Chapter 28
FRASER
Parker sits between Maggie and me, swinging her legs under the pew in her flower girl dress, holding our hands, bringing them so close that our knuckles brush, as if she’s trying to stitch us back together as a family.
So now, in addition to grieving Audrey, I’m swallowing guilt that Maggie and I weren’t able to keep this together.
Not even for our child. She has ten years and two traumas in her life, and I’m worried there’ll always be something missing from her music.
‘Dad?’ she said at the unexpected sight of me in her mother’s kitchen yesterday. Broad smile. Arms flung around my neck. Hopeful expression, as if we were about to spring a surprise trip to Disneyland and that’s why we swapped custody on Thursday night.
‘I’m so sorry, my darling,’ Maggie said after we broke the news. She was stroking Parker’s head, cradling her to her chest, but looking over her, directly at me, addressing us both. ‘I know how much you loved her.’
Now, as Sara and I are called up to speak, I untangle my hand from Parker’s, pull out the folded paper from my suit jacket, and glance at Rachael, ashen-faced and sitting with the Bookies across the aisle.
Everyone is dressed colourfully, as requested.
There are flowers up the aisle, preordered and paid for weeks ago.
It feels as though somewhere across time, in this very church, there is an alternate version of reality where we’re all deep in celebration right now, and I’m kissing the bride.
I stand beside Sara at the lectern. Sara, whose military parents are disintegrating in the front row.
You should not have to bury a child. Sara, who warned her sister that bad things happen and was always advocating restraint and caution and keeping hope in check to avoid exactly the kind of mass devastation on show here today, and who has been unexpectedly proven right.
‘I hope I didn’t hold her back,’ she says, moments later. ‘Audrey always dreamed big. If she tripped, I thought, Slow down. If she fell, I thought, I told you so.
‘If my sister’s wings were clipped … if my reluctance ever caused her to pause or wait or retreat, then I deeply regret that now that she’s lost the opportunity to fall or fail and the chance to rise. And, Fraser—’
She turns to face me.
‘I’m glad she didn’t listen to me when she was running like gangbusters towards you, because you were the best thing that ever happened to her. You and Parker. Loving her was worth losing her.’
Was it? From where I’m standing, this pain is impossible.
When it’s my turn, it occurs to me I’ve delivered plenty of conference papers in my career.
Hundreds of lectures. I’m completely confident and comfortable before an audience.
Of course, standing at the lectern at your fiancée’s funeral is another matter, as is staring out and seeing Parker’s frozen gaze, instead of students or scientists—though there are plenty of those here today as well.
‘I first met Audrey at a mutual friend’s party,’ I explain. ‘She was introduced as somewhat of a tortured artist. Once we were together, I realised how talented she was and how prolific she could be. I could see where she was headed and how far she could go …’
I glance at Josh sitting beside our parents, steely gaze fixed on the pew in front of him. My throat constricts, but I need to choke the rest of this out.
‘Music stopped for me the day she died. I don’t know how I’m ever going to listen to it again, except I know what it meant to her.
I know how deeply it ran in her veins—the way it runs in my brother’s veins and my daughter’s.
The idea that we might stop searching for the music that lit up her life, because she’s gone, would break her. ’
All you can hear now is the sound of people taking out tissues or stifling coughs and tears as Audrey’s own composition swirls. Josh finally looks up from his seat now and locks eyes with me. Are we thinking the same thing? How much further she could have gone, if …
My throat burns. As I return to my seat, I know she would have suggested we play something else.
Something by Chopin or Brahms or Schumann.
She’d think the partially written piece she’d been composing for my birthday with Parker wasn’t good enough.
Wasn’t finished. She always blamed the stalling of her career on what happened at university, but I think what held her back was the perfectionism.
The fear of criticism. If she’d been able to cut herself loose from that stuff, there’s no telling how far she’d have flung herself.
My parents and Josh meet me at the church door.
Mum has spent the time since Audrey died rewriting history.
We’re just so devastated, Fraser. I’m sure you’d have been very happy.
She notices Maggie standing on the gravel path outside the church now and tries to disguise the subtle hope in her expression.
‘How kind Maggie has been, standing beside you through this tragedy …’
Joshua nudges our mother along, then shakes my hand, cool and aloof. He’s flying back to New York in the morning. I don’t know what my almost wife’s death might have done to him, except that he looks haunted. Face drawn. Eyes hollow. And I wonder again how truly platonic it was, from his end.
‘We’re adopting you and Parker,’ Rachael says, hugging me on her way out of the church. ‘The Bookies. All of us.’
I should have known the rest of Audrey’s friends would storm in behind her.
‘But you only read rom-coms,’ I reply as Jess catches up and joins the conversation. I’m hoping dry humour will guard against my losing it. ‘I’m more into golden-age detective fiction.’
‘How dare you!’ Jess says, in an orange dress, with uncontrollable flames of red hair and gigantic sunglasses barely hiding her blotchy cheeks.
‘We read an array of literary fiction!’ Her breath catches in her throat, humour no longer enough to carry the grief through this doorstep interaction as she drops the attempt at levity and hugs me, muscles clenching around our loss.
‘I’m so desperately sorry, Frase. We all adored her. ’
This loss has ripped her friends apart. ‘Let me know if you want to go for a walk this week? Or anything,’ Rach suggests as the queue sweeps her along and everyone’s offers of help pile up.
Coffee. Dinner. Golf. Lasagne. A distracting film?
Beach house on the coast—no need to rent it, Fraser, stay as long as you like.
Every idea is thoughtful and appreciated. Nothing touches the sides.
The night after the funeral, I face a disjointed new rhythm. With Parker asleep, I have hours to fill, staring at a silent piano until I have to endure another night in the empty bed.
I’m outside, Rachael texts, at nearly nine o’clock. Dropping off a quiche.
When I unlatch the door, she is standing there holding a dish covered in a tea towel, looking unusually dishevelled, no makeup, blonde hair tumbling out of a low ponytail, face grey, eyes glistening.
‘Here,’ she says, holding it out like an offering, looking like she needs to come in.
I take it from her with one hand and guide her in with the other. When I kick the door closed, she just buckles. She was a rock at the funeral, smoothing social interactions, making introductions, ensuring everyone felt included and cared for and loved. And all the while she was imploding.
‘Have you eaten?’ I ask, knowing the answer already. She looks like she hasn’t eaten since Thursday. ‘Come on.’
I lead her to the kitchen, sit her at my table, and place the quiche on the bench while I cut a slice.
She watches, without protest, as I find a plate and cutlery, pull out the leftover salad from the fridge—an offering from another well-wisher—and deliberately pick out all the richest bits, the darkest red tomatoes, the brightest slices of capsicum.
After zapping the quiche in the microwave, I check it’s not too hot and place it in front of her. She doesn’t move, even when I push the plate closer. It’s like I’m coaxing an animal to eat that’s just wound up in a refuge.
‘Have some. Just a little bit. Keep your strength up.’ Even as I’m saying it, I realise she’s well beyond having any strength to conserve. I edge my chair close to hers, pick up the fork, carve off a small piece, and hold it out to her.
She stares at me as if she is locked into her own body.
Delayed shock. That’s what this is. Shock, exhaustion, and the deferred impact of the enormous loss of the best friend she’s ever had.
She looks at me, blue eyes grateful, as her lips part and she takes the food and chews it like she’s being force-fed.
We repeat this process, in silence, until she’s taken the fork from me and eaten half the slice and a cherry tomato.
Then, without speaking, she lays her head on my shoulder and makes no sound while her tears seep through my shirt and I try to fathom how the two of us have ended up together in such an unholy tragedy.