Chapter 9 Jules “Hey Ya” #4
Above, she hears the sound of Adam singing out of tune to the kids—“Mr. Brightside,” by the Killers, that new band he likes.
Jules sits at the kitchen table, cross that he’s geeing them up just when she’d got them to bed.
If he’s going to insist on music, why not sing lullabies?
She resents that they find him so much more fun than her.
It’s not fair that she’s done all the donkey work, and he gets to swan in and claim all the glory.
Gripping the stem of her wineglass, she knows she should start tidying away the toys strewn across the kitchen floor, wash the pan, and clear the scattered pieces of pesto-covered fusilli on the table, but she deserves to sit still for a moment.
“You said you’d be back earlier,” she says accusingly, as Adam appears in the kitchen doorway.
“Sorry. Couldn’t shut Darius up.” Adam opens the fridge and takes out a beer. “What’s wrong, baby? Rough day?”
I marvel at the sight of him. He’s so vital. So in his prime. He’s filled out since he was in his twenties, but he’s still slim and strong, his face unlined, although it won’t be long before the beers start to show on his belly. I’m so used to him as he is now, I’d forgotten how attractive he was.
He comes over, hauling Jules off her chair. To her—to us both—he feels so familiar, so much like home, that the resentment she’s feeling clashes with the relief of being held in his arms. While I’m positively ogling his strong pecs.
“Guess what? I made you a tape,” he says, brandishing the very same tape we just put on in the shed. She takes it, her heart melting at this most-needed peace offering.
“You haven’t named it,” she says.
“Okay, so let’s call it Bath Time Mix,” he suggests, grabbing a pen from the pot.
He writes on the case and then puts it on.
“Hey Ya!” starts playing, and now, impossible to still be in a bad mood, with the wine softening her edges, he pulls her up off the chair and into his arms, and they dance in the kitchen, Adam playfully kicking the toys into the corner as part of the dance.
But he knows her too well. She’s not fully giving herself to him. He slows down, swaying gently against her, and listens as she recounts her day. How it’s so difficult to get anything done. How she’s knackered. All. The. Bloody. Time.
“And I got an email from Rob,” she tells him, which is, after all, the reason she’s in such a blue funk.
“You know, the chef that went out to Sydney? He’s working in this amazing restaurant right on the beach called Bathers’ Pavilion.
He says there’s a perfect job for me, but starting, like, right now. And we’re nowhere near ready to go.”
Adam listens and nods, understanding.
“And it just feels…so frustrating. It’s like there’s a whole other life out there, just waiting, and we can’t get there, you know?”
“But we will. It’s just a matter of time. It won’t be long. It will happen. I promise.”
As she looks at his face, she can see—and I can see—how much he means it. That he’ll do anything to make this wish of hers come true.
I should be happy, like she’s now happy.
But suddenly all I’m thinking is, Nooooooooooo.
My urge to put a stop to the Australian plan right here and right now is unbearably strong because it’s doomed.
If they go to Australia, Adam’s parents will die and there’ll be years of resentment and regrets.
Whereas I could just impose myself. Call his dad. Somehow warn him. Change the past.
Make a new future for us all.
I know I shouldn’t—that Adam would be furious if I did—but what if this is actually the right thing to do?
But it’s too late already, as once more that tornado whips up around me, and heaves me back out…
***
My eyes spring open in the shed and I sit for a second, shell-shocked. Something inside me feels like it’s breaking.
“What is it?” Adam asks, holding my hand as a torrent of tears is unleashed. I can’t speak. “What happened?” Adam kneels in front of me, but I shake my head. “You…you haven’t changed anything, have you?”
No. And that’s the point. His mum and dad are still going to die. Already have. Are dead. But it’s not just that, is it? It’s everything. It’s all those feelings following me back here. As real as they were then.
“I was a shit mother,” I sob. “I was so selfish and mean and horrible to them.”
This hideous weight of shame and regret feels too much.
“But you didn’t change anything?” he repeats, missing the point.
And for once I haven’t, but suddenly I hate him, for all of this. For making me remember everything that was safer to forget. For smashing my rose-tinted spectacles. I’ve never felt less sure of who I am, or what we’ve become, than I do right now.
But perhaps Adam can read my despairing look, because he reaches forward and cups my cheek. “You weren’t a bad mother,” he says, pressing his forehead against mine. “Not once.”
“I was,” I protest. “You should have seen me. I was bad-tempered and impatient and—”
“It was just a bad day,” he soothes as I cling on to him, like he’s a buoy in the middle of the ocean, because that’s how I feel. Lost. At sea.
“We don’t have to go back,” he says. “Not if it’s upsetting you.”
I can’t believe he means this. But he does. He really would give all this up, for me.
Only instead of feeling gratitude, I feel panicked, right to my core. To give this up. To be without this. Because we need it, don’t we? Isn’t this what’s making us better, what’s making us happy again?
I wipe my eyes on the cuff of my sleeve. “No, it’s okay,” I tell him, because however awful that just was, in equal measure it was still wonderful too, wasn’t it? Seeing the kids. Those gorgeous little people who once belonged to me.
“I’m okay. Honestly. It was just…intense.”
Adam smiles at me gently. He puts his hands on his back and stretches, and then I laugh, spotting the crumbs all over his hoodie and noticing he’s eaten all the crisps.
Calming down, letting the wine soothe me, we chat more about bath time 2004, but I don’t mention our Australia chat afterward, since I know it will rake up too many emotions and, like me, he’d only want to fix it.
“What about you?” I say eventually. “You’re not put off? Do you still want to go again?”
He doesn’t even need to answer. I can already see it in his face. He’s every bit as addicted as me.