He does love her. Cam told me.
‘Ruby wanted to know everything about her mum. So we’d have long lunches . . .’
‘At yum cha,’ I say. ‘Everyone thought you were seeing her romantically.’ It’s mortifying to admit now.
‘No,’ he confirms. ‘Just talking about Gen. I told her everything. You know, I almost wished—’
He wished she was his.
‘That must have freshened up so much grief for you,’ I say. My heart is breaking for him.
He swallows hard. ‘Ruby is the image of her mother. And she’s like her in so many other ways. It was a strong reminder of what I’d lost. But at the same time, this beautiful, unexpected gift . . .’
I can’t believe all of this was going on and he never said.
‘Watching you go through everything with Cam was torture at times. But it proved to me unequivocally that I was right. I couldn’t lose someone like that again. I can’t. I won’t have it. Cam and I talked about it once – the risk you take, loving someone. And how losing Gen broke me.’
Cam knew?
I think about Hugh’s agony that time he disappeared for those weeks. I remember the conversation that passed, silently, between them when he returned. Was it too much? Watching me lose Cam? Was he giving up on us? On me?
‘You couldn’t stand to watch me lose him,’ I say quietly. ‘My pain was too much, so you went away.’
He takes my hand carefully and studies me. ‘That’s not why I went away. I wouldn’t leave you like that. No, it was something else. Bigger than that. Something I couldn’t think straight about if I was with you.’
An idea takes hold in my brain. Did Cam ask Hugh to somehow ‘step in’， after he was gone? Is that what their arrangement was about? It’s exactly the sort of thing Cam would have done, by that point. He was desperate. And of course there’s a part of me that absolutely recoils at the idea of it. But it’s the only thing that makes sense.
I didn’t want that arrangement. Didn’t need it. But feel rejected anyway.
‘I totally get the thing about wanting to stay on your own,’ I say firmly. ‘It’s the only sensible option. I’m glad you told him “no”。’
He looks confused.
‘That’s what he asked you, isn’t it? To look after me when he’d gone?’
He rubs his forehead. Shakes his head. ‘He did say something like that at one point, and I told him you wouldn’t have a bar of it, but that wasn’t it. It’s something else between Cam and I that I had to wrestle with when I was away. Still wrestle with, actually, most days.’
‘What is it, Hugh?’ I’m so intrigued I might burst.
He puts his hand on my knee. Right on it. I didn’t think such an innocent gesture could disrupt so much inside of me, and I’m grappling with that when he delivers a punchline that’s so hard, I feel like I’ve been hit in the jaw.
‘I’m really sorry, Kate, but Cam made me promise I’d never tell you.’
35
I am the next of kin. Keeper of Cam’s legacy. Protector of his secrets. Mother of his child!
‘You have to tell me!’ I exclaim.
Hugh shakes his head, uncomfortable yet resolved. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘But Cam told me everything!’ I protest, outraged.
Obviously, he didn’t tell me this. I can’t work out if I’m more hurt at being sidelined by Cam just when our marriage was at its most vulnerable, or angry that Hugh is choosing to go along with the secret, all this time later.
A truly horrible thought attacks me out of nowhere. This intensely personal truth Cam shared with Hugh is something that would have hurt me. That’s why Hugh had to leave town to work out what to do.
His steel integrity is unshakeable. Ironic that the very thing I most admire about him will be the thing that shoots us down. It’s driving that wedge so deep between us I can’t even speak. It’s the idea of being excluded by the two men who I—
Forget The Unravelling. This is cataclysmic. End of the rose-coloured filter I’ve had on my marriage with Cam all these years – particularly since he died.
End of Hugh and I, before he and I even begin.
I glare at him now as I stand up and pace the room. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so . . . silenced. Two men and a secret so impenetrable it survives death. Hugh had better armour up, fast, because half of my rage has nowhere to go.
He’s just sitting there. Watching my agony. I mean, he could fix this in five seconds flat if he’d just tell me what it is. But I know he won’t. It’s Hugh. You can bloody trust him.
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ he explains quietly. ‘I was never going to mention it. I didn’t want to hurt you like this.’
Oh, right. He was just going to go through life deceiving me instead. Fantastic. Perfect start to our . . . whatever this was going to be between us.
‘Why are you looking so petrified?’ I ask him.
He shakes his head, as if he can’t believe I’m so clueless.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he asks. As he gets up and steps towards me, I back away like a skittish animal. ‘Kate,’ he says, stopping still. ‘I’m terrified I’m losing you.’
Right. I see. Terror well placed, then.
I can’t breathe in here. I grab the glass sliding door handle and reef it sideways for all it’s worth. But it’s stuck.
He comes up behind me and reaches carefully around my body, lifts the door off its tread slightly and budges it free. For an infinitesimal moment, his ragged breath is on my neck, and part of me implodes.
Don’t lose focus, Kate.
I pull open the door and the air outside is charged ahead of the storm that’s been increasing in intensity since this morning. Good. It’s a full moon. It’s windy. It’s moody. The sea is crashing intensely. It’s like I’ve stepped into an external representation of what’s going on inside my mind and body. Lightning strikes and a crack of thunder explodes overhead. I think I see a person at the end of the garden. Cam?
Don’t be stupid.
I trudge off that way anyway. Hugh calls out to me to stop because it’s late. It’s dark. The storm is dangerously close. ‘At least take your phone, Kate . . .’
I really don’t care.
I hear the sliding door slam moments later and I know he’s on this side of it. Well, I hope he can keep up.
The sand is cold under my bare feet. Every couple of minutes, the lightning flashes over the water, thunder breaks and I see that silhouette again in the distance. It’s starting to freak me out. Is there really someone there?
I check behind me and when the sky lights up, I can see Hugh, keeping his distance. He might not have seen me in a rage very often, but he knows me well enough to back off and leave me to work this out myself. Not that I can, because Cam has deserted me. Left me with no way to have this conversation. No outlet. And unless Hugh breaks his promise, I’ll never know the truth.
What had Cam done? Something illegal? Had he cheated on me? Did Cam have other children I didn’t know about? Or even just one child. That would be bad enough. What if he had a whole other family, like those people who live double lives? Is that where Cam sent Hugh? To mop up some unmentionable mess interstate that I didn’t know existed?