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‘I hated it too. I could taste him. It was foul.’ She brushed her fingers over her knees. ‘I felt guilty about him. Not then. Later. When he came home from rehab with Aunt Bea and I realised he was different. I was relieved and it made me feel awful. He was nice and I should have been sorry about the accident but I couldn’t help being happy he was changed. I had the twins to worry about by then. I couldn’t have risked them if he was like he was before the accident.’
‘I wondered if I could have done more. For him and for Brittany. I was planning on being a doctor. I should have been able to do something.’
‘But you weren’t a doctor. You hadn’t done more than your first aid training, same as me, plus eighteen months of your science degree.’
‘That’s what … what everyone told me. It still bothered me.’
She was so close. He wanted to reach out and touch her. Needed to comfort her. To be comforted. He’d lost the right when he’d rejected her all those years ago. He’d lost it when he’d been too cowardly to come home and face her. Too ashamed.
‘Tell me about the twins. They were early, weren’t they?’ He’d known the date and at the time it had proved to him Becca’s baby couldn’t be his. If he’d known she had twins would he have figured it out? It was stupid trying to second guess the past. His head had been in a different space back then. Trying to justify his actions. His failures.
‘Almost six weeks early. They came fast. They tell you the first birth takes ages. Not with my two. Doctor Farrell said they must have had roller skates.’
Doctor Farrell. Those cryptic remarks made sense now. ‘Was it a hard labour?’
‘I remember I was terrified. Not the pain so much. Edward was a bit sluggish which worried them and they flew him to Brisbane to the ICU. Gabby was better but they decided to send her down too.’
‘You should have let me know then. I could have come visit.’
‘Your mother said you still had exams.’ She tilted her face up, her eyes scrutinising him. Accusing him. ‘Would you have come?’
Would he have come? Maybe to get a glimpse of Becca. But to see the twins? ‘I don’t know. I was pretty mixed up.’
They’d said it was exam fatigue and his parents had forcibly taken him away on holidays. A complete break.Breakdown?Maybe it was after then when his mother had made her agreement with Becca. She’d been horrified at his mental state. Ashamed too. As if his weakness somehow tarnished her.
Becca picked up his sweater and folded it. It was a strangely maternal thing to do and the grip on his heart tightened painfully. Her small hand with its competent fingers and short practical nails smoothed over the wool of the jumper. He caught a drift of her scent. It reminded him of his mother’s garden.
Sweet peas and pinks. His mother called them dianthus, but Morgan liked the cottagey sound of pinks. Sweet with a touch of cloves. Still the same as years ago.
She’d been grubby a lot as a kid, much to his mother’s disgust, but once she was in her teens she became fanatical about cleanliness. Her clothes may have been shabby, but they were always clean and she smelled sweet. He sucked in another taste of her, hoping for more of a reaction. Nothing. But he liked it anyway. It brought back good memories.
Her voice was almost tentative. ‘I have heaps of photos of the twins on my computer. From when they were babies. I could give you copies.’
‘I’d like to have them.’Love to have them.
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. Even though he knew they needed to talk about the future. Maybe it would be easier now they’d touched on the past.
‘Morgan? Was there anyone special for you? While you were away.’
Anyone special? He tried to think back over the years. They’d been empty years on the personal front. Full and sometimes satisfying on the professional side of things. Sometimes terrifying. Sometimes dreadful. Too much death. He wouldn’t be going back. He’d been kidding himself to think he could spend three years recuperating and then fling himself back into it. It was emotionally draining. Physically exhausting. He also had children to consider now.
‘No. No-one special.’ It would be pointless to lie. Only the truth would serve to build the kind of understanding they’d need to co-parent the twins. Most of the truth. Some things he couldn’t share. The pain bit into his chest and he sucked in a calming breath.
‘Me neither.’ She shifted on the bed, somehow coming closer. ‘I did date a few people. You know what it’s like, people trying to set up the single parents. I pretty much know who all the single dads are in town.’
Morgan didn’t like that. Then it hit him. ‘I’m a single dad now. I guess. Does that mean the matchmakers will be out in force?’ He was still getting used to it. Father to twins.
‘Maybe.’ A wry smile curled her mouth. ‘Unless you find yourself someone quick smart.’
A faint recollection nudged at him. ‘What did you mean when you said “people like you”?’
A flush darkened her cheekbones. ‘What you said when we broke up. That people like me shouldn’t expect too much. That we were bound to be disappointed. It’s true. You only have to look at my family.’
‘I didn’t mean it.’
He’d said it. It was funny. Not in the laughing sense. Many things over the last twelve years were hazy, but some things from before stood out with an almost cinematic clarity. The night of the accident, the scene of carnage he and Becca had come across an hour after the confrontation with Dan. The oh so cool and rational Morgan Cavanaugh had been a mess, hardly sane afterwards. Yet every word, every action was blazoned on his memory.
He’d been angry then, believing Dan’s assertions that hot little Becca had turned to him for sex while Morgan had been away at university. Unconsciously he’d borrowed his mother’s language to put Becca in her place.
