With the clothes she’d thrown into a holdall on the passenger seat beside her, she drove along the dirt track driveway towards the highway. The radio played the opening bars of a Michael Bublé song, and it reminded her of how she’d used to tease Kevin for having the musical taste of a housewife double his age. He didn’t care, he said, music was music and, as long as it made you feel something, it didn’t matter who was singing it. Jade turned up the volume to ‘You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You’.
She followed the road signs back in the direction of Echuca Moama on the Murray River, and an hour later checked herself into a budget hotel. She knew that eventually she’d have to return to the farm and face the Williamsons, but for the next few days she needed respite from them all, and especially from Mark.
Jade tried to stop herself from thinking about him by taking in the local sights, going on a trip along the water on a historic paddle steamer, joining thousands of strangers listening to blues and roots music at the annual Winter Blues festival and exploring nearby towns, red gum forests and wetlands. But nothing worked. Her anger towards Mark remained ever potent, despite the fact that she knew his actions had come from a selfless place.
After a fourth fitful night of sleep, she awoke early to the sound of birdcalls. She climbed into Kevin’s truck and from memory drove to where he’d taken her to watch her first Australian sunrise the day after she arrived on the farm. She hoped the calmness of the arrival of a new day might help slow her brain from racing at a hundred miles an hour.
She sat on the vehicle’s front bumper, watching the sun begin its ascent into the sky, when a noise on the gravel disturbed her. She turned her head. It was Susan.
‘I hoped you might be here,’ she began. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’ Her tone was much softer and less confrontational than it had been a few days earlier. ‘I’ve been back here every morning since you ran out, just in case you came. I used to bring Mark and Kevin up here when they were boys. Kev liked to see as far into the distance as he could. He wanted to travel the world one day.’
‘I remember him saying,’ Jade murmured. ‘He wanted us to do it together.’
She closed her eyes and tried to recall Kevin’s voice. It had only been a few weeks since his passing and already she was beginning to forget how it sounded. Despite everything she felt for Mark, she still missed her daily conversations with his brother. Susan stretched her arm out and wrapped it around Jade’s shoulders. ‘So you married my son even though you didn’t love him.’
Jade nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Because I knew how happy it would make him. I was very fond of him and I wanted his last days to be happy.’
‘You wanted the same thing for him as Mark did. And Kevin’s last days were happy and for that I’ll always be grateful. The both of you placed his needs above your own, I see that now. Please don’t hate Mark for it.’
‘I don’t hate him, Susan, but that’s not to say I’ve haven’t spent the last few days pissed off beyond belief. I’m usually pretty sure of myself – normally it’s one strike and you’re out. But Mark has my head all over the place and I don’t know what to think or how to feel. The only thing I know is that, after everything that has happened since I got here, I need some space and to get away from your family. I don’t mean that to sound as nasty as it does.’
‘No, it doesn’t sound nasty at all, love. And I’m not going to pretend I know what it’s like for you. But please take some advice from an old ’un; don’t let the chance to be happy pass you by. I had to let go of my anger at the disease that was killing my son as the only person that hate was hurting was me. Now you’ve got to let your anger towards Mark go. I’m sure that’s what Kevin would have wanted. If you’ve got the opportunity to love someone as much as they love you, then grab it with both hands and hold on to it for dear life.’
Chapter 94
NICK
Nick didn’t understand why Sally was so averse to accepting pain relief to make her labour a little more bearable.
For the best part of a month she’d complained of crippling headaches that had made her feel sick, but she’d been unable to take anything stronger than paracetamol. Now she was being offered a cocktail of drugs but she refused to accept any. Nick knew, in her position, he’d have taken enough to knock out a hippo, especially after the twentieth hour passed.
Watching Sally’s body contort in pain, he wondered if she was trying to prove a point. Nick had been hurt mentally by sacrificing his Match for her and the baby. Was she voluntarily going through such physical discomfort to prove she could hurt too? He shook his head and decided he was being foolish – nobody would put themselves through that just to make a point.
‘That’s it Sally,’ said the midwife confidently. ‘Keep pushing when I tell you, and don’t worry, you’re doing great.’
‘I can’t,’ yelled Sally, and looked at Nick with such desperation in her eyes he felt bad for being responsible for so much of her pain. He regained his composure, held her hand firmly and rubbed her shoulder.
Nick realised that, no matter what had happened in the past or what had been taken away from him, at that moment the only two people in the world that mattered were in that room with him. He made a silent vow to make the best of their relationship for the sake of Sally and the tiny person about to make its way into the world to join their unconventional unit.
‘You can do this, babe,’ he said softly. ‘I’m here, I’m not going anywhere again.’
‘But what if—’
‘There’s no what if,’ Nick interrupted. ‘I’m in this with you for the long haul. I promise.’
During a break in her contractions, the midwife suggested Nick took a break. It had been twenty hours – he needed something to eat. Sally was the one doing all the work, yet supporting her had left him shattered and he desperately craved something sweet. A £2 coin bought him a Snickers bar and a full-fat Coke in the hope that the sugar-rush might perk him up. Then, with nobody else in the corridor to catch him, he took a few sneaky drags from the e-cigarette he had tucked inside his pocket while they had been waiting for the taxi to take them to the hospital.
For a moment, Nick allowed thoughts of Alex to creep into his head and he wondered how he might be coping back home in New Zealand. They had both agreed to block each other on Facebook so neither could see the other getting on with their life. But that didn’t stop him wondering if Alex had started dating again and, if so, who the lucky person was – and whether they were male or female. He couldn’t imagine what it might be like to be with someone new after losing the person you were designed to be with. How could any potential relationship stand a hope in hell when you know you’ve loved somebody else with every inch of your being?
He threw his empty can and sweet wrapper into a bin, but as he made his way back to the ward he heard a loud alarm and beeping sounds coming from the direction of Sally’s room. He quickened his pace until he spotted her midwife and two nurses pushing Sally and her bed out of her room, into the corridor and towards a sign which read ‘Theatre’.
‘Sal?’ Nick yelled but she didn’t respond. She lay motionless with her eyes closed. ‘What’s happening?’
‘There have been some complications, Nick,’ the midwife explained calmly, as a porter took her place. ‘Sally has fallen unconscious and is not responding to our attempts to revive her.’
The colour drained from Nick’s face and his legs threatened to buckle. ‘And the baby?’
‘Our first priority is Sally, but an obstetrician is on her way now to perform an emergency caesarean while we work on Sally. There’s a team in theatre ready.’