Chapter Twenty-nine
I was at work the following day when I got a message from Abel, telling me he was unexpectedly coming home two nights early – the wilderness course had been cut short due to poor weather.
He would cross over with Ebony and the kids for a night – I hadn’t anticipated that.
He wrote something about sleeping on the couch so he wouldn’t kick me out of his bed.
My heart always lifted knowing he was coming home, but this time I felt relief crash over me like a wave. I craved his company more than ever.
When I got home from my shift, he was already there, making dinner with Ebony.
My sister was more animated than she had been all week, and while I knew it certainly wasn’t on account of me, it took some of the tension out of the room to see her smile and laugh.
Abel hugged me and for the brief moment I was in his arms, I felt my whole body sigh with need for him. The very essence of my soul seemed to need him.
I found a spot on the couch with the kids and read them The Cherry Tree Farm while half-listening to Abel and Ebony’s easy conversation.
Over dinner Abel asked question after question and Ebony was bubbly as ever, talking about Rock’n’Rhyme where she took the kids on a Tuesday morning, how the kids were going at school, how hard it was to find childcare, the insanity of rental prices in Sydney, jobs she’d looked at getting.
He was so sweet in the way he engaged with her, the sort of person who would find anyone interesting. It was a beautiful quality.
I tried to enjoy the fact that I was with my sister and we weren’t fighting, but in truth, I was devastated that this was the last night of a visit that had gone so badly and tomorrow she would be leaving.
I’d imagined this visit would be about all of us going on picnics to the park, or maybe introducing Ebony to some hot young doctor she’d fall in love with.
Maybe she’d even fall in love with Hobart and she’d want to stay as much as I did.
That thought caught me in my tracks. Did I want to stay in Hobart?
Abel was looking at me like he’d just asked a question and I realised I’d completely vagued out.
‘Sorry?’
‘Did you want any more or are you done?’ He was clearing away the plates from the table.
‘I’m all done. Thank you.’
Molly was lying on the couch and had started whining. And Liam’s and Paddy’s voices were escalating over a piece of Lego: ‘I need the windscreen for my car!’
‘We can clean this up if you need to put them to bed,’ I said to Ebony.
‘Okay.’ She didn’t make eye contact with me, but said to Abel with faultless manners, ‘Thanks for dinner!’
The kids did their goodnights and hugs and Abel even ended up with a squeeze around the neck from Molly and Liam. Paddy wanted to, I could see it in his face, but at eight, he was at that stage where he was coming out of his purely impulse driven childhood.
‘Gorgeous kids,’ Abel said with a smile after they’d disappeared up the stairs. ‘She’s great. No wonder you adore her.’
We did the dishes together and I listened to him tell me about the course, the personalities, the challenges.
After a while, he stopped and reached for my arm. ‘What’s up? You seem troubled.’
‘I’m tired.’
‘Why don’t you go to bed?’
The sleeping situation dawned on me at that point and he read the moment of realisation in my expression.
‘It’s fine. I promised you my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I scoffed. ‘I’ll sleep on the couch.’
‘No, I’ll sleep on the couch.’
We were in a stand-off, but my brain couldn’t function enough to navigate it.
‘I’ll help you finish here.’
As though sensing I didn’t have the energy to drive much of the conversation, Abel kept talking, entertaining me with anecdotes from the course – the city guy who lost his shit when he got mud on his bum; the ICU doctor who hadn’t been able to tie a sling; the infectious diseases registrar who had a full-blown panic attack about contracting Barmah Forest Virus when he got bitten by a mosquito.
It was distracting and I appreciated it.
Finally, we were done and everything was tidy. I hung my tea towel on the oven handle and when I turned around, Abel was leaning against the counter, facing me. He feigned a yawn.
‘You should go to bed. You’re keeping me up out here.’
‘You should go to bed. I’m sleeping out here and you’re keeping me up.’
He shook his head and laughed. ‘Rock, paper, scissors?
‘No. I’m not stealing your bed.’
‘I’ll only sleep in my bed if you sleep in my bed.’
I snorted. ‘Nice try, Abel.’
‘But seriously. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve shared a bed. And that was a single.’
My mind travelled back to the last night in our cabin and how my body had lit up like a Christmas tree to be in such proximity to him. At that point, I had found him attractive on a physical level and appreciated his good company. Now … God, now, things were so much worse.
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’
‘It’s a king-sized bed, Mary. I would literally not touch you.’
The idea tugged at something inside me. But I didn’t know how to trust my brain anymore.
My iron discipline hadn’t served me so well in recent times and my decision-making capacity didn’t seem as robust as I’d always thought.
My logical thoughts got ready to battle with my inner desires, which were saying, Sleep beside Abel, smell him, be close to him, be comforted by him, and suddenly I caved.
‘Okay. Let’s both sleep in your bed.’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he said with a feigned expression of surprised delight.
‘Careful,’ I said with a warning finger. ‘I’m not at my strongest point right now.’
‘I’m kidding. I won’t touch you. Promise.’
I hesitated. All my things were there – my toiletries in his bathroom, my clothes in his room. ‘Is it okay if I use your bathroom?’
‘Of course.’
I walked up the stairs and changed into my pyjamas and brushed my teeth. I was so tired, my heart still sore, and the sight of Abel’s beautiful room and beautiful bed was at this point completely irresistible. I climbed into the sheets and it felt like heaven.
Abel was only a few minutes behind me. I heard the lights click off downstairs and I didn’t even need to ask him to keep the stairwell light on for Ebony and the kids in case they needed to use the downstairs bathroom in the night.
It was such a banal but lovely feeling to have someone else closing the house down for the night when I was already tucked in.
Growing up, or even with Felix, I was usually the last one awake.
The one who made sure the doors were locked and the oven was off and the lights were out.
It was strange how cared for I felt to have someone else do those things.
Abel pulled the bedding back on his side and slipped in. The bedside lamp was still on and his face glowed warm and soft. He tucked himself in, mirroring my position: on his side facing me, with the covers up around his chin. To his word, his body didn’t touch mine.
‘Hey,’ he whispered.
‘Hey.’
‘Are you okay?’
There was something about low lighting, whispered conversations, bed sheets around your cheeks. There was a reason that all sorts of things were shared in these situations. Something safe, separate from the world.
‘Not really.’
‘What happened?’
‘Ebony and I had a fight. We’ve barely spoken all week.’
‘Really?’
‘You were right. About the Felix thing, when you said that a sister would want to know. She was angry with me. I mean, really, so furious. And hurt. She thinks I baby her and don’t treat her as an equal.’
I told him about what had been said. I felt my throat getting tight and I wondered if I was going to cry again. I didn’t know if I even had the energy to stop it.
‘Oh, Mary.’ He reached out a hand and cupped my cheek, his thumb brushing the skin beneath my eye where the tears had overflowed and were falling towards the bed. ‘Sorry. Breach of physical contact. Okay?’
I smiled. ‘Yeah. Okay.’
‘And how do you feel?’
‘Really confused, Abel. I’ve tried so hard to protect her my whole life.
And maybe she’s right. Maybe I haven’t treated her as an equal.
But only because I love her so much. I’d be willing to sacrifice everything for her.
And to hear she doesn’t want that is completely disorientating. I have no idea where that leaves me.’
‘Because it means you have to think about what you want?’
Echoes of our conversation at the top of the Hartz Mountain resurfaced in my brain.
Was I missing something? Was everyone seeing something in my behaviour that I wasn’t?
‘Are you going to say I told you so? I don’t think I can hear that right now.’ I was already getting defensive.
‘No.’ Something brushed over his features. Frustration, maybe? ‘I’m not trying to catch you out, Mary.’
‘But you agree with her.’
‘It sounds like what was said was unnecessarily harsh. And I doubt she meant it entirely that way.’
I waited. There was definitely a but.
‘But the bit about putting other people’s needs and wants in front of your own I think will need examining at some point. I see that in you, Mary. You do that. And you’re so good at it that I think you almost don’t know what it is that you want.’
I tried to think of something to say to dispute it, but it was true.
‘Sometimes I see glimpses of you wanting something, and I almost think you’re going to give yourself permission to grasp it, but then it’s squashed again.’
I wondered if I was going to have a fight with Abel now as well, but there was too much kindness in his eyes. I felt my face twist, emotion wringing me out. ‘I’m so confused.’
‘Oh, honey.’ He crossed the divide between us, one arm coming beneath me and the other pulling me towards him until I was completely within his hold, my head on his chest, my arm encircling him.
He held me tight, his thumbs brushing at my skin. Tears oozed from my eyes onto his chest.
‘We’ll work it out, hey? Remember the climbing? How amazing you felt when you stepped out of your comfort zone, when you trusted yourself in the unknown? You can do that. I know you can.’
He squeezed me tighter and almost pushed the tension out of my body.
There was a lot I didn’t know. A lot of things in my life I had no idea how to navigate. But I knew one thing.
I wanted Abel. Like nothing else I’d ever wanted before.
I wanted Abel.