Kim was, she realized, happy to see him.
They’d chatted as Rohan had helped her clear the rest of the tables. He’d been working for an engineering firm in Sydney for a few years but was now heading up their operations in Adelaide. Next time she was in the city, she should let him know. They should catch up. It would be great to see her. And Charlie.
Of course, they both readily agreed. And Charlie.
Kim had been in Adelaide a few times after that. She had never called Rohan. She had never mentioned the conversation to Charlie, either.
* * *
Kim and Charlie had tried to work it out. Or maybe they hadn’t, she sometimes thought later. They knew each other well enough to realize they’d reached the end, whatever was said or done. The separation had been sad and subdued. Charlie had dutifully asked her not to go, to give them another chance, but Kim had been able to detect the faint echo of relief beneath his words. She had been right at fifteen. It had been love. But they weren’t teenagers anymore, and he was worn out, too.
He didn’t argue too hard against Kim’s suggestion that she and Zara make a fresh start in Adelaide. It wasn’t far away, and they both knew they would slip back to each other if they stayed too close. Habit and loneliness weren’t good enough reasons to be together. It was one thing when it was just the two of them, but they wouldn’t do it to Zara, this uncertain back-and-forth.
And things were good in Adelaide. Kim found a job she enjoyed, at a firm run by a woman she’d collaborated with on a design brief a few years earlier. She took up Pilates, discovered a great farmers’ market. She was definitely happier, all things considered. If this breakup with Charlie felt worse than the ones that had come before, Kim thought, it was only because this time they both knew it was for good.
Zara, for her part, seemed to be simply waiting for her mother to change her mind and take them home. She completed one full week at her new school in near silence before looking at Kim over her untouched Friday-night takeout and asking if she could please go back to Marralee.
“Give it a chance,” Kim had said.
“How long?”
“At least a year.”
“And then I can go back?”
Kim wasn’t about to make the rookie error of committing to that, but in a response that even she could tell reeked of desperation, she threw herself into showing Zara the best side of their new life. Months of movies and outings and restaurants and activities followed, until they were both exhausted and Zara still no happier. It had been with a growing sense of despair that they’d found themselves yet again at Glenelg Beach one Sunday afternoon, Kim half-heartedly splashing around in the water and encouraging her sad-eyed daughter to swim. She had been right on the cusp of flinging their damp, sandy towels in a bag and calling it a day when a jogger had unexpectedly slowed, then stopped. He’d shielded his eyes, squinting against the glare of the water.
“Kim? That you?”
And she discovered she was, once again, happy to see Rohan.
At first, it had been friendly coffees and platonic day trips. He’d actually managed to suggest a few things that even Zara had begrudgingly enjoyed. They’d taken it slow and steady, but Kim and Rohan had been something more than friends for six months before she finally told Charlie.
“Great. Good to hear you’re happy,” Charlie had said. He was really trying to sound like he meant it, she could tell, which made her feel worse than anything else he could have done. But then he’d taken another breath.
“So. Rohan, eh?” There had been an odd note in his voice followed by a very long pause. “You sure about that, Kim?”
She had hung up.
She was annoyed with herself later for not pushing back, because yes, thank you very much, Charlie, she was sure. Rohan had a reliable steadiness about him that Charlie had never had. Their relationship didn’t have the same highs and lows that Kim was used to, but there was something about that that she found intensely comforting. Rohan was thoughtful in a holistic way. He was considerate, and not only to her. He conducted daily life in a considered way. Before Rohan did anything, he thought it through.
Kim and Charlie had had the argument, anyway—of course they had—but later, after she was engaged. When it had all suddenly seemed real. Charlie had driven down to pick up Zara for handover and a passing comment about the house Kim now shared with Rohan had been clumsily delivered and badly received, and the two of them had found themselves throwing furious whispered words at each other in the walk-in pantry while Zara packed in her bedroom.
“—made yourself very clear, Kim, don’t you worry about that. But Rohan, for God’s sake. He’s not the right—”
“What, and you are?”
“No. God, no. Not me. I am done. Okay? I’m so tired of this. Be with Rohan, if that’s what you want. But don’t you come crying to me about him, Kim. Understand? Please. I can’t do it.” Charlie had had tears in his eyes. “I don’t want to hear it. Ever.”
“Fine. Got it. Keep your voice down.”
Charlie was angry and lashing out because he was hurt, Kim knew, but so was she. Later, still more shaken than she’d expected to be, she had told Rohan about the fight. He’d reached for his bookmark and gotten up from the couch and wrapped his arms around her.
“That’s Charlie for you. I’m sorry.” He held her, tight and firm. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s a bit jealous.”
That was true, Kim thought. But by then she knew Rohan better. And she suspected that Charlie was not the only one.
* * *
They’d all been on their best behavior after that. Charlie had apologized. Zara told Kim that he’d sat her down at their kitchen table at home in Marralee and calmly explained his part in the breakup, and how the split wasn’t Kim’s fault. Or not only her fault. It didn’t seem to make a difference; Zara was still desperate to go home to the vineyard, but Kim was grateful that Charlie had at least tried.
Their phone calls were now wholly and exclusively about Zara. They were short and rigid with courtesy. That was a reasonable outcome, Kim supposed, even if it felt like she were talking to someone she didn’t know. She and Rohan invited Charlie to their wedding because Zara had expected it, and Kim couldn’t see how they could avoid it. He had attended, Kim suspected, for the same reason. When the two men’s paths crossed, both Rohan and Charlie were so jovial and good-natured that Kim wondered if she was the only one who could see they were both faking it.
Zara didn’t even try to fake it anymore. She never settled into their new life in the way Kim had hoped she would. Her pleading was incessant.
“You said I only had to give it a year.”
“No, I said at least a year, Zara.”
“But it’s been nearly two. Please.”
Kim braced herself for the arguments to escalate, but instead Zara seemed to sink lower, drawing further into herself in a way that was so much worse. Kim strung it out for another couple of months, hoping for a change of heart she knew wouldn’t come. Eventually, after trying absolutely everything she could think of, she couldn’t bear to see Zara so unhappy anymore. She called Charlie, and they agreed their daughter would return to Marralee, for now at least. Zara had cried when Kim had told her, deep shuddering tears of relief.