Chapter 10
I’ve been digging for hours now and found nothing.
Chris hovers beside me, passing me a water bottle like I’m a long-distance runner.
My body burns, my hands sting. Finally, it’s Chris’s turn.
He starts a new hole ten feet from mine.
I brush the sweat from my forehead, leaving a streak of dirt on my face.
I lower myself to the ground, watching him silently.
“Good day for it.”
He scoops the soil up, pauses. “Huh?”
“Grave digging.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” he says, throwing the dirt to the side. He straightens up, stretches his back. “This whole thing…” He doesn’t finish the thought. But I know. This whole thing is nuts. All of it.
“Yeah,” I say, “I know.”
But maybe…maybe if I find Donny and give his family closure, maybe it’ll heal me. Maybe that ghost world of mine will finally stop following me. Coward.
He drops the shovel, cracks his neck, pausing. “I’ve been wanting to say something all morning…”
He pulls his phone from his pocket and stares down at it, frowning. This can’t be good. I get to my feet and reach for the shovel.
“You see the Mill today?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Can’t say I read that shit anymore.” I throw the dirt to the side. “Not since I left. Surprised you do, to be honest.” I look up. “Why?”
He hesitates, and my heart drops. Oh shit. Of course. If there’s one thing the Mill loves more than pert stomachs or botched cosmetic surgeries, it’s D-list breakups.
Like mine.
“Let me guess…” I say wearily. “My fiancé announced the tragic end of our relationship today?”
He nods, embarrassed. “Sorry,” he says automatically. “I didn’t realize…”
“Yes, you did.”
“I didn’t want to ask.”
“Yes, you did.”
Chris clears his throat. “You want me to read what he said?”
I shrug. “Sure.”
“Sorry,” he says again, and he actually does sound sincere. “Someone sent it to me. You know how it is.”
I do. Everyone in the business is in a bitchy group chat, and there’s always some shit-stirrer starting messages with, Have you heard…
Dan from the ABC is having angry bangs with Maya from Channel 10?
Amanda from Channel 7 got her boobs done in Turkey?
Oliver the weather guy and Melanie from Morning, Sunshine! split up?
I stare into the hole. “Go on.”
Chris stands solemn at my side. “ ‘After much thought and careful consideration,’ ” Chris reads, “ ‘Melanie and I have made the difficult decision to end our relationship. We go forward with love and friendship for each other as we venture toward new horizons…’ ”
New horizons!
I snort, plunging the shovel back into the soil. “That it?”
“Uh…no.” Chris hesitates. “He added a hashtag.”
“Go on, then,” I say, tipping my head back to the sky. “What does it say?”
Chris clears his throat. “ ‘Hashtag thesunkeepsrising.’ ” He clicks his phone off. “I take it you didn’t have a hand in writing that heartwarming statement?”
I give Chris an exasperated look. No, I didn’t write that shit. But Oliver definitely did. It reeks of him. I can imagine him, sitting up until late, thinking, How can I make this sound better? How can I still be the good guy here?
“Are you going to release a statement of your own?”
“No.”
From somewhere far away comes Chris’s voice. “Do you think you’ll get engaged again?”
“Right now, I’d rather die.”
“Why’d you say yes, then?” he prods.
God, my hands sting. My back, my neck. My heart feels like it’s rotting in my rib cage.
“Why would I tell you that? So you can get the scoop?” I loosen my sweaty grip on the shovel and face him. “So you can go back to the Daily and the Mill and tell them all the shit I said about Oliver?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“I think you would.”
I tilt my head all the way back to stretch my neck. For a long time, we stay that way.
Until he speaks. “Linda dumped me.”
Slowly, I lower my head and stare at him. I’ve met his girlfriend a handful of times. Schoolteacher. Blunt fringe, shockingly calm. Her iPhone wallpaper was a cartoon llama, pink bow in its springy hair.
He won’t meet my eyes, stares at his shoes instead, plucking at a lace. “It came outta nowhere,” he says dully.
“Chris.”
Slowly, he looks up. His eyes are unsteady, nervous. Embarrassed.
“It never comes out of nowhere.”
He exhales in a huff. “And here I thought you were going to say something nice.”
“How long were you together?”
“Three years.”
I sink the shovel into the dirt. “What changed?”
“She did.”
“Why?”
He snorts. “I’m used to asking all the questions.”
Maybe that’s why she left you.
I dig silently, deeper and deeper.
“She’s dating the PE teacher.” He looks down at his shoes again, frowning. “I always hated that guy.”
The soil is hard and rocky, and the walls begin to collapse and cave in, forcing me to bend and half squat.
I use my entire body to push the shovel into the ground.
The repetitive motions of lifting and moving the soil strain my arms, back, and legs.
Still, I dig. What is it about this that makes it so confessional?
That makes even a man like Chris Cooper let go and unload?
“I call her sometimes,” he says plainly. “She won’t answer.”
“Why not?”
“I dunno.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“For heaven’s sake,” he finally groans. “Let me dig.”
“I’m fine—”
“No,” he says so abruptly that I stop and look up. “I just…” He looks away. “I need to do something.”
I throw him the shovel, and he heaves it into the dirt, grunting.
“I feel like shit about it,” I finally say. “The Oliver thing…it got ugly.”
“Fine line between love and hate,” he agrees.
“Yeah,” I say, looking up at the tea trees. “But sometimes it feels like there’s too much ugliness. Like it always wins out.”
He sighs heavily. “I know.” He stops to wipe his forehead with his sleeve. “I’ve been an investigative journalist for seventeen years now…” His voice trails off. “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve heard. And seen.”
He starts digging again. “But then one day I thought, well, maybe we need the ugliness. Maybe it’s there so we don’t take the good things for granted. When I used to get all angry and depressed, Linda would say, ‘Look harder. Look for the good. It’s still there.’ ”
“She’s a keeper,” I tell him.
“It’s over. She’s made that clear,” he says grimly before hesitating. “…She said I cared more about my work than her.”
“Oh,” I say, finally understanding. “Do you think that’s true?”
“No,” he mumbles. “…Yes.”
I nod, waiting.
“I’m an idiot, I know…” He throws all his weight into digging, like he wants to bury himself down there.
“I love my dad, but…he was a journo, too, you know? He broke the Lawyer F story. Made his career. And I…” He frowns, digging harder, sweat breaking out on his brow. “Well, I’m still making mine.”
“If it helps,” I offer, “I have no idea what the Lawyer F story is.”
“Police corruption, Sydney-wide.” He raises an eyebrow. “You haven’t heard of it?”
I shake my head.
“Lucky you,” he says, grunting as he digs deeper.
“Sometimes when I talk to my dad, he doesn’t quite seem to be listening.
Like every time I speak, he’s hearing something else from far away.
Something more important than me.” He hesitates.
“Sometimes when I finish talking, he gives me a distracted nod, like, Oh, you’ve stopped talking then? Good.”
“I do that with you, too.”
He cracks a small smile.
“You’ve still got time, Chris. We both do.”
“You sure about that?” He stares down at the dirt, grim-faced and silent, like something’s been taken from him and he doesn’t know how to get it back.
I squint and see him, the real Chris Cooper, wondering why it’s taken me this long.
He’s haunted by past failures, still trying, desperately, to prove he’s worth something.
Why do I get the feeling that he just needs someone, anyone, to say, “You did good. You matter.”
“Yeah,” I lie, “I am.”