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“I dunno. It’s pretty fractured at the moment. I think maybe it needs some time to heal, you know?”
He goes to reply, but James and Tyson are heading back to the dining table, and so we rise, go back in, and take our places.
But I see him look at me a few times as we work during the afternoon, lost in thought.
I know all of them would be incredibly sad if I left the company. But how can I continue to work there, seeing Juliette at the meeting every morning, knowing how close I came to having her? And knowing that I lost her?
I just can’t do it, and unfortunately it’s looking more and more like a reality with each passing day.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Juliette
When I leave James’s house, I sit in my car for a moment, not starting the engine. It’s getting harder to be with Henry and not be with him, and I can feel something building, like a thunderstorm about to break. My head hurts, and I don’t feel well, and the last thing I want is to go back and listen to Kathy’s hysterics. So I ring Roy with the intention of telling him that I’m going to stay at my apartment for the night. But he tells me Kathy has had a particularly bad day, and he sounds angry and frustrated, so in the end I drive around there, my sense of duty too strong to fight.
As soon as I walk in, though, Roy gets a beer out of the fridge, puts on the TV, and leaves me to handle Kathy alone. Gritting my teeth, I run her a bath, as that normally helps to calm her down. But even though she gets in, she’s too low to wash herself, so I end up helping her. I wash her hair, then help her out, dry her and her hair, and get her dressed in her nightie. Finally I put her to bed, and I sit by her side as she cries and says she’s sorry, until she eventually falls asleep.
Exhausted and frustrated, I go into the living room. Roy is sitting there watching an old comedy show, laughing and swigging his third beer.
I go over to the TV and switch it off.
“Hey!” He sits up and glares at me.
“You can’t do this,” I tell him resentfully. “You can’t just leave me to deal with Kathy. It’s not fair. She’s not my mother, and I’m not a nurse. I have a life to live.”
“So do I,” he snaps.
“But she’s your wife! You married her, Roy. She’s your responsibility.”
He sits back, looking moody and sullen. “What if I don’t want that responsibility anymore?”
I stare at him. “What do you mean?”
“This isn’t why I got married. She’s supposed to look after me. I’m the one who goes to work, who pays the bills. It’s her job to run the house, not lie in bed moping. I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I don’t want to be married to her anymore.”
Panic fills me. Normally I’d have ripped into him for his misogynistic attitude, but if he leaves Kathy, the burden of her care is going to fall on Cam’s—and therefore my—shoulders.
“All right,” I say, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. “I understand how you feel, and it’s natural to have bad days and to feel like this. But I know you don’t mean it. You love her, and you just want her to be better.”
He lifts his chin. “I don’t love her anymore. She’s just a fucking millstone around my neck.” He picks up his beer and walks away, out of the sliding doors into the garden. Shocked, I can only watch as he disappears into his shed—his Man Cave—and closes the door.
I sink onto the sofa. I’m shaking now. What am I going to do? I don’t want this responsibility. But I can’t just leave.
Feeling sick, I call Cam. It’s early evening in Sydney, and he answers after half a dozen rings.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” I say.
“Hey. I’m at the hospital.”
“How’s it going?”
“Okay. Alan’s improving. And Em’s contractions have stopped. They think they were Braxton Hicks. I’ll be taking her home soon.”
“Oh, well, that’s something.”
“How about you? How’s your day going?”
