Ask Me to Stay (6 page)

Ethan, she thought, you broke me. But she said, ‘No one likes getting dumped.’

‘I didn’t dump you.’

Against her better judgement – against the voice in her head that begged her to run – she sat on the bed opposite him. This, too, was small for him. Bought for a teenager, not a six-foot-seven man. She wondered how far his feet hung over the edge.

‘You came to me on the day you were leaving and said the equivalent of “thanks, but no thanks”. You dumped me good.’

You crushed me. You discarded me. You left me behind. She rubbed a hand over her face and breathed deeply. ‘Why the walk down memory lane?’

His answering smile was sloppy at best. ‘That’s what I said.’

‘Right. Whatever that means.’ She got to her feet, pulled him to his. Before he was altogether sure of what she was doing, she’d stepped on the back of one of his shoes and eased his foot free of it. The second foot was harder once he realised he was required to balance. He toppled. And he took her with him.

Together they crashed onto the bed. He laughed uproariously and she swore. With effort, she struggled out from under his crushing torso and rested on her knees alongside him on the narrow bed.

‘C’mon, you drunk. Shuffle up there. That’s the way. On your pillow.’

A moment passed and his breathing became soft. She trailed her fingertips along his temple, easing his hair back from his eyes.

‘Why do you drink so much?’ she crooned.

She didn’t expect an answer, so was surprised when he attempted one. He murmured against the material, his words almost muffled. ‘To forget.’

Her fingers stilled. ‘To forget what?’

‘What I know.’

She continued to soothe, continued to stroke. ‘What do you know, Ethan?’

He wasn’t so far gone that he would confess his secrets, she realised. There was a degree of clarity in his eyes, and, however dim, a sense of self-awareness.

‘Lie down with me,’ was his answer. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all night.’

She withdrew her fingers. ‘I don’t think so.’

His big hand found hers, so much larger than her own. Were he sober he might have done it with finesse, but his touch was clumsy. He bumped a palm along the line of her waist.

‘C’mere, Sammy-doll.’

The nickname – of all things – was what snapped her back. She uncurled her legs and swung them off the bed. ‘I’m nobody’s one-night stand, Ethan Foster. Least of all yours.’

He moaned and called to her, but she wasn’t interested in listening any more. She turned off the light, closed the bedroom door behind her and took a moment to steady herself. Her hands were shaking when she crossed the hallway to Dean’s room. She didn’t really expect to find Cal in there, but she wanted to search the house thoroughly.

There was a body in Dean’s bed. She knew Dean was downstairs; she’d seen him only moments ago, but the shape and size was all wrong for it to be her brother.

The thick carpet muffled her approach. The person within the sheets did not stir.

Sam approached the head of the bed and pressed a hand to her heart. Nina slept on her mother’s pillow, her neck still laden with beads and chains.

The little girl did not stir when Sam pulled the sheets back and gathered her into her arms. Nina hung limp, her hands and feet bouncing, as Sam carried her to her bedroom. It was awkward, balancing the sleeping child on her lap while Sam removed the jewellery, but after a few minutes she was able to lay Nina down without a single necklace encircling her throat. She balanced them all on the beside table, mindful that Nina would look for them immediately, and placed her tiny shoes near the foot of the bed. Nina smelled of smoke and dirt, and Sam resolved to come back tomorrow to wash both kids’ sheets.

She crept from the room and wondered if there was anyone else she would need to put to bed.

Sam stared into the fire, looking for answers, seeking understanding. Around her people slept in sleeping bags, propped up in seats, stretched over the ground, in the back seats of cars or in the trays of utes. The party was over. There was no man, woman or child left standing bar herself. And she was huddled in a tight little ball on her camp chair, unmoving, entranced by the fire. No one would guess she was awake.

That was why she was the only one to know when another stirred.

The back door slammed. Someone cursed. Footsteps. Unsteady ones.

Sam peered around the hood of her jacket, half expecting the man she saw loping across the grass. He did not approach her or the dying fire, but headed for the property’s boundary. The new fence seemed to confuse him for a moment. He ducked beneath the threaded wire, tripped and fell.

Another curse.

Ethan gathered himself up, brushed himself down, and continued on his way. Walking into the darkness.

Sam lowered her feet to the dirt, shook them to work the blood back into them, then stood. As quietly as she could manage, she removed her car keys from her pocket and hurried to the front of the house. Blessedly, her car had not been blocked in by the dozens of others that littered the lengthy driveway.

She slipped behind the wheel, gunned the engine and accelerated towards the main road. About a kilometre from the house she eased onto the gravel and killed the headlights. She waited in the darkness, knowing he would come this way.

Fifteen minutes later she was stalking him by car. Her lights off, her nerves taut. He never saw her. Or if he did he didn’t care.

She rolled into town, over a hundred metres behind him. Guessing the journey was almost over, she parked and continued on foot. She carried a torch, and, perhaps absurdly, a first-aid kit. She didn’t know what she would find when she confronted him, or what condition he would be in.

She paused on Tynes Street. His unmistakable physique was nowhere to be seen. She thought carefully. Would her theory be right?

Keeping to the shadows, she crept towards Foster’s Garage.

Disconsolate and beaten, Ethan Foster painted a tragic picture sitting in the gutter of his family’s business. His unhappiness struck her. It shot right through her, anchoring her where she stood. It had to be close to three in the morning. Nothing moved. No lights beyond the street lamps lit the way. Yet this building did something to this man. After all these years, its ghosts still brutalised his soul.

Sam pressed her hand to her mouth. A tear slipped from her eye and dropped onto her collarbone.

Her pain was nothing to this man’s, her heart unscathed in comparison.

She crossed to him. The sound of her footsteps was unearthly.

He looked up, overbalanced and ended up falling awkwardly on his elbows. A small part of her broke, seeing him this way. She’d never seen eyes so haunted. So full of hatred. But the fury he’d clearly nurtured on his walk over here fizzled out when he recognised her.

He reached for her and she took his hand. She pulled him up until he was sitting again and sat beside him. To support him, or to support herself, she wrapped her arm around his waist.

Silence. Absolute.

She wouldn’t speak, she thought, or lead the moment. If he spoke, she would answer. If he didn’t, she was content to just be with him.

Twenty long minutes passed.

‘Someone thought it would be a good idea to toast to the lost.’

Sam jumped, startled by the sudden sound.

‘What a bastard,’ he snarled. ‘There’s poor Dean raising his glass to Bree. Again. Wishing everyone would stop looking at him. Then they toast some other locals who have kicked it. Bob someone-or-other. Judy. And I know it’s coming, you know?’

‘Sure.’

‘I couldn’t raise a glass to’em. I couldn’t be there for that. God, the way Dean looked at me as I left. All that progress,’ he threw a hand out, surprising her, ‘gone.’

‘I’m sure it’s not.’

He dropped an arm around her shoulders. She could smell the liquor on his breath and feel the heat of his body pressed against her skin.

‘He still loves our old man. He wants to be just like him. But Dean’s nothing like Dad was. He’ll never be like him.’

A minute passed.

‘Thank God for that,’ Ethan finished wearily.

She cried out when he lurched to his feet. He seized her torch and hurtled it through the window of the garage. The explosion of glass was like a scream.

Again he overbalanced. This time he didn’t catch himself. He fell to the concrete, landing heavily on his shoulder. He didn’t get up.

Sam stared at the shards of broken glass. She knew a guy. He’d fix it. Dean would never have to know.

Trembling, she pushed to her feet and hurried to Ethan’s side.

‘I know,’ he said to the stars.

And then Sam knew. It was like he’d pushed back a curtain in her mind, and suddenly everything made sense. Why he hated his father. Why he wouldn’t talk about his parents. Ethan didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t need to. She could guess the rest.

Sam began to cry.

It gave Dean a perverse sense of pleasure to know he’d brought the majority of Hinterdown to its knees. A mid-week party on last night’s scale was not all that common in these parts. Two of his mechanics had come to work straight from his house. The bakery hadn’t even opened today. Kids were reported to be falling asleep on their school desks and the local doctor, himself hungover and grey, had been writing certificates all day, excusing locals from work. All of them tired and sore from sleeping in strange places, but none of them sorry.

They would talk about this party for years to come – until another topped it. And even then they’d talk about the strengths of each and compare the two.

The oldest of the three men, Dean was surprised he’d outlasted Ethan and Cal, but also a little proud.

Cal had disappeared quite early, which struck Dean as strange because Cal loved town get-togethers, but Ethan had been another story. Private feuds and hurts were one thing, but publicly refusing to toast to their late parents was something else. Ethan had hit the drink hard after that. Alone in his room, no less. And some were saying Ethan and Cal had had words.

The man certainly had an aptitude for shifting trouble from place to place.

Dean used a chamois to wipe his fingerprints off the gleaming red hood of a client’s Corvette. A basic tune-up, an oil change and detail cleaning, and this beauty was primed to be fawned over again. Gill kept her in good nick, perhaps obsessively so, but that only made Dean’s job that much easier.

His kids had had a good time last night, he reflected. Neenz had stolen the show, as always. She’d become an advocate for lactose intolerants the world over, dazzled her audience with her new bling and charmed everyone with her spirited fire dance. Ro was bolder than ever before, somehow a leader now. He’d pushed his best friend in the creek then dive-bombed alongside him. Of course, every kid within earshot had followed. A dozen of them had then warmed and dried themselves by the fire, Rowan at their centre.

It did Ro good to have his uncle around, however much this new bond unsettled Dean.

There was nothing keeping Ethan here. Nothing stopping him from walking out for another couple of years. But there had never been so much at stake before. It terrified Dean how much his kids had come to need his brother.

He passed the rest of the afternoon in the office, filing paperwork and chasing up invoices. He would have preferred to be out on the floor, tinkering with an engine and getting his hands dirty, but a business always had two sides. And this side was his alone.

Gill Joyce collected his Corvette at three o’clock, then Dean called it a day. He wanted to be at the school gate, waiting for his kids. It was their first day back since the accident, and he was anxious to see how they had gotten through the day. Routine was important, he thought. Of course, so much was different now – for one thing, Bree would never meet them after class again, but they could count on their dad to step up.

The school was a short walk from the garage and the pub was on the way, so Dean ducked in to see how Cal was faring. He found him behind the bar restocking the fridges.

‘Hey.’ He had to call again before Cal acknowledged him.

‘Oh. Hey. Beer?’

‘No, thanks, just shooting through. How’s the head?’

‘It’s fine.’ He snapped the lid off a mid-strength and dropped it on the counter by Dean’s elbow.

Dean frowned down at it. He looked up, curious. ‘Sure about that?’

‘It’s fine,’ he said again, not realising his mistake. ‘That was some bonfire.’

‘We should re-post every year.’

Cal’s smile was an absent one. ‘Rain check.’

‘What’s up with you?’

‘I’m working, mate.’

Dean’s brows drew together. He checked his watch and cursed. He slid from the stool and pointed at Cal. ‘We’re going to talk about whatever this is. Shite customer service, by the way.’

He walked briskly the rest of the way to the primary school and got there before the first kid had reached the gate to freedom. He’d worried about sending Rowan and Nina back so soon, and after so big a night, but this morning he’d rationalised that fatigue would distract them. And the longer he kept them from their normal lives, the harder normality would be. He’d checked his mobile all day but the school hadn’t called.

A good sign, he hoped.

Nina was out first. She still wore her many necklaces. The teachers clearly hadn’t had the guts to ask her to remove them. Dean could see Rowan lingering with his friends and didn’t rush him. He had to tread so carefully with Ro. Neenz, she was unstoppable.

‘Daddy!’ Delighted, she opened her arms and he lifted her off her feet. When she was propped against his hip, her arms around his neck, she said, ‘We’re getting a new kind of milk!’

‘Yeah? What kind?’

‘Gross free!’

He squeezed her and laughed. If this kid rose to power she would change the world in a thousand charming ways.

Rowan joined them. Not caring who saw, he took his father’s hand. The three of them walked back to the garage, talking softly. Trying not to think about the woman who was lost to them.

When Nina was buckled into the back seat of Dean’s car, she said, ‘That was another goodbye, right, Daddy?’

Her orb-like eyes watched him in the rear-view mirror. Beside her, Rowan watched him too.

Dean turned in his seat. ‘Yeah, kids.’ Grief elbowed him in the heart. ‘No more Mum at the school gate.’

They were quiet a moment.

Rowan said, ‘But you’ll come?’

‘Until you’re too cool to be seen with me.’

Rowan rolled his eyes; he was too young to imagine such a time.

As Dean drove, he broke the news. ‘We’ve got another goodbye tonight, guys. Think you can handle it?’

Nina’s eyes rounded again. ‘What?’

‘You’ve got to say goodbye to yummy dinners – because I’m cooking tonight!’

They protested and laughed – peals of laughter that delighted him.

‘But what about all that food?’ Rowan cried. ‘All that good food in the fridge and freezer?’

Dean slapped his palm against the steering wheel. ‘Of course! I forgot about all that good food! I’m not cooking tonight!’

‘Yay!’ his passengers chorused.

Ethan woke in an unfamiliar bed. Alone and disorientated, it took him one frightening moment to realise why he couldn’t see out of his right eye. His seeking fingers found a gauze pad taped over the socket. His stomach rolled and pitched when he scrambled up to find a mirror.

He found one in the en suite bathroom, where, stripped to his boxer shorts and socks, Ethan leaned close to examine the damage. Very carefully, he eased the gauze away. There was a sizeable abrasion above his eyelid. As there was on his right shoulder. A nasty bruise was colouring the skin around that one, but the scrape was shallow.

It had been treated. A yellow stain told him someone had dabbed antiseptic on it.

Sammy.

He shuffled back to the bedroom. She was not there, nor did it look like she had been. The room was nondescript. Although tastefully decorated, modern and minimalistic, it contained no soul, no flair. Ethan was clearly in a guest bedroom.

He pulled on the jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing last night, marvelled at the filthy state of them, then downed the two painkillers and the glass of water waiting for him on the bedside table.

He stepped into the hallway, searching for memories. He’d fought with Dean again – something about their parents. Sammy . . . Sammy-doll had sat with him on the street. There’d been broken glass. She’d been crying.

Christ. He walked faster, anxious to see her.

But the house was empty.

Once he realised he was alone, and that he had no means of contacting her, he looked about and took in his surroundings. The house was tasteful and discreetly feminine. There weren’t a lot of fussy things on display – everything seemed mostly practical or sentimental. The cushions on the couches were almost flat, having clearly supported many backs. The rug in the centre of the living room was a weave of colours that could hide a multitude of sins. He could just make out the rings left by drinking glasses on the streamlined side tables next to each couch. There was a book on the coffee table, its spine so worn it held Sam’s page without effort. Curious, he checked the title.

Jane Eyre.

He would never have guessed.

So surprising were these revelations that he moved into the master bedroom to confirm he was where he thought he was. A king-sized sleigh bed dominated the room: rich jarrah wood, just like the handsome little bedside tables. Two grand lamps accented the gold in the bedspread. Small crystals hung from the shades, subtle but striking.

Sammy’s smiling face looked up at him from a framed photo on the bedside table. She stood with Cal, Bree, Dean and Rowan. Bree was holding baby Nina. And he was there, he realised. He was in the picture. It had been the day after Nina had been born; they’d had a picnic in the hospital gardens.

He touched the frame. It was the first time he’d seen this picture, but the simple fact that he was in it, and that it held pride of place in Sammy’s bedroom, made it his favourite.

All of those dearest to him.

The urge to snoop flared, but he abstained. Stepping out of the bedroom, he checked the hallway clock and estimated that he had enough time to shower before she got home from work. He wanted to be here when she returned. He needed to fill in the gaps. Almost as much as he just needed to see her again.

An hour after he’d freshened up she still hadn’t come home. He began to pace, impatient. Each time he passed through the kitchen his eyes touched on the poorly hung doors of the over-counter cupboards. It was bad craftsmanship, he thought, and they wouldn’t last long. They were going to fall off one day and maybe hit her on their way down. This, on top of her lateness, aggravated him.

Within twenty minutes he’d sourced a step-ladder, a screwdriver and a levelling plane.

She returned when he was working on the third door.

‘I didn’t expect you to still be here.’

He glanced over his shoulder. ‘I woke up late. Aren’t you usually home earlier than this?’

She arched a brow. ‘Actually, I swung ´round to your place to see how you were.’

‘But you brought me here.’

‘Like I said, I didn’t expect you to still be here.’

She watched him work. It might have been polite to finish at three doors, but Ethan hated to leave a job half done. He adjusted all six, tightened them and wiped them down, then stepped from the ladder.

‘What do I owe you?’ she said, arms crossed, one leg bent at the knee, her foot against the doorframe.

He returned her screwdriver and levelling plane to the cupboard in the hallway. Tucked her ladder beneath the verandah steps where he’d found it. He stepped back into the kitchen, wiping his hands on his pants. ‘Don’t be absurd. You don’t owe me anything.’

She pressed her lips together and looked away. ‘I’ve been thinking. If you’re sticking around a little longer, there’s a few people in town needing odd jobs done. If you’re wanting some easy cash you could write up a few quotes. I could hand them around.’

A little knot of warmth bloomed. ‘Sammy-doll, people in these parts won’t serve me coffee. They’re not going to let me into their homes and businesses. And they’re certainly not going to hand me cash.’

‘There are people desperate enough.’

Because he wanted to reach for her, he wet a dishcloth and wiped down the countertop beneath where he’d been working.

‘People trust qualifications,’ she pressed. ‘And recommendations.’

He turned. ‘You’d recommend me? Why?’

She jerked a shoulder. ‘I’ve seen your work.’ She angled her chin at the perfectly aligned cupboard doors. ‘It’s good.’

He tossed the cloth in the sink and walked towards her.

She pushed away from the doorframe and stepped around him. ‘Can I get you some coffee?’

He watched her. Smiled when she looked back. ‘I’d love some coffee.’

He imagined her mugs were the same as everyone else’s. With only a few stores to choose from in town, variety was a luxury. Originality came only to those willing to travel far or browse the web. Unique gifts from around the world were showcase pieces in Hinterdown. But no one seemed to mind that they mostly all shopped at R. M. Williams, the bush outfitter. Or that most of the women wore earrings by Holly Bates, who left fliers around town and sold at the annual school fete. These things united them and made them a community in a way that those in a larger town couldn’t understand.

‘Tell me about Bree,’ Ethan said. He wanted to sit – he still felt a little foggy – but the kitchen table was on the other side of the room. ‘I mean, I knew her when we were at school – she and Dean were close and they were dating for a while before I left. But what was she like as a woman?’

Sammy watched the water come to boil. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Tell me why Dean loved her.’

She looked up, and he thought he might have seen understanding in her eyes. Her fingertips grazed his forearm, then she reached past him for the container of coffee. ‘Bree lived with passion. She put her whole heart into everything she did. If it was dinner, it was a banquet. If it was a daytrip, it was a treasure hunt.’

She spooned two teaspoons into each mug. Poured the water. She topped hers up with milk and left his black. He thanked her for the drink and followed her to the table.

As they settled, she said, ‘Bree made everyone feel vital. She was a listener, everyone’s confidante, you know? And she kept people’s secrets. I reckon she died with them all.’

Ethan watched her closely, looking for a tell, or a change in her expression. There was nothing. He needed a map legend to know when something mattered to this woman.

‘God, she loved Dean. And those kids. She’d just light up when she saw them. She and Dean used to have lunch together every day. And she’d look forward to it
every
day. It was sweet. She’d leave him notes around the house. I saw one once that just said, “You’re the light of my life.” They’d been married six years at the time. And as far as I knew, they weren’t celebrating an occasion. They were just celebrating each other.’