Secrets [5] Echoes: Part One (14 page)

“I’m not. I’m just not sleeping beside you.”

“Okay, I get it. I’m the bad guy. But I’m not, nor have I ever been, the kind of man that will see a girl in your condition sleep on the floor.”

“You object to it enough that you’d be willing to sleep beside a girl you hate then?”

He flopped back, tucking his arms behind his head. “I’ve been subjected to worse.”

I rolled my eyes and laid down on the floor again. “Goodnight, David.”

“You really are a stubborn little cow, Ara,” he said, suddenly above me.

“What are you doing?” I practically squealed as he tucked his hands under my body and lifted me from the ground.

“Stopping you from being sore in the morning.” He walked over and dumped me heavily on the bed. “Now go to sleep.”

“No, you can’t tell me what to—” I started, but the door closed behind him, and his pillow was gone when I looked beside me.

***

The rich fragrance of brewing coffee and hot toast wafted up the stairway as I left the bedroom, carrying with it the familiar sound of Vicki’s voice and parts of the hushed conversation she was having with David. The hour was still new enough that even Sam hadn’t surfaced and the dawn shadows still owned the hallway, but I felt rested and somewhat renewed
—maybe even a little more prepared for today than I thought I’d be.

I looked at Dad’s door for a second longer than usual before heading down the stairs, taking a left instead of a right, then hiding beside the archway while I listened to what they were saying.

David muttered a quiet good morning in his thoughts, acknowledging my presence, but I stayed hidden anyway. Vicki had a point to make in what she was saying, and she hadn’t gotten to it yet. I could tell from the tone of her voice.

“I just don’t think it’s all that comfortable on a sofa,” she added.

David sniffed once, ruffling about, his voice muffled under what I assumed was his shirt. “You know Ara. She’s a bed-hog at the best of times. Put a baby in her belly and suddenly she’s got six limbs that need to touch all four corners of the bed.”

Vicki laughed. “Well, as long as you’re sure everything’s all right.”

“It is, Vicki,” David reassured her in a very soft, very honest tone.

“Well. Okay then,” she said, but she didn’t believe him, which meant it was time for me to enter and help smooth things over. I even rubbed my eyes for good measure, as if I’d just stumbled, half asleep, down the stairs.

“Oh.” Vicki gasped, steadying the teapot she was carrying as it nearly crashed in to my belly. “Morning, Ara.”

“Morning,” I muttered grumpily.

“Ooh, I remember, crabby bear in the morning. I’ll get you some coffee.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Vicki stopped though, instead of walking away, and leaned a bit closer. “Is … everything all right with you and David?”

“Yeah, why?” I said too casually.

She lowered her voice a little more. “You two don’t look at each other the way you used to.”

I glanced over at David, who shrugged back at me, offering an impromptu smile. “We’re just going through a rough patch, Mom. But we really are okay.”

Her sudden frown dissolved as she nodded. “First year of marriage is always the hardest. If you can survive that, you can survive anything.”

The light coming through the dining room window cast a long shadow of Vicki that stayed beside me even as she walked toward the kitchen. She knew things weren't okay with David and I, but I was pretty sure now she assumed it was fi
rst-year marital creases, simply in need of some ironing. If only I could purchase that kind of iron at my local electronics store.

David’s gaze met with mine when I stopped at the entrance to the sitting room, locking that way for a while, neither of us sharing any thoughts or giving any indication of our emotions
—just looking into each other across the open space, frozen in our own problematic minds.

“She’s right,” he said suddenly.

“About?”

“We need to be more convincing.”

“Why?”

“Because she needs us to be okay right now, Ara.”

“Why?”

He sighed, looking down as he crossed his ankle over his knee. “Because I can read her mind. Your dad was all she had—all she ever had. Now, all she has is you and Sam. She just needs you to be okay so she doesn’t have to worry about you so much.”

My shoulders dropped with the weight of some new guilt. David was right. It wasn’t about what was happening between he and I right now. What mattered was being here to help Vicki and support her through this tough time because, truth of it all, I still had people left who cared. She’d just lost the only man she ever loved.

“How can we be more convincing then?” I strolled over and sat on the arm of the sofa just beside him. “I mean, I can't just make myself stop hating you.”

“And I can’t touch you without hating myself,” he said flatly, then looked up at me. “But we’ve no choice.”

My eyes fell upon the back of his hand, resting casually over his knee, and for a moment I thought about maybe reaching out to hold it. I knew what it’d feel like. I knew how his fingers would fold around mine, hold them just tight enough to keep me in place but not tight enough to hurt. But the memory of his gentle ways and sweet touch was poisoned now by the cruel hands that ripped that wedding album away from me and the
cold eyes that penetrated me with resentment until, no matter what I felt about him, all I could see when I looked at him was a man I despised.

“Suck all that up, Ara,” he said, faking a strained grunt as he wrapped my waist, sweeping me down into his lap. “At least when she’s looking.”

I went to check over my shoulder, but he shook his head.

She’s watching us now?
I thought.

He nodded, so I snuggled down and curled up into a ball in his lap, resting my head neatly under his jaw to hide the obvious truth I knew Vicki would see on my face. There were mixed feelings in being this close, mainly because it was what I once thought I wanted and, as my skin touched his for the first time in so long, I felt that part of me—the part that loved him no matter what—die away a bit more when realisation set in. This wasn’t what I wanted. Not at all. It actually felt really uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than if he was just a friend.

I focused hard on the gristly stubble pressing into my brow, willing it to ground me so I didn’t jump out of his lap and skit across the room like I’d just touched a spider. All those predatory warnings that radiated off his species like a flare were no longer appealing. My mind and body finally understood what he was: a beast.

“Is she gone yet?” I asked.

“Not yet,” he whispered. “She’s sitting at the table—texting someone.”

I groaned.

“So … how did things go with Jason last night?” he asked quietly, sweeping a few strands of my hair away from his lip.

“What do you mean, David? What are you
really
asking? Did we have sex? Did we—”

“No.” He closed his eyes until the sudden rush of heat in him simmered down. “I meant … he helped you, right?”

“Helped me what?”

“Just
…” He sat up a little, readjusting me in his lap so my butt bone sat more between his thighs instead of
on
one. “He’s good with things like that.”

“Things like what?”

“Grief.” He cleared his throat. “He’s good at … talking.”

“Oh.” I nodded, thinking about the calm I found in the comfort of a good friend. “Yeah. He is.”

“And you … you feel better—even just a bit?”

“Yeah.” I exhaled the surfacing guilt again. “I don’t feel quite so … hopeless.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes glazing over a little as they landed like empty pools on something across the room.

“He’ll be at the funeral today,” I added.

His hand moved from its supportive hold on my hip to just on the side of my waist where I’d felt the baby kick a second ago. “Do you want me to trade places with him for the day?”

“What, like
… he pretends to be you?”

He nodded.

I thought about it for a second, picturing myself crying and distraught, needing someone to hold on to. Who would I want that to be? “Yeah, but…”

“But?”

“He didn’t know my dad as well as you did. I think
you
should be there by his grave, not Jase.”

The Adam’s
apple under his jaw moved as he swallowed hard, his hand pressing more firmly to my waist. “Thank you, Ara.”

I closed both hands together behind his neck and gave him a genuine albeit small hug. “Don’t thank me, David. You loved him, too.”

***

They say that those we love always know deep inside how we feel. But missing the chance to say it and see their eyes, animated and alive, as they hear those simple little words could leave such an empty feeling it was hard to believe they really understood just how much you really loved them and how much you were going to miss them now they were gone.

Every bird that hopped around happily nearby and every rainbow I saw from now on would make me wonder if my dad was sending me a sign—telling me he knew. Telling me he missed me too. But if I watched them for too long, I’d see so clearly that they really were just creatures and images of nature. Nothing more. Dad was gone, and goodbye was just a wish I’d make on every star for the rest of my life.

The autumn trees stood high above us, sprinkling yellow and orange leaves down over the circle of mourners. The season had set in so deeply now that the ground was the same colour as the treetops, the dark brown trunks standing out in stark contrast, thick and so tall they seemed to touch the heavens like stairways for the dead. A vivid sun shone down on us though, making a mockery of the sadness that darkened my heart. It seemed wrong to cry on such a bright day, and yet something felt so unnervingly right about a death in the fall. Everything that was new and vibrant in the summer became frail and weak this time of year, and everything that became frail and weak in the fall was gone by the winter’s end. Only the resilient were left to endure the new year.

In truth, my dad had been unwell for so long now, and he’d suffered worse than he let any of us know, which gave me an odd sense of relief for him—that it was over now.

As I looked down at the autumn raining leaf by leaf onto his casket, friends and family passing by to leave a rose or a small note on top, the grief I thought would floor me just wasn’t quite so strong. I knew I’d miss him. But I did also have a sense that, just the same as the summer foliage, I’d see him again. Whether that was wrong or right didn’t matter, because it was enough to keep me upright.

Petey bounded over then, leaving Sam’s side as he followed the rest of the mourners up the hill to the cars, and sat
on
my foot, huffing and puffing. I stood there, otherwise alone, above my father’s open grave, staring down, trying to picture him resting peacefully in his eternal bed of satin and timber. But I couldn’t see him there—couldn’t picture him with an expressionless face, his hands laid neatly over his chest, his skin cold.

“Are you okay?” David asked, cupping my arms firmly from behind.

I nodded, hugging myself to block out the wintry chill. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“I
…” He moved to stand beside me, looking down into the hole. “I expected you to cry more.”

“So did I,” I said numbly.

Petey gave a little whimper, moving a bit closer so he now sat on my ankle. The cemetery was dead quiet, the rustling of leaves and the songs of birds disappearing under the eerie stillness of a world without life. But I couldn’t use the silence to find parting words, because my immortal ears kept paying mind to the seventy or so hearts beating just over the rise.

I turned my attention away from the party of mourners and looked back at my own problems. “I don’t know what to say to him, David.”

“That’s because you’re trying to say goodbye.”

“Isn’t that what people do at funeral
s?” I asked, squinting up at him.

His green eyes flickered and looked away from mine. “Typically. But we’re immortal, Ara. You’ve never been immortal when you’ve lost someone. It … it comes with a whole different set of emotions.”

“No kidding,” I said with a nod and a small, humourless laugh.

He reached down between us and gently took my fingertips in his, linking them but keeping our palms separate. “Don’t say goodbye. Tell him what you came here to tell him.”

My hand went absently over my belly. “About the baby?”

David nodded.

“But…”

“Just trust me,” he said softly, turning me slightly so I faced the grave again.

“Good news, Dad,” I started, feeling a little silly. “We’re having a little girl. And I’ll never have to worry for her the way you worried for me, because she’ll be immortal one day. And she’ll be smart and she’ll never, in all her human life, have to suffer losing her parents.”