Chapter 25
October 2, 2023
Lucas:
I’m sorry, Brynn, but we never said we were exclusive.
Lucas:
I think dating culture might be a bit different in Australia? I’m sorry you got upset.
Sleep comes and goes. It’s not restful, though. My dreams are filled with confusion and desperation. Doug yelling, rain pelting against the doors of daycare and trapping me in with the dogs while Lucas and the leggy white girl from his apartment make out on on a bearskin rug.
At one in the morning, I get up and go to the bathroom. Then I make a cup of tea, the kitchen lit by the never-ending streetlights. When I get back into bed, I drag my computer and phone under a mountain of blankets and brace myself. There are so many messages from Lucas I can barely scroll to the end of them. I dial my voicemail next and listen to the first half of four messages and gather that he’s blaming me. We were casual. He wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. He thought I was on the same wavelength as him. I toss my phone off the bed and hear it clatter on floorboards somewhere.
After a few minutes, I get out of bed and retrieve it. It’s landed under the window where my editor’s desk was supposed to go.
I switch on the bedside lamp once I’m back in bed. I sign into Skype on my computer, hoping that Chris and Matty will be home, that Chris’ computer will be on, and that they’ll hear me dialling.
‘Brynn! It’s the middle of the night there—is everything okay?’ Chris answers nearly straight away and when his smiling face comes onto the screen, his home office in the background, I bite my lip and stifle the urge to cry. Even through the monitor I can see sun spilling across his desk from the big open window to his left, and it’s bright and golden in a way that light in Brisbane always seems to be.
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Can’t sleep and I thought ... is Matty home from school? What is it, four o’clock there?’
‘He’s at your nan’s,’ he says. ‘She got him guinea pigs.’
‘Oh yeah. She wrote me a email. Well, Uncle Rusty did.’
‘Matty is beside himself.’
‘Just ... tell her not to get any more pets,’ I say, thinking of Milo and Bo-Bo the snake.
Chris grimaces in agreement. ‘I think she’s going to leave it at the two guinea pigs. So, what’s keeping you up?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing, I just ... had a bad day. There’s been some flooding here, did you hear?’
‘No? Are you okay? Is it cold too? Have you got enough Ventolin?’ His kind eyes search my face, and I know he’s looking for any sign that I’m hurt or unwell.
‘I’m okay,’ I lie.
He looks like he wants to say something else, but then nods his head softly. We chat for a while about his work and Matty and Henry and it’s a soothing conversation. It takes me from New York and puts me right there next to him. Almost. He’s finishing a story about teaching Matty to use a mower as I find myself going quiet.
‘So what do you actually want to talk about, love?’
I sigh. He knows me so well. ‘Do you think Mum would be disappointed in me if I came home?’
I can see my question takes him by surprise but he immediately shakes his head. ‘She wouldn’t ever be disappointed in you, Brynn. Not ever.’
‘She was so ... obsessed with my dreams coming true, though. And I’m failing. I am failing so hard here. I think... I’m going to come home after Christmas.’
‘Is that what you want to do?’
‘Not really,’ I say.
‘She wanted you to chase your dreams, I know that,’ Chris says, his voice firm. ‘I think she was worried that when she died, you wouldn’t finish uni and you’d stay here and mother me and Matty and let life pass you by.’
‘Yeah. Well, she was probably right about that,’ I say. ‘And right to send me here to give it a go. I would have always wondered about New York if I hadn’t come. I just wish ... I just wish I could have fallen into that fabulous life that we both imagined.’
‘You will,’ he insists. ‘In New York or Brisbane or wherever else you choose. Don’t worry about the rent, if you want to give it longer, sweetheart—we’ll make it work. I’ll help with the money. You’ve only been there four months, you’ve got so much time left and I want to make sure that you’ve given it a real shot. You’ve got your internship applications to look forward to and I’m sure after Christmas some other work will appear. But if you want to come home, me and Matty will be at the airport with bells on.’
His words make me choke up a bit, and I’m hardly able to thank him and tell him I love him. But I do. So much.
Before we hang up he promises to send me pictures of Matty caring for his guinea pigs and the scene I imagine of it makes me chuckle. When we finally end the call, I still don’t know what choice I’m going to make, but I do know it will all be okay.