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“Not about anything that matters,” he countered.
And she couldn’t argue with him on that. It was true — much of their conversation was about the kids, or the house, or his work, or her latest recipe. When had they stopped communicating like soul mates? Like two people who were deeply in love. Probably around the same time he started his affair.
And then he was gone. He didn’t kiss her goodbye or call back over his shoulder with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes the way he usually did. He simply shut the door behind him and walked away, pulling his little wheelie bag behind him. It thunked down the stairs, and Bea watched through the glass strip beside the front door. Tears streamed down her cheeks—she didn’t bother to hold them back.
How could her marriage be over so suddenly? Perhaps they weren’t communicating or connecting the way they used to — but that’s why marriage was described as work. You were supposed to put in the time and effort to reconnect and build that communication if it dipped. He wasn’t doing the work. He was walking away with a newer, younger model.
They were having a baby — starting a whole new family together. No doubt he’d spend Christmas with her and her child, not with Beatrice and their grown children. He’d watch his baby take his first steps and snap a hundred photographs a day, just like they had with their own children. It seemed so unfair to her that he could have an affair, walk away tearing her family apart and immediately acquire a brand new family of his own. He wouldn’t be alone. He wouldn’t be without a family, but now that the children had left home Beatrice would live on her own with no one to care for and no one to love her.
The car parked in front of her house was a sporty red BMW. She vaguely recalled seeing a payment to a BMW dealership on a credit card statement months earlier. But Preston had waved off her questions with a story about a mistaken transaction that he’d deal with the next day. It’d seemed odd at the time, but she’d trusted him completely. She didn’t pay the credit card bill—he did. She always looked it over, though, so she could mark in the margin what each of her own personal expenses were so he could log them meticulously in the accounting software he used to track their finances. She’d never even logged onto the software before. He took care of all their finances, and she’d never had reason to question that.
She wiped her cheeks dry and went into the kitchen to pay the wait staff. Then she took a final glance around the house at the carnage the party had inflicted on her perfectly styled home and climbed the stairs for bed. The mess would still be there in the morning, and she didn’t have even the slightest energy left to deal with anything more that night. Once in their bedroom, though, she found she couldn’t face sleeping in the king-sized bed, and instead crashed on the couch in the living room.
The next morning, Bea woke on the couch. Her neck had a crick in it from having her head turned to one side for most of the night. When she looked in the mirror, there was a seam crease down one cheek from the couch cushion. And her heels were covered in blisters from the stilettos she’d worn during the party. She hadn’t noticed the pain at the time, but now the blisters were excruciating, and one had burst in the night and felt raw.
As she splashed water on her face, she heard her mobile phone ring. She hurried to answer it and saw that it was Danita.
“Hi, honey,” she said.
“Mum, I’m surprised you’re up. I was going to leave you a voicemail.”
“It’s not early, is it?” Bea replied, squinting at her watch. She’d have to find her glasses so she could see what time it was but couldn’t remember where on earth she’d left them in the craziness of the party the previous night.
“Yes, but I’m sure you were up late cleaning. I know you—there’s no way you could’ve gone to bed in a mess. Did Dad crash as soon as the last guest walked out and leave you to do the clean-up all on your own, as usual?” Danita often criticised the way her father treated Bea. In the past, it’d warmed Bea’s heart to know that her only daughter cared enough to notice the little things. But now it made her grimace.
Danita might make jabs about her dad, but she adored him. She’d always been Daddy’s little girl, and even now she called him regularly to talk about whatever was going on in her life. He had plenty of time for his children now they were grown. They were his priority — it’s what he always said, but in reality he’d prioritised work, or his own activities, over them for much of their childhood. It was a shame Bea hadn’t been his priority in recent years like she was early in their marriage. Maybe things would’ve worked out differently.
“Actually, you’ll be pleased to know I went right to bed and left everything for today. Thankfully, the waiters put the food away and washed the dishes before they left.”
“Wow, Mum — I’m impressed. Maybe you’re growing.” Danita laughed.
“Or just getting old.”
“That too. Hey, I want to talk to you about something. And I don’t want you to get upset.”
“Okay.” This didn’t sound promising. Whenever Danita had something she needed to discuss, it usually involved a large amount of money leaving Bea’s bank account.
“You know I’ve been struggling with my social work degree. The more I study, the more I realise it isn’t for me.”
“Yes, but we talked about this. You should finish the degree and have the qualifications behind you before you look for something else to do. You need a degree, Dani.”
Bea pulled on a pair of tracksuit pants and a jumper, then ran a brush through her hair, the phone on speaker beside her.
“I know that’s what you suggested, but I don’t feel right about it. Every semester costs a fortune, and I don’t want to make you and Dad pay for something that I’m never going to use. I need some time to think about what I want to do with my life.”
Bea took the phone off speaker and pressed it to her ear as she walked downstairs. “You let me and Dad worry about your tuition. I’m afraid if you take time off from study, you’ll lose your momentum. It’s really easy to get caught up in the busyness of life and forget or not have an opportunity to go back and finish your qualifications. You might meet someone, fall in love and have a baby, and then your career will go right out the window.”
“That was your experience, Mum. It won’t be mine. I’ll get a degree, I promise. But I’ve already withdrawn from next semester.”
Bea gasped. “What? Why would you do that without telling me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
Bea slumped onto a stool at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach. Her husband had left her. Now Danita had dropped out of university. What else could go wrong? “What will you do? Because I can tell you right now, I’m not going to pay for you to swan around Sydney with your friends.”
“I know that, Mum. I’ve already spoken to Pa about moving to Coral Island.”
“What?” Her father rarely spoke to any of her family. She hadn’t been to see him in three years. And now he was offering to house her grown child?
