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‘I need you,’ he said again, his hand on her shoulder, turning her slowly around, but his strong features blurred through her tear-filled eyes.
‘No, Rico,’ Catherine said softly. ‘We lost our baby tonight and still you didn’t come to me. If you need me so much, why weren’t you there?’
‘There were reasons, Catherine, and if you will give me a moment I will explain them to you…’
‘I’m tired of your excuses, Rico—tired of the reasons you conjure up to hide your heart from the world. So I’m going, Rico, because I can’t live like this for a moment longer. I can’t live in a marriage that isn’t about love, and despite what you say, despite the contempt you regard it with, I still believe in love, still believe in the fairytale. Still believe that one day I will be loved as I deserve to be loved.’
‘Then stay.’ His words were ragged
as he followed her to the stairwell, pulled at her jacket in a desperate attempt to stall her. ‘Hear what I have to say before you walk out on us…’ He grabbed at her handbag as she started to descend the stairs, urgency in his voice, haste in his actions as he tried to reach out to her.
‘Rico, please.’ She was pulling at her bag now, in a futile tug of war, tears blurring her vision, her head dizzy with emotion. She wrenched it away, the sudden jolt as he let go was all it took for her to lose her footing, and the banister was out of reach as her flailing arm reached for it.
‘Catherine!’ His shout was one of pure anguish, but his reflexes were like lightning. Instinctively he reached out and pulled her back from the brink, grabbing her into the safety of his embrace—the only thing that stopped her from toppling the dangerous length of the stairwell. As she looked up through startled eyes she registered the horror in his expression at her near fall, and their chests rose and fell in unison as the shock of what had nearly taken place dawned.
It was Rico who recovered first, his voice ragged, his breathing rapid, still holding her trembling body in his arms, still somehow protecting her even as he finally let her go.
‘Is that how badly you want to leave, Catherine? That you would throw yourself down the stairs rather than stay and talk to me?’
She hadn’t been throwing herself down the stairs, it would have been a simple accident, but she chose not to correct him. A metaphorical door was opening, and Catherine chose to go through it.
‘I’ll leave in an ambulance if that’s what it takes, but I am going, Rico.’
‘I’m not your jailer Catherine.’ There was a curious dignity in his voice as he stared down at her, a wounded pride in his manner now he had released her from his arms. ‘This was never how it was supposed to be.’
‘I know that,’ she whispered through pale, trembling lips, then walked slowly down the stairwell, unhindered physically, but with every cell in her body begging her to stay, to return to all she loved. She turned to him with tear-filled eyes, trying to block out Lily’s sobs but failing to do so. ‘Tell Lily I do love her. I’ll call.’
‘When?’
She shook her head, too raw to contemplate a future when she could see Rico without breaking down, share in her niece’s birthdays and milestones without dying a little inside for all she had lost.
‘I don’t know, Rico.’ She stared up at him, this haughty, brooding man she had loved—yes, loved—from the second she had laid eyes on him. A difficult, complicated man who simply couldn’t lower his guard, a man with a brilliant mind who couldn’t get his head around something as simple as love, and the distance between them, the safety of the front door open in her hands gave her the strength to finally speak the truth. ‘You were right to be suspicious of Antonia, Rico, and you were right about Janey. But you were so very wrong about me. I never wanted this house, Rico, never wanted the servants or the cars. I love you. The only thing I wanted out of this marriage was you, and it was the one thing you weren’t prepared to give, the one thing that wasn’t up for negotiation. Well, I can’t do it—I can’t live in a marriage that looks good on paper; I can’t survive in a marriage without love.’
‘Catherine, please!’ He was bounding down the stairs three and four at a time, taking the impressive stairwell in barely a stride, but she was too quick for him, slipping out of the heavy door like a thief in the night and then slamming it closed.
He didn’t follow.
She’d never really expected him to.
It had all just been a game.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EXHAUSTION, grief, pain—they had no meaning now. It was as if she had somehow passed through a barrier and come out the other side, numb, almost without emotion, as if Rico had wrung every last drop out of her and left her with a curious void that must surely be her life now—an empty, dark abyss where her heart and her spirit used to reside.
She drove aimlessly, taking the beach road from the city and heading along the horseshoe of Port Phillip Bay, watching the still, inky water. The same moon that had drifted past her window was like a glitter ball above the water, and the stars danced around, inviting her to step out and take in their grandeur, but for a while she ignored the call, driving with more purpose. Her journey had meaning now, and she acknowledged the magnet that had drawn her here. The grief that had never really been explored was a festering wound that needed to be lanced if ever she were to find peace…
Pulling her car in amongst the tea trees, she gazed at the tombstones silhouetted in the moonlight, then wandered through the stony paths till she came to the soft mound of earth that was Janey’s. The funeral flowers had long since died, but a fresh sprig lay on top, beautiful in its simplicity, and sinking to her knees she fingered the warm soil, ran her fingers along the petals of the flowers. She pulled the card out and read it, and her heart seemed to split in two.
Sleep peacefully
We will do our best for Lily
Rico and Catherine.
The fact he had been there, that the detached, distant Rico had been to Janey’s grave, blurred the edges of her reality. He had spoken on behalf of them both, signed her name, promising to do their best for a child left alone, and it tore at her very being.
The tears that had always been there were given permission to fall then, and she sobbed into the lonely darkness, her wails guttural, primitive as she wept for the beautiful sister she had lost, the sister taken too soon, wept for the parents she would always miss and for the baby she would never hold.
