Sara Foster - Come Back to Me

They could fit her in tomorrow. Tomorrow she’d see their baby for the very first time. Alone.

As she sat down, she reluctantly looked at the in-trays piling up behind her with legal documents waiting to be drafted and letters needing to be written. The court applications to be made. Half-heartedly, she pulled a case file towards her, but instead of opening it she tried to re-examine just why she hadn’t told Alex about the baby. If she had, surely he wouldn’t have left. She thought back to the Lakes, and that fateful conversation when she’d only just found out herself. ‘ We’re not ready for that yet ,’ he’d said dismissively. If he hadn’t said those words, would she have told him by now?

Possibly, as since then she had certainly been worried about how he would react. When the baby had been on the tip of her tongue so many times, one question kept recurring in her mind.

What if it changed nothing ?

That was the core of it. And so their poor baby had become the trump card in its parents’ marital problems before it was even born. She pushed away the thought that they would make terrible parents. But really, what chance did their child have when its mother was being torn apart by worry just as the very cells of its tiny, amorphous body were furiously dividing and multiplying and trying to get the act of creation right?

She tried to distract herself by going to Mark’s office. The lights were still off. She frowned: it was past ten o’clock. She didn’t think Mark had been late since the time they’d broken up. Her brief affair with Risto flitted through her head. Mark hadn’t spoken to her much for quite a while back then, even though that relationship had fizzled out as quickly as it had started when Risto had had an unrefusable offer from a head-hunter.

She went back to her office and tried Mark’s mobile. He answered straight away.

‘You do know we’ve got a meeting about Abbott at eleven, don’t you? I saw David this morning and he didn’t look too happy.’

Mark sighed. ‘Fine, I’ll try and get in. Jesus, Chloe, I’m hardly ever late like this, and now David is on my case.’

‘Why are you late?’

Mark paused, then said, ‘Look, you worry about your problems, and I’ll look after mine. How is Alex, by the way?’

Chloe bristled. God he was infuriating. She took a deep breath. ‘He’s fine. I’ll see you at eleven, then.’ And she hung up before he could reply.

It had taken Alex three days of sleeping on his friend Justin’s sofa to decide whether to go to see Amy again. It felt like betraying Chloe, but right now he couldn’t find his wife to talk to her about it. She wasn’t at the house, and she wouldn’t take his calls. He had thought about going to her office, but it was such a public space that he knew this was a bad idea.

In the meantime he kept rereading the internet printouts he’d shown to Amy. Each time he did so he could feel his blood heating up rapidly.

Three men go on trial today accused of the kidnap, rape and murder of a Swanbourne waitress.

Michael Evan, 31, George Constantine, 34, and Clay Tate, 29, are accused of luring Vanessa Gordy, 24, from the Indian Ocean Bar in North Cottesloe. Her body was found two months later in bushland near Yanchep by a family walking their dog.

The case has attracted huge media attention in Perth, as Tate is a member of the prominent Tate Mining family.

All three men have pleaded not guilty.

The report was already weeks old. Each day it seemed more and more pressing that he come to a decision. If they didn’t hurry, they might miss the trial altogether. This was their chance.

He had spent years after Amy had disappeared thinking of what those bastards had done to her, to him, to them. Not only that, but the more he remembered the time they had spent at the hospital, the more he felt he had let Amy down, unable to discern, much less offer her, the support she needed, and the stronger his urge had become to redeem himself and make it up to her. Time hadn’t faded his feelings much; it was only upon meeting Chloe that he had been able to gradually lay them aside.

So many times he had dreamt of seeing those men caught and punished. Not quite as often as he had imagined the retribution he would inflict himself were he allowed, but this was certainly the next best thing. Amy’s return had brought back all the old torments: the inadequacies he still felt; the rage he thought he’d quietened; and more and more his thoughts were consumed with at least seeing that justice was done.

Eventually, he left Chloe a long message on their home answering machine, explaining as much as he could think of, and then made his way to see Amy, still hoping beyond hope that this was the right thing to do.

Amy was overwhelmed when she saw Alex at her door. She had almost given up on him. The last few days had seemed to exist separately in time, as though there were nothing imaginable either before or after: past and future were on an entirely different plane of existence. She had been in a bubble, scared almost to breathe in case it should burst.

She invited him in, and watched as he cast his eye over her surroundings for the first time. She saw his gaze run across the bare white walls scarred with dirty marks, and the damp spot on the ceiling, then on to the scuffed wooden floors and over to the sofa bed in the corner at one end, the kitchenette at the other.

‘This is… is…’ He threw up his hands as if lost for words.

‘Horrible,’ she finished for him, moving to the kettle that perched on a tiny sill of the kitchenette. ‘It’s only temporary, though.’

Which was true, but the way she’d said it made it sound like she was about to buy a huge three-bedroomed semi-detached in the suburbs, whereas all her places in the past ten years had looked very similar to this, and she had no doubt the next one would too.

She looked up with a wry smile on her face as she said it, to let him know that she wasn’t feeling sorry for herself, and he smiled back.

They stood there awkwardly for a moment. Eventually, Alex walked across and put his arms around her, his cheek pressing against the top of her head. She kept her arms by her sides, but didn’t want to push him away.

‘Look,’ he said, holding on to her. She could smell his skin – aftershave mixed with something earthier and more natural. She breathed deeply, listening as he continued, ‘I don’t know how much longer the trial will last…’

She moved away from him and walked over to the window. ‘You don’t have to come, you know,’ she said softly, looking at the grey sky outside.

There was anger in Alex’s tone as he said from behind her, ‘Oh, really? For god’s sake, have we really just picked up from where we left off ten years ago, Amy?’ His voice became louder as he added, ‘Have you come back into my life, turned everything I know upside down, just so you can continue to shut me out?’

She turned and stared at him. ‘My name is Julia ,’ she replied, enunciating the name slowly as though he were a child.

‘No, it’s not,’ he said. He stomped over to the door, grabbing the handle before he came marching back across the room, cupped her face firmly between his palms, making her look at him, and said, ‘Amy – Julia – whoever you are – I am NOT leaving. This time, I am NOT going. I want to help you. You are GOING to let me help you.’

The force of his words terrified her for a moment – even though it was Alex, perhaps the one man she still trusted – and she burst into tears. And then he lifted her bodily, carried her to the sofa and sat her on his lap, shushing her as though she were an infant, holding her, letting her weep and weep. And when she was done, she realised she didn’t want him to leave ever again.