Lucy Clarke - A Single Breath

She smoothes both letters out on her lap, an uneasy sensation stirring in her stomach as she wonders why neither was sent. She checks through the drawer again but doesn’t find any more. Logic tells her it must have been a simple oversight, yet she can’t help wondering if there was another reason why Jackson hadn’t sent them.

*

A week later, Eva is sitting in a bar with Callie, a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket between them. Callie pours generously and slides a glass across the wooden table to Eva. ‘Drink.’

Eva obeys, taking a large gulp. She had called Callie in tears after her first shift back at the hospital.

‘What happened?’

‘I … I just couldn’t handle it. I left. Ran out.’

‘It was your first day.’

‘I thought I was ready. I delivered the baby and everything was fine – I was focused. I barely thought about Jackson. But, afterwards …’ She shakes her head.

Eva had lifted the baby from the birthing pool and handed it carefully to its mother, a Polish woman called Anka, who looked worn out. The new father had gazed at his son in wonderment, placing the backs of his fingers gently to the boy’s cheek. Then his eyes lifted to meet his wife’s. There was a moment when the room went still. He had said something in a choked voice, the words floating to his wife whose lower lip trembled as she smiled.

Eva hadn’t needed to speak Polish to understand what he was saying. He was telling his wife that she was incredible, that he was so proud of her, that he loved her deeply. It was this look, the intensely intimate moment between husband and wife that followed the strain and exhaustion of labour, that had always made Eva love what she did.

But today, she had felt paralysed by it. She had stared at the couple – who were only a year or two older than her and Jackson – as she realized with silent horror that she would never know what it would be to hold Jackson’s baby in her arms, or to have him look at her in that way, to be loved like this man loved the mother of his child.

Because her husband was dead.

The thought had slammed into her, and suddenly she was backing away and asking the support worker to call another midwife. Then she was sprinting down the corridor, bursting into the nurses’ toilets, and leaning over the sink just in time for bile and tears to be caught in the ceramic basin.

‘I couldn’t stand it,’ she tells Callie. ‘I literally could not stand seeing the husband and wife together. In love. I envied them so much I couldn’t breathe.’

‘That’s how I feel at weddings.’

Eva manages a laugh.

‘I was starting to forget what your laugh sounded like.’

Eva tilts her head to one side. ‘You’re dressed up. You were out, weren’t you?’

‘Only with David,’ Callie replies, waving her fingers through the air.

‘I’m so sorry! He was taking you for dinner. You were going to talk about the Melbourne contract. You told me yesterday. My head’s all over the place.’

‘You did me a favour. He’d booked a table at Vernadors,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘I ate there before Christmas and was in bed for two days. Never touch their mussels.’

‘I remember.’

‘Course – Jackson was there too that night! I bumped into him having a business dinner. God, hardly the way to hook a new client. Give them food poisoning.’

‘He was fine.’

‘Well, yes, but he did grow up eating stuff he’d scraped off rocks.’ Callie takes a drink, then tops up both their glasses. ‘So, tell me exactly where you’re at.’

‘It was a rough day, that’s all.’

‘Cut the crap. This is me. I want to know everything, all the gory, grisly details of how catastrophically bad your life is right now. Spill.’

Eva takes a deep breath. ‘I … I just … I don’t even know where to start.’ She lifts her hands to her head, squeezing her hair at the roots. ‘I can’t bear it. I literally can’t bear it. I miss him so much. I think of him constantly. I mean constantly . I have full-blown conversations with him in my head. Some days it hurts so much, I don’t think I can do it. I feel like I’m just dragging myself forward, when all I want is to close my eyes and sleep. I want to wake up sometime in the future when it is easier, less painful than this.’

Eva swallows and continues. ‘And Mum … she’s calling me continually to ask if I’m okay, telling me I can move back home.’ She shakes her head sharply. ‘And I’m not okay. Of course I’m not! But moving in with her isn’t what I want. I’ll suffocate there. I can’t go back.’ She bites down on her bottom lip and then says, ‘I thought we’d have our whole lives together. And now … he’s dead. I’ll never get to see him again, or hold him, or hear his laugh … or do any of the things we’d planned. And it feels so … unfair. Why Jackson? Why did it have to be him? We were married for less than a year. We had everything ahead of us – and he died!’ She slams her palm down on the table, making their wineglasses tremble. ‘I’m furious with him for being so fucking stupid, for being out there on those rocks in the middle of winter, fishing! And I’m furious with Mum for asking us to come and stay that weekend. But mostly … mostly I’m furious with myself – because if I’d got out of bed a few minutes earlier, or not bothered making a Thermos, then I’d have been there in time. I’d have told him to get off the rocks. And then … he’d still be here.’

Tears roll down Eva’s cheeks and Callie reaches across the table and squeezes both her hands.

‘I hate this, Cal. I hate feeling like this. I’m so lonely without him. The flat … it’s awful. It’s so quiet. It’s like the life has been sucked out. I’m living in a vacuum.’ Eva slides one of her hands free from Callie’s and wipes her face. ‘At night it’s just me in there and our bedroom … it feels so empty … so silent. I sleep with the fucking radio on and a hot-water bottle wrapped in Jackson’s clothes! It’s pathetic!’

Eva reaches for her wine and takes a long gulp, draining half of it. ‘I wanted – needed – to go back to work, to keep myself busy, help me stay sane. But today, God, it was awful. That poor couple.’ She shakes her head again. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to be back.’

The lights in the bar are dimmed and the music is turned up as the barman sets the ambience for the evening ahead. ‘You’re an incredible midwife,’ Callie says, leaning in closer to be heard. ‘You could open a florist’s with all the bouquets new mothers send. But maybe it is too soon. Give yourself some time.’

‘What would I do with it? I feel so … separated from him. I know that sounds ridiculous, because of course I feel separated – he’s dead! It’s just, there’s no one I can share this with. I’m so grateful to have you to talk to, but what I mean is, there’s no one here that knew him, really knew Jackson like I did. His friends are great and adored him, and Mum liked Jackson, but she’s grieving for me, not him. I feel like I need to be around people that really loved him, like I did.’

‘You mean his family?’

She nods. ‘His dad still hasn’t called back. I keep trying him – but he never picks up.’

‘Maybe it’s too hard for him right now.’

Eva finishes her wine. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says, running a finger over the stem of her glass, ‘what if I went out there?’

‘Tasmania?’

She nods. ‘I want to meet Dirk. Meet Jackson’s old friends. See where he grew up. We were planning to go together in the autumn. And it’s not far from Melbourne …’

‘So you could come and visit me!’ Callie finishes, a smile spreading over her face.