Chapter Seventeen Fiona
If you want a wine so obvious it’ll slap you in the face, this is the one.
When I made it back to the lounge, Jonah had progressed from pale to sweaty. ‘Oh, thank god,’ he said, half-snatching one of the glasses of sparkling from the fresh tray of drinks that Satoshi had brought and swallowing half of it in a single gulp.
‘I don’t know what you’re so worried about, Jonah,’ Dad commented. ‘You’re already yoked to the woman. It’s too late for you to have cold feet.’ He picked up the glass of shiraz Satoshi had set down next to him, eyeing it critically. ‘Ice cubes?’
‘Of course,’ Satoshi replied with perfect poise and politeness, despite Dad’s excruciating rudeness. ‘Sorry about that. I’ll just get some for you.’
He put a lemonade beside Lex, handed me the other glass of sparkling, then disappeared. Dad harrumphed. ‘You’d think a bartender would be better at remembering orders.’
‘He’s not a bartender,’ I said. ‘He’s a sommelier. An outstanding one. He’s studying for the Master Sommelier exam – the hardest exam in the world.’
‘The hardest exam in pouring drinks, you mean.’
‘No. I mean the hardest exam in the world. You’ve probably supervised more PhDs than there are Master Sommeliers. There’s less than three hundred, total.’
Dad raised his eyebrows. ‘I know you’ve never been the brightest spark, Fiona, but if you’re trying to convince me that an exam in pouring drinks is more difficult than making an original contribution to human knowledge, then things are worse than I thought.’
‘Dad!’ Jonah and I both said.
Satoshi chose that moment to reappear, ice bucket and tongs in hand. ‘My apologies for the error.’
‘So I hear you’re studying for an exam, young man.’ Dad eyeballed him.
‘Yes, I am.’ Satoshi carefully doled out three cubes into his glass.
‘What about pouring wine qualifies you to recommend all these trashy books to my grandchild?’
‘Dad!’ Jonah and I said again, with Lex adding in, ‘Grandpa!’
‘Well?’ Dad demanded.
‘Satoshi, you don’t need to answer that,’ I said firmly. ‘You can go.’
There was a strange look in his eye as he said, ‘All right,’ and left, and it made me sick to my stomach. This beautiful man deserved so much better than being barked at by my dickhead of a dad.
He left. Dad shook his head. ‘Can’t even remember how I take my wine and yet you trust him with Lex’s reading.’
‘First of all, I’m the one constantly passing him lists of books for Lex,’ I said hotly.
‘So if you want to yell at someone because your queer grandkid is reading books about other queer kids instead of, I don’t know, Martin Chuzzlewit, you can yell at me.
And secondly, you know why he forgot? Because that’s an idiotic way to drink red wine!
’ I gestured at his glass. ‘Ice cubes? Really? Why not just ask for a drop of wine with your water? And why the hell are you ordering massive slap-you-in-the-face red in Tasmania? The best pinot noir in the country comes from here, and—’
‘Since when were you such an expert, Fiona?’
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. If Dad turned up his nose at the MS, then my pathetic little Intro certificate was going to mean nothing to him. I could just imagine what he’d say if he ever found out about my column. So, this is all you’ve amounted to, Fiona. Babbling on about drinks.
And if I ever told him about Satoshi and me, what would he say to that? I suppose it tracks, he’d comment loftily, waving some abomination of a glass of wine at the dinner table, that the best my daughter can do is a bartender.
… and even though it was obvious to anyone with eyes that I was punching so, so far above my weight, Satoshi would just sit there and smile politely and take it.
‘Jonah, let’s go for a walk,’ I said tightly. ‘You need some fresh air. Lex, do you want to come?’
They shook their head, a glint in their eye. ‘Grandpa and I need to talk about books.’
My heart swelled painfully with pride and love. Lex was going to run circles around my dad, the way I never could.
Satoshi loved Lex too. I knew that. He was so good with all my children, and he would love them all so much, if I’d let him all the way in.
But would they be enough?
I swallowed. He’d promised me. I hadn’t been able to get the words kids out, too afraid of the answer, but he’d promised me if I wasn’t giving him what he wanted, he’d tell me. He’d promised.
The sun was bright as Jonah and I went outside, the gentle summer breeze riffling through our hair. Jonah tipped his face up to it, closing his eyes for a moment. ‘That’s better,’ he murmured.
‘Sorry about before.’ I shoved the feelings in my belly down, hard. ‘It’s your big day. I shouldn’t pick fights with Dad.’
‘Hmm? Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t paying that much attention, to be honest.’
Instead of taking the path that led to the B&B, we went the other way, towards the sculpture garden. ‘What’s got you so in your head anyway?’ I asked. ‘Far be it for me to be Team Dad, but he’s right about one thing – it’s too late for you to have cold feet.’
‘It’s not cold feet.’ Jonah sighed. ‘The opposite, really. Today just… means so much.’
We entered the garden, tangles of flowers interspersed at regular intervals with weatherproof sculptures. ‘I love Sadie so much,’ he said. ‘And it just hit me last night, spending the night by myself. It would wreck me if I lost her. There is no me without her, not anymore.’
He half-sat, half-collapsed onto a bench. ‘This is incredibly insensitive of me, but – Fi, I don’t know how you did it. I don’t know how you kept going. Because I keep having all these visions of what it would be like if Sadie left me, and I honestly don’t think I would survive it.’
I should have thought about Matt.
Instead, my mind went straight to Satoshi. How long did I have left before I was in Jonah’s position, unable to go on without him?
‘Sadie’s not going to leave you,’ I said, pushing that thought away too. ‘She’s here, drinking sparkling with Chess, getting ready to marry you. Again.’
‘I know. It’s not even like we had a fight or anything – everything’s fine – but…’ Jonah held his hand out in front of him. It was shaking.
‘Do you want me to call her for you?’ I reached for the soothing tone I usually used when the kids were sick in bed with a cold. ‘Seeing her before the ceremony is a no-no, but maybe it would help to have a quick chat.’
He thought for a moment, then nodded.
Sadie picked up on the second ring. ‘What’s wrong? Did Jonah forget his shoes? I told him he would if he didn’t put them in the same bag as his suit. Or has he changed his mind about the cake again? Or—’
‘Everything’s fine, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m going to put you on speaker. Someone’s freaking out a bit and needs to hear your voice.’
‘Hi, darling,’ Jonah said sheepishly.
Sadie laughed, and I could feel, as well as see, my brother sag in relief. ‘Have you gone soft on me, Fisher?’
‘I’ve always been soft on you, Shaw,’ he replied. ‘You know that.’
Sadie’s laugh was a hum this time. ‘I love you. And I can’t wait to marry you. For real this time.’
I blinked.
‘I’ll see you at the altar, all right?’ she said. ‘I promise.’
‘I’ll be there.’
Sadie hung up. Jonah tilted his head back to the sky, exhaling. ‘Thanks, Fi. That was exactly what I needed.’
‘You’re welcome. But – what did she mean?’
‘Hmmm?’
‘That she was going to marry you for real this time.’
I gestured to Jonah’s hand. He’d taken his wedding ring off in preparation for the ceremony, but the tan line from it was plainly evident. ‘It’s always looked pretty real from where I’m sitting.’
‘It is. It’s just…’ He exhaled again. ‘I suppose I was going to have to tell you this eventually, so it might as well be now.’
‘Tell me what?’
He paused. ‘When Sadie and I got married the first time,’ he said eventually, ‘it wasn’t exactly for romantic purposes.’
‘I know. You had to, for work. So even though you hadn’t been together that long, you—’
‘We weren’t.’ Jonah folded his fingers together in his lap. ‘Together, I mean.’
I stared.
‘I don’t understand,’ I managed to choke out at last. ‘It was fake?’
‘Not exactly. It’s never been fake, not for me. I’ve loved Sadie since the first time I met her. But we weren’t… a couple, when we got married. Not yet.’
The puzzle pieces rearranged themselves in my mind.
Jonah telling me that he’d been shortlisted for a job in Hobart, and me – freshly abandoned, physically and emotionally exhausted, and with no pride left to lose – weeping at the thought of having someone close by I could rely on.
Him calling a few weeks later and apologising profusely for not getting the job, as I wept again.
Then another call, another few weeks later. His arm around Sadie’s shoulders on the Zoom screen, telling me all about the wonderfully convenient coincidence that was his girlfriend getting the job and how they were getting married so she could bring him with her on a partner hire…
‘You got married for me,’ I said numbly.
‘No!’ Jonah said. ‘I got married for me.’
‘That’s why you’re having a second wedding.’ I was having an out-of-body experience. ‘Because the first one was fake.’
‘No, it wasn’t! We are very much married. We had to be, for the university to agree to partner hire.’
‘Legally, sure. But it wasn’t some grand romantic gesture, some realisation that you were both so in love you couldn’t bear to be apart, was it?’
‘Fi—’
‘You did it for me. You – you put your entire future on the line for me.’
I couldn’t seem to get enough air into my lungs. ‘What if it hadn’t worked out, Jonah?! What if you’d taken this huge step and it’d been a disaster? What if—’
‘Shhh, shhh, Fi. Listen to me.’
Jonah wrapped me up in his arms, one hand cupping the back of my head, the same way I hugged the twins when they were melting down. ‘That didn’t happen, okay?’ he said fiercely. ‘It all turned out all right. Because Sadie and I love each other. You know how much we love each other.’
I did know. Jonah and Sadie loved each other so much and so obviously and so passionately that it sometimes made me sick with jealousy. That they loved each other was something I’d been sure of ever since the first time I’d seen them together – but it had been a lie.
And there was a version of the future where it didn’t turn out all right.
Where Jonah and Sadie, yoked together, ended up hating each other.
Where Jonah ended up hating me too, simmering in quiet resentment at what his desire to bail me out had forced him into – and where I, clearly so bad at recognising what love looked like, had no idea that I’d ruined my brother’s life.
‘It’s all right, Fi,’ Jonah murmured, stroking my hair.
But my mind had already skipped tracks.
I don’t want to tie you down, I’d said to Satoshi – but I did. Every day it got stronger, this inexorable temptation to tie him to me forever.
I wanted him to be there in the morning when I woke up.
To be there at school drop-off – always with me at first, but eventually by himself sometimes, hugging the girls goodbye and bumping knuckles with Lex.
For him to come home to me after the bar closed, to slide into bed with me after he’d eaten the dinner I’d left in the fridge for him, to wrap his arms tight around me.
I wanted my home to be his home. I wanted him to be there next Christmas, him and Isamu and his mother too, piled into my place with all the Fishers and Shaws.
I wanted him to be there for all the milestones – his and mine and the kids’.
I wanted him to see my hair turn grey and tell me I was beautiful anyway.
When he said, Fiona, all I want is you, I wanted so badly to believe that it would always be true.
Eventually, though – when the sparkle had worn off, when our illicit Thursdays turned into mundane routine, when my dad had been horribly rude to him too many times, when he was ready for a child of his own but I was too old and too tired to give him one, when I’d finally taken more than he was prepared to give – would he regret it?
Would he think back to that day in his office when he’d told me I deserved pleasure and that he’d love to give it to me, and wish those words had never come out of his mouth?
What would the loveliest man in the world tell himself on his wedding day, this beautiful soft-hearted man, this man who was far, far too good to be true?
We’ve come too far for me to back out now.
She’s been humiliated so badly once before, and she relies on me – I can’t let her be left again.
He’d made me a promise. But if Matt could lie, and Jonah could lie, then so could Satoshi – and once again, I would probably have no idea.
‘I’m sorry.’ Jonah squeezed me tighter, and I realised I was crying. ‘We weren’t trying to keep secrets from you. It’s just – there didn’t seem to be any point telling you. You already had so much to worry about – and then it was real, and serious, and there was nothing to tell.’
‘It’s okay,’ I forced out. ‘I understand.’
I pulled back and got to my feet, managing not to stumble despite the roaring in my ears. ‘Come on. Sadie will never forgive me if I don’t get you to the altar on time. Especially if it actually counts this time.’
Jonah stood, studying me. ‘Are you sure you’re okay, Fi?’
I pasted on a smile. ‘I’m fine.’