Chapter Twenty-Two
Sadie
P ianos fall on you from a great height when you least expect them.
Ethan and I have been managing to avoid each other pretty well for the most part. Until Jennifer has a brilliant idea.
“Sadie.” Jen waves me down from her perch on the arm of the sofa in Ethan’s office as I’m on my way to do some database updates. “Ethan tells me you haven’t filled out your Expression of Interest for the Amarna dig yet. I hope that’s an oversight.” I can hear the rope suspending the piano above my head, creaking and groaning. Any minute now.
“Ah, no. I don’t think I can go.” Because even the idea of spending six weeks in close quarters with Ethan is agonising, never mind actually doing it.
“I’m sorry, that’s insane. It would be perfect for you.”
I hover in the doorway, reluctant to get too close to Ethan, who’s wearing his usual poker face. I really don’t need to smell his aftershave right now. Or ever.
On the one hand, I’d give my right arm to be able to go. On the other, it’s a potential disaster waiting to happen. Okay. There’s nothing potential about it. An unmitigated disaster is what it would be. Because try as I might—and boy have I tried—my feelings for Ethan have proved stubborn to kill.
Also, digs aren’t cheap.
“Umm. I can’t afford it on top of my rent and expenses.” Embarrassing to admit, but also true. If I’d been able to continue living with my mum, I’d be fine. Financially. Emotionally? Not so much.
I’m expecting her to look disappointed. What she looks is pleased.
“If that’s all it is, then there’s no problem.” She claps her hands together gleefully as though she’s about to wind up a preschool class. “I have a discretionary fund from the Berner Institute. For use in any postgrad activity I choose. I can use it to pay your dig expenses and give you a small stipend to cover your rent. Come and see me in the morning. I’ll get the paperwork drawn up.”
And without any expectation there will be an argument, Jennifer jumps off the arm of the sofa and charges down the corridor, looking for another problem to solve. While Ethan and I climb out from beneath the piano, with stars circling the pointed bumps on our heads.
There’s no talking Jennifer out of me going on the dig when I meet her the next morning. I try. I really do. Right up to the point where she skewers me with her eyes and asks point-blank if there’s a reason I don’t want to go.
Of course there is. And, of course, I can’t tell her. So I’m going.
The frustrating thing is I’m beyond excited by the idea of going to Egypt. On a dig.
Egyptian digs have been a bit erratic for the past few years. Partly because of the lack of funds in Australian universities and partly because of the volatile political situation in the Middle East. For the most part, undergrads have not been allowed, even when digs have gone ahead. So I’ve never been able to go on one. This is what I’ve been working towards my whole university career.
This is what I want to do with my life.
And it’s all but ruined by the spectre of Ethan Carter. At the same time, I can’t think of anyone who I would rather work under. Yeah, yeah. Freudian slip. I’m beginning to sound like Riley, even if it is just in my head.
It’s a good thing the last few weeks of the semester are too busy for me to worry about how I’ll manage to avoid Ethan on such a small dig team.
I run extra tutorials to help the students under my care achieve the best results they can in their final assessments, and then I’m busy marking both papers and exams. Ethan has decided we’ll both mark all papers independently and compare the results. Blake, the guy taking the tutorials for Ethan’s other classes, complains bitterly about how it’s doubling the workload, but I can see why Ethan wants to do it. He’s scrupulous about fairness and wants to ensure all the students get the mark they deserve—good or bad.
I’m eyeballs deep in marking one night when I answer my phone without looking at the caller ID.
As is her habit, Mum starts out syrupy sweet. Experience suggests it won’t be long before she’s taking shots.
“Sadie, darling, how are you? I’ve been worried. You haven’t called in weeks .” Sometimes she reminds me a little of Riley in the way she talks in italics. I don’t point out that she hasn’t called me either.
“Hi, Mum. Yeah, busy time of year with exams and everything.”
“Oh, I didn’t realise you were still doing exams. I thought you were doing your PhD.” She damn well knows I am. Which burns her up because she dropped out before she finished her master’s when the scandal with my father erupted, and never went back to it. She also knows I’m working as a tutor. This is her way of telling me she feels she hasn’t been kept in the loop while having the added advantage of putting me on the defensive.
“Marking exams, Mum. I’m tutoring three courses.” I wonder if it would be unfair to the students to keep marking while she talks. Probably.
“I see. Well, I’m calling to let you know Christmas is at Nana’s this year.”
Argh. Christmas. At least having it at Nana’s will ensure there’s a buffer between me and my mother. The problem is, I’m leaving for Egypt on the twenty-seventh.
“We’ll go up on Christmas Eve and come back in time for New Year,” Mum continues. My mother’s parents live on the Mid-North Coast, about a four-hour drive from Sydney. The last thing I want is to spend four hours trapped in a car with my mother.
“Okay. That’s fine. But I’ll take my own car. I have to leave early on Boxing Day.” I’m not entirely certain my car will make it, but I don’t have much choice.
“You have somewhere more important to be than with your family at Christmas?”
“I’m going on a dig. In Egypt,” I blurt, knowing this is going to cause a fight. “We leave on the twenty-seventh.”
There’s a long, loaded silence. I can feel the chill seeping out of my phone.
“I see.”
I bite my tongue on the urge to explain. She knows what going on a dig means to an Ancient History student.
The silence drags on for another few beats.
“Since you’re going to Egypt, I presume you’ll be seeing your father while you’re there. The man who abandoned you.” I’m glad I’ve got her on speakerphone because my ear would be in danger of frostbite from her tone.
“No. I’m not going to see Derek. I don’t even know if he’ll be in Egypt.” Which, now that she reminds me, I should check on. Because running into him is the last thing I want.
“Of course he’ll be there.” She makes a scoffing noise. “It’s dig season.” How can her voice be artic and boiling mad at the same time?
“Probably. But he won’t be in Amarna. And I have no intention of searching him out.”
Bella wanders into the room, pulling a face, having heard my mother’s voice.
“Do you think I’m stupid? You always favoured him. Even when he left you without a backward glance. And you’re still chasing after him, begging for his approval like a desperate puppy.” I should be used to this by now. My mother is bitter and angry. I get it. What I don’t get is why she continues to take it out on me.
“Mum …”
“No. Don’t bother making excuses. I suppose I’ll see you on Christmas Eve. Give my regards to your”—there’s a distinct pause, as though she’s debating what term to use—“father.”
And the line goes dead.
“Huh. I think that might actually be a record,” Bella says, checking her phone. “By my reckoning, it only took her twenty seconds to go from Glinda the Good Witch to the Wicked Witch of the West that time.”
I lean over, pick up a throw pillow from the sofa beside me, press it to my face and scream. Long and loud.
Is it any wonder the idea of attaching myself to someone isn’t appealing? Her relationship with my father turned my mother into an angry, bitter, spiteful person who can’t even find it in herself to love her children. That is not the person I want to be. Ever.
I can only imagine what she’d say if I told her I had feelings for my professor. Unwelcome as they may be. She’d pitch a fit you could hear all the way to Egypt. And Prague. Because she’s not above sending my father poison pen emails and texts. Not that he doesn’t deserve them.
By the time I drop the pillow, there’s a litre of cookie dough ice cream in front of me with two spoons speared into the top.
“Do you need the talk?” Bella asks. She’s been through this scenario with me so many times she has a script all worked out.
Surprisingly, Mum’s familiar little tantrum hasn’t hurt the way they have in the past. I don’t know if moving out of the house has given me much-needed distance or if I’m growing a thicker skin, but I find her words haven’t sliced at my heart the way they used to.
“Actually. I don’t. I’m good. Although I won’t say no to the ice cream.”
We sit side by side on the couch, feet stretched out on the coffee table in front of us and dig in.
“Do you think that’s why you got so angry with Ethan after your trip to Bangalay?” Bella asks. Which might seem completely out of the blue, but she knows me—and my pain points—well.
I spent my entire childhood tiptoeing through a narcissistic minefield. Expecting to get my leg—or head—blown off any minute. And the way Ethan reacted in Bangalay took me right back there.
“Probably. I guess he hit a raw nerve.”
“You haven’t talked about him since the night you came back.”
“There’s nothing to say, really. We’re colleagues. That’s it.”
“Is it?”
“I’m not angry at him anymore. I get it. I know it can’t have been easy for him, seeing me there with his family. When his wife had been part of it for so long …”
“But?”
“But understanding it doesn’t mean I want to put myself in harm’s way. That’s something he needs to work through himself. I can’t be collateral damage in someone else’s life again. Not to mention, I can’t have been any clearer. No matter how gorgeous and clever and all-round almost perfect he is, I’m not going there. I have a career to think about. I won’t let anyone get in the way of that.”
Bella sighs.
“Why do the ones we want always have to be so tortured?”
Bella has her own painful romantic past, which she claims to be over. Her constant dating of losers gives lie to that denial.
I suck another spoonful of ice cream down.
“If I knew, I’d fix it.”
I feel for Ethan. Grief is a twisted path, and it’s not my place to judge. So, while I’ve managed to keep a professional distance, I’m no longer angry. But the whole episode reminded me not to let the protective shell around my heart slip. Because I’m discovering in myself a gooey centre I’ve never bothered to explore before.