove here.  

He shakes Abby loose and clocks me again. I
stumble a bit, but I don’t fall down. I let him get me, because like it or not
I’m on the other side now. Shit, I’m just like McFadden; stealing someone
else’s woman. How did that happen?

‘Paul,’ she says, pleading with me, from behind
him. ‘Just go,
please
.’

Her face is all red from the crying, and I can
see her shoulders are sagging with all this going on around her. Without
thinking, I move towards her, and try to pull her into my arms, but he’s on me
again. And this time the hit leaves my ears ringing. I shake my head to get rid
of it, and he pops me another one. This has me down, and I wrap my arms around
my head to protect myself.