Chapter 32
FRASER
‘I’m sorry, have I forgotten something?’ I ask Rachael as she bustles into my home, kicks off her shoes, dumps her briefcase on the end of my kitchen table, and opens the Uber Eats app. I don’t recall inviting her over.
‘Every second Monday?’ I ask her. ‘For how long?’
‘As long as it takes. What do you feel like? Chinese?’
She makes an executive decision, ordering two dishes and some spring rolls. Then, waiting for the food to be delivered, she flits around the house, humanising it.
‘Never use the overhead lights, Fraser. I’m serious,’ she lectures, turning on lamps, lighting candles, straightening cushions. She almost presses the power button on the speaker, but glances at me, reads the expression on my face, and decides against it.
‘One day you’ll handle music again,’ she promises. ‘That’s when we’ll know you’re really—’
‘Over her?’ The idea ignites a flash of indignation. But I’ve forgotten for a second whom I’m talking to. Audrey’s best friend. Someone who stops fussing with the cushions and looks at me, shocked that I would put such words in her mouth.
‘I meant if you can learn to love music again, that will be a good sign,’ she clarifies.
It will be a fairytale.
‘I saw a reel on Instagram about how micro joys are the way we survive macro grief,’ she says. ‘Micro joys, Fraser. You and I should chase them.’
A few weeks ago, in that doctor’s office with Maggie, I would have written off this advice.
Now, well medicated, with weekly psych appointments, daily exercise and better sleep, I might not be leaping ecstatically through life, but I’m able to lift my head and look around again.
And tonight, with the overhead lights switched off and with candles flickering and the promise of warm food and good company—I let myself have a moment of contentment.
It prompts me to go to the sideboard and pull out the top drawer. Inside is a rectangular box from a jeweller’s. I take it out and turn to look at her, suddenly nervous. ‘Rach, I’ve been waiting for the right moment to give you this.’
She looks at the box in my hand before blue eyes flick back to mine, confused. ‘What is it?’
I open the lid and lift out the silver chain from which hangs a delicate blue teardrop sapphire. ‘This was meant to be a wedding present,’ I explain. ‘She’d want you to have it.’
She’s stunned at first, eyes smarting with tears as I coax her to turn around and face the hall mirror so I can place it around her neck. ‘Are you sure this shouldn’t go to Sara?’ she asks, touching the gemstone as it rests on her breastbone, meeting my gaze in the reflection. ‘Or Parker?’
‘Matches your eyes.’
She’s still unconvinced.
‘I gave Sara the family heirlooms Audrey had, minus a couple of special things we agreed to give to Parker eventually. Rach, I really want you to have this. Think of it as a thankyou gift from Audrey for everything you’ve done for us.’
Before she can respond, there’s a knock at the door. The delivery driver must be early, and Rachael jumps up to answer it. When she returns, it’s with an odd expression that makes sense when Maggie and Parker trail in after her.
‘She left her PE bag,’ Maggie explains, inspecting the cosy transformation of the place she left with Parker just an hour ago. It’s as if Cinderella’s fairy godmother has swept through.
Rach follows her gaze to the candles burning on the coffee table and says, ‘I thought he needed a bit of hygge.’
Maggie bristles. ‘Did you?’
Something about this frosty interaction is giving me déjà vu, which of course is when the actual delivery driver arrives, handing over a plastic bag.
‘Are there fortune cookies?’ asks Parker, leaping at it.
Nobody stops her, but I wish we had when she breaks open both of them and reads, ‘Dad, you have an exciting opportunity ahead! And, Rach, don’t be afraid of competition!
’ The twin destinies scrape up against the fictional love story lingering in Maggie’s imagination, which is not helped when Parker, ditching the fortune cookies, pounces at the sapphire around Rachael’s neck, squeals in delight, and says, ‘You gave it to her!’
It’s not like that, I want to argue as Maggie sweeps up Parker’s bag and bustles her back out the door after another round of hugs, saying, ‘Don’t let it get cold.’
‘Too late for that,’ Rach says softly when the door shuts. Her opinion of Maggie isn’t one she’s arrived at independently. It comes with years of conditioning from Audrey, having sided protectively with her best friend through all the angst early on in the blended family relationship.
‘I think it’s the type A professional thing,’ I say, wanting to defend my former wife. ‘Maggie’s very ambitious. She likes to be the most intelligent woman in the room. She’s very clever. But you’re obviously—’
She’s obviously what? I look at her, standing beside me in leggings and a gym top, locked briefcase on the table beside us probably containing some sort of vitally important national security paperwork.
And I remember joking about her being dull in her cat costume at the party years ago. She’s obviously not that.
Suddenly, I don’t want her to misread Maggie. ‘You know she helped me when I hit rock bottom,’ I explain. ‘Saved me, probably.’
Rach looks up, midway through dishing some rice into a bowl.
‘She came to my office, saw how bad things were, and took me to our GP. I think she was worried about the impact on Parker if I couldn’t get my act together.’
‘She was,’ Rach replies. ‘She called me about it.’
Maggie called Rachael? She never said.
‘I think it’s good that you have her.’ She passes me a bowl of food and flops on the floor beside the couch. ‘But I don’t think she appreciated the hygge.’
I choke on my dim sum.
‘She’s more of an overhead lights sort of person,’ she adds in all seriousness, undeterred by my coughing fit.
I look at her, relaxed on the floor beside my coffee table.
Legs crossed, hair up, somehow managing both chopsticks and the artful rearranging of a stack of books for aesthetic impact.
When she’s happy with the styling, she catches me watching her from the sofa, smiles brightly, and performs a little bow with a dramatic flourish.
Micro joys are the way we survive macro grief, she said.
I don’t know. I think the secret is borrowing a best friend from your late fiancée.