Chapter Forty-Five
Ethan
A nd as soon as my feet hit Australian soil, I message my brothers.
SOS sailing club, 5pm tomorrow
Will
I’m in Bangalay. Is it a five-alarm fire?
I debate telling him not to worry since his babies are still so young, but not only will my older brother give me sound advice, asking him for it will help repair our relationship.
Yes
Will
I’m there
Ben
Done
Josh
I’ll book a table
Nick
I’ve just touched down in Inverness. Facetime me if you need me
Honestly, I don’t know what I did without these guys for two years. Oh, wait. Yes. I wallowed. And maybe if I hadn’t, I would’ve come out the other end of my grief a little sooner.
“And that’s Cora with Blue.” Will is showing Josh a video on his phone when I arrive at the table. “You can hear her saying Blue already. Listen.” There’s indistinct gurgling from the phone.
“Yeah, I don’t think Cora’s saying Blue. Sounds more like a burp to me.”
“She’s a genius, I’m telling you.” Will closes his phone and lays it on the table with a huff.
“Must take after Freyja then,” Josh shoots back.
“Well look at you all tanned and fit, looking like Indiana Jones,” Ben says, coming back from the bar with a very nice bottle of red and four glasses.
I check out the label.
“Nick will be sorry he missed this one.” Nick is partial to an expensive drop of red.
As usual, everyone starts talking at once.
“I’m sure he’s content with testing the whisky at the new distillery.”
“It’ll be years before it’s ready to taste.”
“Don’t worry, Duncan has a pretty good cellar under that castle of his. Nick’s not missing out.”
Once we’re all settled with a glass of wine and have ordered an early dinner, Will wastes no time in getting the ball rolling.
“Right then. What’s the problem? Who do we have to save this time?” he asks, referring to their little self-styled Ocean’s Eleven operation when they were saving Ben’s wife from her evil ex.
Yeah. That was a thing. Only in the Carter family.
“You all remember Sadie?” My question is met with mumbles of agreement. “Well, there’s a problem.”
“What have you done?” Will asks. It’s annoying he assumes it was me. Even if it is accurate.
It takes another bottle of wine, dozens of questions and a lot of backtracking before the story is told. Although I’ve held back on possibly the single most important thing. Because I think Sadie should be the first to hear that I love her.
Turns out that’s not necessary.
“I told you I liked her when you brought her to Bangalay. And it was blindingly obvious you were well on your way to being in love with her then,” Will says.
“What?” I don’t know why I’m shocked. These guys are smart. And perceptive. Regardless of how they sometimes behave.
“Yep.” Josh nods.
“Oh, yeah.” The grin on Ben’s face just about breaks it in half.
“And I’d be shocked if she didn’t feel the same. But we digress. What you need now is advice on what to do.” Will looks conflicted. On the one hand, he’s clearly bursting to tell me what to do. On the other, the last time he gave me advice, it came back to bite him on the arse. It’s time to put that to bed. For good.
“Before we get to that, I owe you an apology, Will. What I said to you at Jessie’s funeral was unfair. Sure, you advised me to wait on getting married. But if I’m being honest with myself, that was what I wanted to hear. I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Jess. You know I did. But for her, marriage meant babies. I wasn’t ready for that. I’m still not. It was wrong of me to blame you.” By the end of my little monologue, my voice is hoarse with unshed tears.
“Ah, fuck. Look what you’ve gone and done.” Josh picks up a serviette and hands it to Will, who has tears running down his cheeks.
“Thank you, E. That means a lot. I never wanted to hurt you.”
I’m up and out of my chair and so is he, and we’re hugging in a way we haven’t done since before Jessie died.
“I know, Wee. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
“Just as well Nick’s not here. All this kumbaya stuff would be too much for him,” Ben says from behind me. “Now, if we’re finished with the waterworks can we get back to the problem at hand? I have a wife and baby to get home to.”
“So. Advice?” I sit back down and take a gulp of wine to clear the tears from my throat.
Ben, Will and Josh all look at one another, communicating silently as only people who have known each other all their lives, and have been through the wringer of life together, can do.
“I think you already know what you need to do. You need to prove she can trust you. That you’ll put her first,” Will says. And he’s right. I know exactly what I have to do, and I’ll have no regrets about doing it.
“And once you’ve done it, bring Sadie over for family dinner. I think we’d all like to get to know her,” Ben adds.
“That’s if she can forgive me. If I can get her back. Well, not back, since we’ve never actually been together, but … you know.”
“Yeah. We know. And if she doesn’t forgive you, you haven’t done it right,” Josh, the master of the grand gesture, cuts in.
“Do you need any help? Backup? We could get the band back together,” Ben refers to the collection of misfits who helped him get Rosanna out of her predicament.
“Nah. I think I’m good.”
We polish off the last of the wine and make our way out to the Ubers we’ve called.
“One last thing,” Will says as he’s climbing into the car. “Mum will tear you a new one if you let Sadie go under the bus.”
As if I didn’t already know that.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
They didn’t give me any concrete advice on what to do. But I realise that’s not what I came here for. Because I’ve known what I had to do all along. I came here to share the load. Experience their unquestioned, unconditional support. Knowing my brothers have my back, no matter what, has settled me even more than I expected.
Because what I’ve realised for myself is that a career is important. But not as important as love. If I end up a high school history teacher—or a bus driver or a lollypop man on a road crew—after this, as long as I have Sadie, I don’t care.
Okay, maybe I care a little. But not enough to stop me from doing the right thing on Monday morning.