When I Lost You: A Gripping, Heart Breaking Novel of Lost Love. (4 page)

Now, when I say Mike’s name, Leo’s shock is palpable – as I knew it would be. With that one word I have proved to him that he has trusted me with the depths of his inner world. Nothing at all about his outer life these days would even acknowledge Mike’s existence.

‘You were actually completely wrong about who you are until you experienced a little bit more of the world and you learnt differently,’ I say quietly. ‘It was the same kind of revelation when we met.’ I search for a way to articulate it. I hadn’t understood the breadth and depth of real love before I met Leo. In the past I’d thought I’d loved boyfriends, but in hindsight I can see that those feelings were shallow and fragile. The love I had for Leo was something unique and special – something altogether different, although it’s painful to acknowledge that now even to myself. I sigh and look at Leo again. His gaze is guarded, but he’s watching me closely.

‘It was as if I’d only ever felt in black and white before, and then falling in love with you was my first experience of colour. And I
know
it was like that for you too. We fell very hard, very fast, and every idea we had about the future had to be reconsidered because the world was suddenly a different place.’ I wrinkle my nose as I fumble for the right words. ‘It was just
that
good, you know?’

‘It would have to have been,’ Leo says. He’s still frowning, but I can see that my explanation has gone at least some way towards convincing him. ‘So, where
did
we meet, then?’

‘I emailed you to ask you some questions about Dec. We met up to discuss that, and things evolved from there.’ His face is set in a fierce frown. I recognise intense concentration and give him a minute or two. I wonder if he’s remembering something and after a while curiosity gets the better of me. I touch his arm very gently. ‘Leo?’

He sinks heavily back against his pillows. The frown gives way to weariness.

‘I just can’t remember. It still doesn’t… none of this makes sense.’

‘Give it some time?’

‘Something is right there… I don’t even know if it’s a memory…’ he mutters, pointing at his forehead. ‘It’s just like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, exactly that feeling. Maybe if I can figure out what it is…’

‘Try to be patient, Leo. I don’t think you can force this,’ I say.

He sighs. ‘I’m not good at being patient.’

‘Oh, I know that!’ I say wryly. He glances at me again.

‘Did they tell you I can’t move my legs properly?’

Tears loom as I nod, but I force them away with some determined staccato blinking. We sit in silence for a moment, then Leo asks hesitantly, ‘Since apparently I don’t know my own life these days, tell me… does it work at all if I’m in a wheelchair? Because the way I remember it, it just wouldn’t.’

I meet his gaze and I keep my expression neutral and it’s possibly the most courageous thing I’ve ever done. As I raise my chin and stiffen my spine I force every weakness out of myself because I want him to see that I am facing this bravely and that he can too. I can blubber later, and I will. ‘Firstly,’ I say, ‘no one is saying the wheelchair will be a long-term thing. I signed organ donation forms for you two weeks ago and now you’re sitting up in bed, talking. You’ve already proven that you refuse to do what anyone expects of you and there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll get those legs working again through sheer force of will. And until
then, we’ll adjust.’

But I’m not the strong one in our relationship. I’m the one who sulks at the drop of a hat and feels so deeply that I can’t sort out a good decision from a bad one once my heart gets involved. If it’s up to me to help Leo navigate this terrifying possibility, he’s doomed – but he doesn’t know that yet, and it’s sure as hell not the time to show him. He seems surprised by the strength of my declaration, and after he ponders it for a moment, he offers me a weak smile. His eyelids look heavy and he’s pale again but he’s smiling and I feel an immense sense of satisfaction that I’ve brought him at least a little comfort.

‘I feel like I’m having a really trippy dream,’ he admits. He sinks further down into the pillows and I take a seat beside his bed and fish out my iPad from my bag. He glances at it. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’ve got emails to deal with, and you have a date with some real dreams,’ I tell him. ‘We can talk some more later and I’ll be here when you wake up.’

And I will be. Despite everything that’s happened between us, I’ll be here as long as he needs me.

M
olly and I
strolled in silence at first, sipping our coffees as we walked. I was still trying to figure out how to get out of telling her the truth about Declan, but at the same time I was also trying to plot a script as to how I would word it if I actually had to.

‘How did you hurt your arm?’ she asked me.

I glanced at her. ‘It’s my shoulder. I caught a stray bullet in Libya.’

‘You got
shot
?’

‘Occupational hazard.’

‘Oh. Are you supposed to be resting?’

‘I’m fine to walk.’

‘I’m not, my legs are killing me,’ she sighed, and then she laughed weakly. ‘I did a Pilates class a few days ago. I have no idea what I was thinking. Can we sit somewhere?’

We made our way towards First Fleet Park, a patch of grass between The Rocks and Circular Quay, and automatically steered together towards the only empty park bench. It was sheltered by the branches of a peppercorn tree and as we neared it, a flock of seagulls swarmed around us. I shooed them away and we sat side by side.

‘Go,’ Molly said, as soon as we were seated. Suddenly every word that I’d planned on the walk from the café seemed painfully contrived.

‘Dec was a great guy, Molly. And he doted on you.’

‘I know that. I need you to tell me things about him that I
don’t
know.’

‘I want you to remember those things, though – the brilliant human being he was; the loving brother he was –
those
are the things that count. Not his struggles.’

‘You can say that because you knew him properly. All I know of Declan is that he was popular and clever and charming. But if that was who he
really
was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and my mother wouldn’t shut down whenever someone says his name even ten years after he left us.’

‘It sounds like you knew the guy he wanted to be, and there’s probably a good reason for that. He never wanted you to know any of this.’

‘Because I was his sister?’

‘Because you were
you
. He adored you.’

‘So you’re saying Mum and Dad have lied to me for ten years because Declan “adored” me?’

‘No, I can’t excuse their part in this since his death. But when he was alive, it mattered to him that you looked up to him.’

‘Who
was
he, Leo? Was he not at all like the man I thought I knew?’

I sighed and stared out to the harbour as I thought about that. ‘He was some of those things you said. He could be charming, but he wasn’t exactly gifted academically – he struggled terribly at uni and frankly, he was out of his depth on our course.’

‘I always thought Dec was at the top of his class,’ she said, but the words had a distant, airy tone to them, as if she was thinking aloud.

‘Dec only got into university because your dad made it happen, Molly. And he only earned his degree because he retook subjects over the summer each year.’

‘And these struggles you mentioned?’

‘Yeah. Dec…’ It was even harder to say than I’d anticipated. I cleared my throat. ‘Like most kids at uni, we messed around a bit with drugs in our first year or two, nothing serious and everyone else we knew grew out of it and settled down. Declan just never learned when enough was enough, you know?’

‘Declan was a
drug addict
?’ Molly whispered.

How the hell was it falling to
me
to give her this information? ‘I’m so sorry, Molly.’

‘That’s not true. It can’t be! How could I not have seen this?’

‘Weren’t you living overseas somewhere?’

‘Yes, but I’d only been abroad for a year. He was fine when I was in Sydney.’

‘Actually, he wasn’t,’ I sighed, and she sighed too.

‘I guess he wasn’t.’

I waited for a moment, giving her space to digest what she’d just learned. I was sure she’d need to cry – and after a while, I glanced at her to see if she was. Her eyes were dry, but she was staring blankly at the harbour. I had a sudden and vivid sense of déjà vu – this was the same neutral expression she’d worn throughout his funeral. It spoke of a shock and loss too great to process on the fly.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

‘I’m trying to convince myself you’re a lunatic or that you’re lying to me about this,’ she muttered, then she shot me a sideways glance. ‘But it’s not working because I know you’re not.’

‘I think his problems actually started in our second or third year of uni,’ I said quietly. ‘He was always surrounded by a veritable swarm of eager potential girlfriends, but he never really knew how to speak to them and he was forever telling me that they were only interested in him for his money. He wanted to come out of his shell and he was a completely different guy when he was high – outgoing and confident – that’s when he
was
the life and soul of the party.’

‘Would
I
have seen him high?’

‘I’m not sure. I remember he went to spend Christmas with you in that last year – he was completely out of control by then, so you probably did.’

‘Why didn’t I notice?’

‘You weren’t looking for it.’

‘What drugs did he use?’

It would have been easier to list for her the drugs that he
didn’t
use, but she didn’t need to know that. ‘It was heroin that he came unstuck on in the end.’

‘Did you try to help him?’

‘Of course I did. Your parents did too.’

‘But nothing worked?’

‘Some things did. Dec had a few periods of sobriety – including quite a long period just before his death – maybe a few months.’ Ah, the false hope those months had offered me. Our friendship seemed back on an even keel and Dec had seemed almost at peace again.

‘Did he go to rehab?’

‘No,’ I murmured. ‘Your parents were worried about confidentiality – his privacy. So they always tried to organise his treatment at home.’

‘You mean, they were worried about
their
reputation,’ Molly surmised.

‘That was probably a factor.’

‘Do you think if he had gone to a proper rehab place, he would still be alive?’

‘I wondered about that for a while, but I don’t think it would have made a difference in the end.’

‘So how did he die?’

I cleared my throat. ‘He had a bad day – a bad meeting with the board, I think he said. He felt he’d embarrassed your father; he hadn’t prepared something they were expecting. Dec rang me on his way home from the meeting. We had a long chat then made plans to go to the cricket the following night. That’s how I know this really was an accident. When he hung up, he sounded fine.’ I cleared my throat again and shifted awkwardly on the bench, then stole a quick glance at Molly. She was staring at her lap now but her eyes were still dry.

‘Why didn’t someone call me? Why didn’t someone
tell
me?’ she whispered. ‘I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was nineteen, I could have handled it.’

‘He was ashamed of the place he’d ended up. It really mattered to him that you still looked up to him.’

‘Tell me about the night he died,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper now.

I drank the last of my coffee and rested the cup on the ground beside my feet. ‘Dec had a network of dealers around Bondi near his apartment, but Laith had cut off a lot of those pathways – brute financial force, I think you’d call the strategy. So when he decided to use again, Declan went to my aunt’s house, where my cousin was staying.’

‘Your cousin?’

‘Yeah. Dec gave him money to score for both of them.’ I stopped, and exhaled forcefully. ‘My aunt called me. She didn’t know what they were up to or where they’d gone – she just knew Declan was my friend and she was worried that her son was bad news for him. But
I
knew as soon as she called that there was only one reason Dec would have gone to that neighbourhood.’

‘And your cousin?’

‘He was fine – well, fine in the sense that he didn’t overdose. I did some research later, trying to understand it all… Most likely because Dec had been clean for a few months, he’d lost his tolerance. It took me a while to find them – they’d locked themselves in a storage room in the basement of the building – I had to break down the door to get in.’

I was lost for a moment – remembering my panic when I realised where they were and the splintering sound the door made as I kicked it in – and then the dread, because the minute I saw him, I knew it was just too late.

Molly stood suddenly, startling me. I looked up at her and marvelled at the fact that she was still not crying.

‘That’s enough for today,’ she said flatly. She was furious, and I couldn’t blame her.

‘I’m so sorry, Molly.’ Her expression softened, just a little.

‘
You
have nothing to be sorry about. Can I call you again?’

‘Of course you can.’

She rested her hand on my good shoulder and squeezed as she offered me a fragile smile. ‘Thank you, Leo.’

I watched Molly as she left. I thought I saw a shudder ripple through her, but almost instantly she corrected herself, walking away from me with a perfectly straight posture and her head held high.

I waited a long time before I left the park that morning. I sat on the bench until my backside was numb and the pain medication had worn off and my shoulder was throbbing. I thought about Declan and the Torrington family and the life lessons I’d learned from his friendship – including the most important one of all. It doesn’t matter where your life’s journey begins; the path it takes is still entirely up to you.

I
wake just before dawn
. I’ve spent so many nights by Leo’s bedside, I don’t even know what day it is. From the moment I force my eyelids open, I’m conscious of an exhaustion that seems to have overtaken every muscle in my body. I can’t remember ever having felt so drained.

I stumble down the hallway for a vending machine coffee and in my sleep-deprived state I don’t even notice that Leo is awake and sitting up in bed again when I return to his room. I’ve made it all the way to my chair and am sipping the coffee before he startles me with a quiet, ‘Good morning, Molly.’

I nearly drop the cup, and then I trip over myself trying to apologise for nothing much at all.

‘Oh, hi – sorry, I didn’t realise you were awake yet – I didn’t get you a coffee, I can go back––’

‘No, no, it’s fine. Thanks.’ He looks around the room and then frowns at me. ‘Where have you been sleeping?’

‘My hotel is just a block away,’ I say. This is actually true, but I hope he doesn’t notice that I didn’t answer the question. Leo keeps staring at me and the pause quickly becomes awkward. ‘I just didn’t want to leave you alone last night – I mean, in case you woke up and didn’t know where you were – but I will go back to the hotel tonight.’

‘Do you at least have a stretcher bed or something to sleep on?’ I take some comfort in this evidence that Leo’s eye for detail is already returning.

‘No, it’s a trip hazard or something. But it’s okay, I haven’t felt much like sleeping anyway.’

This lie is so ridiculous that I’m embarrassed to even have attempted it. I look at Leo then quickly look away, because he’s staring at me and I don’t need to read his mind to see that he isn’t buying it. He is silent for a while before he speaks.

‘Thank you, Molly.’

‘Have you remembered anything?’

‘Not yet. But yesterday it felt like every time I spoke to someone there were more shocks in store and I was so exhausted, I could barely keep up. I feel more alert today, that’s got to help.’

‘So you’re feeling okay about what I told you yesterday?’

‘About us being married?’ he surmises, and he laughs. ‘Well, I do believe you’re telling me the truth. Is that a start?’

‘It’ll do,’ I say. It is actually huge relief. I’m not sure I would have had the energy to keep trying to persuade him today.

‘The problem is that I don’t feel like I have a portion of my memory missing. I feel as if I took a nap and woke up and people started insisting I’d been out for four years and my whole life is now completely different. I don’t know how memories are supposed to come back when it doesn’t actually feel like any are missing.’

‘It sounds like a nightmare,’ I murmur.

‘The nightmare is my legs.’ He looks down the length of the bed as he says this, then looks back at me. ‘So you’ve been sleeping in a chair?’

‘Only the last few nights since you started to wake up.’

‘You must be dying to get home.’

‘Lucien is going to be as fat as a house,’ I sigh. When I moved in with Leo, I automatically adopted the standard apricot poodle he part-owned with his elderly neighbour. I’m not surprised when Leo brightens considerably at the mention of the dog. I was never really a dog person before, but Lucien is the kind of animal that it’s hard not to fall in love with.

‘So, I take it that means Mrs Wilkins is looking after him? She’s still in her house?’

‘Oh yes, and she’s still well – we shared a cake with her for her ninety-second birthday a few months ago. She has a carer who comes in now and she doesn’t really get upstairs much anymore, but she’s still fighting fit, considering. And yes, she still overfeeds Lucien. I’ve got the dog walker coming morning and night but last time we were both away it took me six months to get him back to under twenty-five kilos.’

‘Wait a second – are you saying we live in
my
town house?’

That question is far more complicated than either one of us is ready to deal with just yet.

‘Of course we do.’

His eyes are wide with disbelief. ‘There’s no “of course” about it. You’re still a Torrington, right? I figured we’d be living in some horrendous mansion in some uncomfortably affluent suburb.’

‘
Not
a Torrington,’ I remind him pointedly. ‘I’m a “
Stephens
” now. But yes, we’re still wealthy – you just didn’t want to leave your precious town house when we got married, so we compromised on a few things and I moved in there.’

‘What exactly did we compromise on?’ he frowns, and I laugh at him softly.

‘Don’t panic, Leo. I know you love your house, and we didn’t destroy it. We just updated the kitchen and the bathrooms. And we added a fresh coat of paint and replaced the carpet on the top floors.’

‘So it sounds like we live in the same location but a completely different house.’

‘It’s the same building and the same layout, we just improved it.’ I smile then shrug. ‘And of course, we added a few little helpers for around the house.’

I know immediately that he’s going to assume I mean staff, and although I feel a little bad to be playing with him, it’s momentarily amusing to predict his reaction to these things. It took months of careful negotiating to plan our life together in that terrace and I know what each of the sticking points were for him.

‘God – not –
staff
?’ He is aghast, and I smile.

‘We didn’t build servants’ quarters in the courtyard and hire a set of domestic workers. Our entire house is six rooms – what would they do all day? We just have a cleaner once a week and, most importantly, a dishwasher.’

His kitchen had been tiny before we renovated – more of a kitchenette, really. His gaze narrows when I mention the dishwasher and I know he’s correctly assuming that to squeeze one in would have required some major renovations.

‘How did you fit in a dishwasher?’

‘You’ll see for yourself soon enough,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, you survived the change once, I’m sure you’ll get over it again.’

‘And do you still work for…’ He lets the question trail off, and I shake my head.

‘No, I don’t work with Dad anymore.’

‘Is that because of me? Because of… us?’

I pause before I answer this question. I had no choice but to resign once Dad found out about Leo and me, but that wasn’t actually
why
I did it. I left because I was working with him for all the wrong reasons, caught in a cycle of seeking my father’s approval at the cost of my own happiness. But for our relationship forcing the issue, I’d probably still be working away at
Torrington Media
, trapped in a life that was never really mine. Leo was the catalyst, but the end result was my freedom.

At the time it seemed that there was something quite mystical about the way that falling in love with Leo had changed my world. But looking back on this now, I am torn between a sense of relief and gratitude to have stepped out of that life and a feeling of having been cheated out of the future I should have stepped into. Leo and I started a journey together, but he wandered off on his own after such a short time and left me to carry on in my new existence alone. I’m still glad to be where I am, and I’m still grateful to him, but at the same time even this train of thought leaves me feeling an aching sense of disappointment for what should have been. I thought I was leaving
Torrington Media
so that Leo and I could build a future together. It never occurred to me for even a second that we could fail to do so – I thought the love I had for him could overcome
anything
.

‘I left because I wanted to,’ I say eventually. ‘I kind of fell into that career when Dec died, and by the time you and I met, I desperately wanted to leave but I just didn’t know how. I run a charitable foundation now – it’s a much better fit for me.’

There’s a sound at the door as a woman pushes a cart of meal trays past. I hear the rumble of Leo’s stomach at the thought of food, and he watches the door hopefully. When the attendant doesn’t return, he sighs.

‘If they tell me I can only eat apple puree today, I might cry.’

‘You
don’t
cry.’

‘If you know me as well as you seem to think you do, that statement should tell you how much I need some real food,’ he says, and one corner of his mouth turns upwards and I see the smile echo in his eyes. That’s Leo’s charming smile – and while I haven’t actually been the target of it for a very long time, I find that I’m still not immune to its powers.

‘Give me a minute and I’ll go see if I can talk them into letting you try something more substantial, okay? If you’re allowed to eat, I can sneak something else in for you later. The hospital food looks awful.’

I return a minute or two later, a triumphant smile on my face and the tray in hand. ‘They said I have to watch you like a hawk but you can try solid food if you’re really that determined to,’ I tell him wryly.

‘Thanks,’ he says. I feel his eyes on my face as I organise the tray for him and I’m suddenly very self-consciousness. As I peel the lid back on the packaging of some jam-like substance, a thick strand of hair falls over my face and I press it away with my shoulder awkwardly. The wayward lock of hair immediately falls forward again and Leo reaches forward hesitantly, then very slowly tucks it behind my ear.

I feel a million things at once. There’s a tenderness in the gesture that has been lost to us for so long that I’ve actually forgotten to miss it. I’m almost floored by how wonderful it feels to have him touch me like that again. There’s a dangerous pummelling of emotions right at my gut – our attraction has always been intense, even when everything else went to hell –
that
side of our marriage still worked. But there’s a grief in it all too for me – because I know that once Leo gets his memory back, this automatic affection will disappear again and it needs to, because our marriage is over. At this thought, I want to step away and protect myself from the hurt that’s inevitably going to return, but I don’t want to confuse him further. Instead, I smile almost shyly at Leo, and then I push the tray towards him.

‘Did I make you uncomfortable?’ he asks. ‘It just seemed like a natural thing to do.’

‘No, no,’ I shake my head hastily. ‘I just know this is all new to you. It must feel like you met me yesterday.’

Leo shrugs and peers at me thoughtfully. ‘I felt as if I’d done it a million times before, even if I don’t remember. Strange, isn’t it?’

When we met, I had a pixie-cut – Leo eventually told me he hated it. It was such a severe look – not one that suited me at all – but toughening my image up had seemed necessary when I was trying to forge my way in that world. I remember the raised eyebrows from the board at the first meeting I attended in my floral dress and with my hair loose and swinging to my waist. I’d quickly learned to at least present an air of authority and ruthlessness and had changed my look completely to match, but it had never
felt
right to me.

When I finally resigned, I donated my working wardrobe to charity and I grew my hair out over our first year together. Leo used to tuck it behind my ears all the time; sometimes he’d stand right in front of me and tuck both sides at once and then he’d kiss me playfully until I was all dishevelled again. I flush at the memory and step away from the bed. Leo’s attention, thankfully, is on the tray of food.

‘What a magnificent feast,’ he observes wryly. It’s dry white toast, jam, strong black coffee and some unidentifiable stewed fruit with yoghurt.

‘Remember, little bites, chew carefully, swallow slowly.’ He raises his eyebrows at me and I lift my hands as if in surrender. ‘I
know
that you know how to eat, I’m just repeating what the nurse told me.’

Leo takes a bite of the toast. He chews slowly and thoughtfully, then swallows and there’s visible relief on his face as the food makes its way to his stomach. By the time he turns his attention back to me, I’ve resumed my place in the chair beside his bed and am sipping at the awful hospital coffee again.

‘So, how long have we been married?’

I glance at him. Is this the time to tell him? His attention is back on the tray again and I don’t want to distract him. I should check with Craig Walker too – how much upset can Leo take? Better to wait. I keep my answer simple. ‘Three years in December.’

‘What date?’

‘Trust me, that’s one thing you’ve never remembered.’ I’m trying to make a joke, but it’s not at all funny to me and it shows in my tone.

Leo winces. ‘Can you tell me anyway? Maybe I’ll try harder this year.’

‘December third.’ He’s trying to be funny but I don’t want to smile at him because this is Leo and it’s his fault this is a sore spot for me. I think back to our first two anniversaries – both of which I spent at home alone. The first year, I was almost proud of the noble sacrifice I’d made in allowing him to work. The second year, I felt nothing but seething rage because he didn’t even call.

‘Right,’ says Leo with some determination. ‘December third. There’s some kind of rule about anniversary gifts, isn’t there? What’s three years, paper or glass or something?’

‘I have no idea. But the first year, you were in Iraq and the second year you were in Syria, so if you really are going to make an effort to buy me something, buy me
three
of whatever you pick and that might just make up for the other two years.’

I watch the flickering slide show of emotions pass over Leo’s face. First there’s a frown, but it’s quickly replaced by curiosity and then concentration. I lose his focus in an instant – but I know exactly what he’s thinking. He’s wondering what happened in Iraq and Syria to inspire a visit from him, and he’s wondering what the resultant stories were. He’s wondering how quickly he can get up to speed with everything he’s forgotten, and how soon he will get back to work.

I don’t want to be angry with him, but I am instantly furious. Head injury or not, I want to thump him and yell at him and storm out of the room. I try to calm myself, but I unthinkingly crush the paper coffee cup in my fist and it makes a lot more noise than I would have expected. Leo’s gaze shoots towards me and he interrogates me with his eyes. I feel the tension of my fury all the way from my head to my toes.