The Last Love Note(60)

A shadow passes across Hugh’s face. ‘I know how debilitating it is to carry big problems into work every day and still function.’

What problems?

‘Why don’t you ever trust me?’ I ask, and it’s like I’ve winded him.

The greying temples and extra lines on his face have snuck up on me. And I watch as pain flits across his features for the briefest second. Deep pain. He shuts it down, fast, but it’s there long enough for me to see him in a different light. A little bit broken, perhaps, like Mum said, when he’s meant to be whole. Always emotionally together. Hugh is the lighthouse. Never the storm.

‘I do trust you. And I will tell you. But let’s just close the loop on this conversation first,’ he says. ‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot this afternoon, and your work. And mine. And there’s something I need to get off my chest.’

The house itself seems to still in this moment, as if even the walls are listening.

‘I know you think you’re dropping the ball all the time, but you make up for it with your creativity. This film project is unlike anything we’ve ever done, at least since I’ve been involved. The universal disconnect and rivalry between faculties over funding has been a thorn in the tertiary sector’s side for decades. I know we’re not going to fix it with one project, but it’s the spirit of the strategic thinking that could open up some exciting new directions.’

‘This doesn’t sound like a problem,’ I say.

‘It’s the opposite. But you’ve got so much self-doubt. And it’s very badly placed. You know you’re crucial to me, Kate?’

I do not know that. Not in so many words.

‘But here’s the quandary.’ He pauses, like he’s deliberating whether or not to forge through the rest. ‘This job is holding you back.’

Something in his tone silences my inevitable protest. Or perhaps it’s that his statement echoes Mum’s.

‘I didn’t ever want you to feel like you owed me for the flexibility or feel in any way guilty for wanting something more than I can ever offer.’

He’s never made me feel that way. This feels like we’re breaking up. Again, making Mum’s point!

‘The thing is, Kate, you’re the only person in the organisation who I’m genuinely scared to lose. But you’re also the one I really should stop trying so hard to retain.’





26





I’ve spent the last two years trying to build a fortress for me and Charlie, clinging to the idea of certainty and safety and security. I guess that’s what people do when chaos wipes them off their feet and they lose control of everything. Suddenly it all feels precarious.

‘The future I imagined just combusted,’ I tell Hugh. ‘It was my own personal apocalypse. And then I was forced to stagger to my feet and pull Charlie out of the rubble and rebuild everything from scratch. I’ve had to cling hard to my own life. I’ve needed help to stay in a world that felt impossible to exist in without Cam.’

He knows this; he’s provided some of that help. He rests his hand on the banister and waits for more of the monologue that I sense is about to pour itself out of my runaway mouth.

I sit on a step, clearly settling in to deliver quite the lecture. Hugh lets go of the banister and props himself against the wood-panelled wall, putting more space between us. Giving me the floor.

‘Mum said something to me tonight and I can’t shake it. She said the fact that Cam died at thirty-eight should scare me into taking action towards the things I really want. She thinks I’ve—’

No, don’t go into the dependence on the connection stuff!

‘She thinks I’ve got comfortable with you. And vice versa.’ It’s an incredibly ironic statement, given right now I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof.

‘I think she’s right,’ Hugh agrees. ‘Don’t you?’

Of course she’s bloody right.

I feel like I’ve arrived at a clearing, in full sunlight. No shadows here to hide in.

‘With Charlie and the house and all of Cam’s notes at home, being here I finally feel uncaged,’ I reply. ‘I feel like Kate, the woman. Not the widow. Not the wife. Not the mum. Not the employee. Just a woman, with a blank page in front of her.’

He nods.

The emptiness of that blank page that was so confronting two years ago is starting to feel like this delicious invitation to write the next part of my story. A tantalising glimpse of how it might look to have purpose and forward momentum into a new life.

I look at Hugh. ‘I know I’m crucial to you,’ I tease, pulling myself up on the step again. ‘And to all your charts and spreadsheets and whatever the hell all those data schedule things are.’

He laughs.

‘But sometimes I wonder, seriously, if I’m just staying around because you make it so easy for me.’

He shrugs.

‘You know, if you see me sitting there, staring into space, don’t always assume I’m upset about Cam. I am, about seventy-five per cent of the time. But I reckon twenty-five per cent of it, I’m actually dreaming up the plot of a novel. The other five per cent I’m wrecked from dragging Charlie around with a camera at midnight trying to capture the Milky Way.’