Lost Without You

by Rachael Johns

  Paige’s mouth dropped open in horror. ‘Surely not, Mother.’

  Her dad’s smile stretched from ear to ear and a glazed look came over his eyes as he said, ‘Phil Collins, “Groovy Kind of Love”.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. It’s coming back to me now. I took hours choosing the playlist and putting all the songs onto a couple of cassettes.’

  ‘If I recall correctly George Michael featured heavily on that list. I think you were half in love with him.’

  ‘I’m still not over his death,’ she said, going on to list some of the other songs that had been on repeat on her Walkman around that time, many of which still pumped out of her iPhone speaker dock whenever she cleaned the house.

  Rebecca sighed, a sentimental smile sitting on her face. ‘The eighties was such a fab decade for music.’

  ‘Did you throw your bouquet?’ Paige asked, pointing down at the unsurprisingly enormous (was anything small-scale in the eighties?) cascading bouquet of white and pink carnations. The pink totally clashed with the four bridesmaids’ outfits.

  ‘Oh yeah, the bouquet toss was non-negotiable. My single friends would never have forgiven me if we missed that.’

  That was a tradition Paige felt weddings could do without and she certainly didn’t plan on having it at hers but she loved listening to her parents talk about their special day. And, since she’d brought out the album, her mother hadn’t whined once about being stuck there like a prisoner.

  A knock on the door interrupted the discussion and a golden-haired nurse Paige guessed to be in her early to mid-fifties entered the room. She wore one of those upside-down watches and a warm smile.

  ‘Good evening. I’m Clara and I’ll be your nurse for the night.’

  ‘Hello,’ Rebecca replied. ‘I would say it’s nice to meet you but …’

  The nurse smiled again as she lifted the clipboard off the end of the bed and peered down at it. ‘I understand. This isn’t most people’s first choice for a holiday. Now I need to do your obs and I’m sorry but visiting hours are over for the day, so you’re going to have to say goodbye to your fan club.’

  ‘Okay.’ Rebecca nodded, her voice not much more than a whisper, and once again Paige noticed how frail and vulnerable she looked.

  ‘I’m on the late shift at the café tomorrow, so I’ll grab some bridal magazines and come to visit you in the morning.’

  ‘And I’ll call work and tell them I need a few days off,’ said Hugh. ‘We won’t let you get bored and lonely in here, love.’

  They took turns kissing her mother goodbye and even before they’d left the room, Clara had begun to take her blood pressure.

  ‘Do you want to come to our place and have something proper to eat?’ Paige asked her dad as they headed for the elevators. Quite aside from the food, she was worried about him going home to an empty house.

  ‘Thanks sweetheart, but I’ll be fine. I’m full after all that chocolate.’ He chuckled and patted his middle-aged spread. ‘I’ll have some baked beans on toast later if I get hungry.’

  She cringed. Was that what he’d live on if something did happen to her mother? No, she refused to think about that option. A kidney transplant would make her mum like new again.

  ‘Maybe I should stay with you tonight,’ she said, already thinking about making him up some healthy soup, full of hearty vegetables.

  ‘No. I can look after myself you know. I managed quite a few years before your mother came along. And you should be with Sol tonight, celebrating your engagement and making wedding plans.’

  ‘If you’re sure …’ Paige still wasn’t convinced.

  ‘I am,’ he said as they arrived in front of the line of elevators. ‘I promise I’m fine. Your mother is in the best place and I’ll rest easy knowing that.’

  Sol reached forward and punched the down button.

  As they waited, a thought struck Paige. ‘Dad—what happened to Mum’s wedding dress? Is it packed away at the house somewhere?’

  It seemed odd she’d never asked about this before, but she hadn’t been one of those little girls obsessed with weddings and dressing up. Much to her mum’s chagrin, who’d longed for a daughter to go shopping for clothes with.

  He frowned a moment and then scratched his head. ‘I think she gave it away to charity.’

  ‘Oh.’ Paige’s heart sank and she couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice; the grand plan that had entered her head a few seconds earlier was gone as soon as it had arrived.

  Clara

  Clara yawned as she let herself into her house just before eight o’clock on Monday morning. Normally following a night shift, she’d eat a quick bowl of porridge, have a shower and fall into bed for a few hours slumber. After thirty-plus years working shift hours, her body was trained to sleep when necessary and she was usually catching z’s within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.

  Not today.

  Although she was her usual post-shift fatigued, her mind refused to switch off. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about one of last night’s patients—a woman only a few years younger than herself who’d been diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure. The woman put on a brave face for her family, but the shock of such a diagnosis had hit her hard. Clara had gone into her room in the early hours of the morning, expecting to find her patient asleep but found her in tears instead.

  Pulling up the plastic visitor chair, she’d sat beside the woman and listened as she lamented about her situation, asking over and over ‘why me?’

  Clara didn’t have the answers to this question any more than she had the answers to why she’d never been blessed with children or a more stable husband, but she’d tried to comfort the woman as she mourned her healthy body and worried about how her husband would cope if she died. And although Clara was sympathetic, part of her couldn’t help feeling a little jealous. At least if her patient died, she’d leave a hole in someone’s heart and also a legacy in her daughter. Clara didn’t have to worry about leaving anyone behind—sure her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews would be sad but life would go on for each of them—and that didn’t give her any comfort.

  You never knew when your time was up. She could die tomorrow and when her life flashed before her eyes she’d have nothing to show for it.

  It’s not too late to change your destiny.

  She blinked and wondered if she was actually asleep and dreaming because such a thought felt far too woo-woo to have come from her own head. But it led to her thinking about the conversation she’d had with her family on Saturday night.

  As sleep didn’t appear to be on the agenda any time soon, Clara threw back her bedcovers, climbed out and set off to make herself a cup of tea.

  Her house was almost as big as Siobhan and Neil’s, so it was a bit of a hike from her bedroom at the front to the kitchen at the back, but as she headed down the hallway, passing all the other bedrooms, she thought about the vast differences between the two houses. Whereas her sister’s house was filled with love, laughter, a constant stream of people and a whole lot of mess, Clara’s house was neat and tidy but perpetually cold and quiet.

  The size of the house reminded her daily how alone she was.

  Over the years she’d tried to fill it with good memories, but she might as well be living in a newly built display home for all its warmth. Or a museum thanks to her various ‘collections’. When she and Rob got married they’d had grand dreams and had bought a house as large as they could afford, intending to fill the rooms with children in the not too distant future. They’d wanted five or even six, enough for a basketball team Rob had often joked, although she imagined any kids of his were much more likely to form a band.

  In those early days, things had been fabulous. After Rob’s band were signed by a big record label, they went from playing gigs to touring Australia. When they were home—supposedly working on future albums—the house had been dubbed ‘the party house’. It was a rare weekend when the place wasn’t filled with people.
Clara had adored entertaining and was so proud of Rob, who everyone knew as singer and songwriter was the true talent in the band.

  But, as their dreams of a family had dried up, so had Rob’s inspiration. He stopped picking up a guitar and a pen to work through his feelings and started picking up a bottle and, instead of the house filling with children, all they’d managed to fill the rooms with was clutter.

  Clara kept on nursing through their heartaches, but Rob’s music suffered big-time. Tired of him always showing up to practice and gigs drunk, sick of him not being able to offer them any good new material, two of his band-mates quit and although the other two stuck by him, their second album (delayed thanks to him) was both a commercial and a critical flop. The group disbanded when they were dropped by their record label not long after and, to the best of Clara’s knowledge, Rob hadn’t written another song since. Although he’d worked on and off over the years in bars and pubs, he’d never managed to hold down a job longer than a few months. Usually his bosses, who at first were happy to have someone ‘famous’, had showed him the door when they discovered he was drinking the profits. He never cared much about being fired because the royalties that still trickled in all these years later were enough to keep him in the grog he required.

  But whereas Rob drank to numb the pain, Clara bought stuff. There were bookshelves in almost every room, crammed full of paperback novels. At least she read these, but what was the point of everything else?

  She owned a collection of bone china teacups and teapots that she didn’t even use when her sisters and mother came around for afternoon tea. She had teaspoons, postcards and magnets from the year she and Rob travelled round Australia—an attempt on her behalf to get them to reconnect. Then there were the buttons, the pens, the stamps, the foreign coins, the thimbles, the cat ornaments (because she loved cats but hadn’t had one since she was a child), the special royalty edition copies of magazines such as New Idea and Women’s Day. She even had a collection of rolling pins. And that was only the beginning.

  Everything was displayed beautifully on shelves throughout the house and even in the spare bedrooms. The rare times Rob was on the wagon, he’d actually been a great handyman and had made cabinets to house all the little things that Clara spent her weekends dusting. She could only imagine the dust that would gather if she actually took her sisters’ advice and got a life. If she started ‘dating’ again—she chuckled at the almost-foreign word—who would maintain her museum?

  Her laughter fell flat as an even more horrifying thought struck. What would happen to all her stuff when she died? She didn’t have children who’d be lumped with sorting it all out, so her younger sisters or their children would have to do the honours.

  And what would they say about her?

  Poor Aunty Clara—she had nothing better to do with her life than collect crap.

  She could just imagine them shaking their heads sadly as they boxed up all her stuff and they’d be right because the only collection she really felt any attachment to was her Russian dolls. Her dad had given her the first—beautifully handpainted blue-and-white ones—on her sixteenth birthday and she had added to it frequently over the years. The rest she could do without.

  It was as if a light bulb had gone off in her head.

  I could get rid of it all!

  But then the house truly would feel empty.

  The kettle whistled; she couldn’t even remember filling it up and, as she poured hot water into her mug and jiggled her teabag up and down, another thought flickered.

  Why don’t you sell it?

  Suddenly Clara didn’t know why she’d held onto the house in the divorce. Probably because just getting rid of Rob had been effort enough and if she’d downsized then she’d have had to deal with the clutter as well.

  Light-headed with excitement, she took her tea, grabbed a packet of Tim Tams from the cupboard and sat down at the table in front of her laptop. As she lived alone, most of the time she ate dinner in front of the TV, so the dining room table had become more of a desk, with bills to pay, other paperwork and books taking up half of it. She rested the tea on last month’s issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly and took a bite of chocolate biscuit as she waited impatiently for her laptop to wake up.

  There was so much going through her head, she wasn’t sure where to start. Real estate agents, places where she could sell her junk, exotic holiday destinations or how to find love in your fifties? Feeling indecisive, she opened four tabs and chose the all-at-once approach. There were young nurses at work who could tap a message out on their phone while at the same time working on three different tasks on the computer.

  If the millennials could multitask why couldn’t she?

  Within half an hour, Clara had a list of local estate agents and had decided that donating her collections to charity was the easiest solution. Siobhan would probably berate her for this decision—saying she could get good money for some of her stuff on Gumtree or eBay—but she didn’t need or want money. She needed a life. She wanted freedom, excitement, hope.

  The prospect of putting herself out there and opening up to the possibility of a relationship was daunting but there was a lot of advice for women of her vintage in the same position—independent women who were quite capable of looking after themselves but wanted companionship. With a deep breath and shaking hands, she opened yet another tab and typed the most terrifying words of all: ‘online dating for over fifties.’

  After almost an hour reading the ‘why choose us’ sections of a number of different websites, she decided to bite the bullet and register for one. She filled in all her details truthfully—no point pretending to be someone she wasn’t at her age—then uploaded the most recent photo she could find and pressed submit.

  July

  Josie

  There was a buzz of excitement at school all day (and not just among the students). It was the last day of term and two glorious weeks of holidays lay ahead. Josie’s colleagues, who had been sporting dark bags under their eyes the past few weeks, had a spring in their step and were letting their classes out five minutes before the final siren.

  Not Josie; she made her year ten English students work to the bitter end.

  ‘Miss!’ One of her most annoying students leapt out of his chair and thrust his finger at the window. ‘Everyone else is already out. Can we go now?’

  ‘Sit down, Noah.’

  Surprisingly, he did as he was told. Probably he didn’t want her to give him detention on the last day of school—the mood she was in right now, she would too, if she didn’t have to head to the airport to collect Nik.

  A heavy ball of dread grew in her stomach at the thought.

  She should be excited at the prospect of seeing her husband after almost a month apart, but being with Nik made her feel like a failure. Even on FaceTime, she couldn’t look him in the eye. Every time she did she recalled his exact expression each time she’d told him she was miscarrying. Sure, he’d tried to cover over it quickly, always wrapping his arms around her and saying all the things he thought he should be saying—it wasn’t her fault, they’d have another baby, he loved her no matter what—but he’d never been quick enough to hide the utter disappointment in his eyes.

  Her body had killed his babies and she was the murderer of his dreams.

  The siren blasted through the school and her students shoved back their chairs and sprung to their feet.

  Noah was already halfway to the door when he said, ‘Now can we go?’

  ‘Yes. Go.’ She shooed them with her hands.

  As the kids streamed past her desk, a few of them whispered loudly to each other.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with Ms Mitreski? She’s been such a cow lately.’

  ‘I heard her husband’s working overseas so she’s probably not getting enough.’

  The girls exploded into giggles as they poured out of the classroom. Josie wasn’t sure whether they meant her to hear or not, whether they meant to hurt her with their
words—she wouldn’t put it past fifteen-year-old females—but nothing they said could make her feel any worse than she already did. With a deep sigh, she went around the classroom making sure all the windows were shut. The cleaners were supposed to lock up, but so many times the school had been vandalised because one of the windows wasn’t shut properly. Or maybe Josie was just dithering.

  She walked back to her desk, scooped up her planner and then switched off the lights as she headed out into the corridor. As she dragged her feet towards the staffroom, dodging kids and basketballs and various other things that flew through the air, she passed Jake, one of the younger teachers.

  He gave her a super-cheesy grin and lifted his hand to high-five her. ‘Woohoo. We made it through another term. Only two more and sum-mer.’

  ‘Yippee.’ She forced a smile; Jake wasn’t much more mature than the year twelve boys.

  ‘What are you up to these hols?’ Thankfully he didn’t stay still long enough for her to answer, instead continuing on down the corridor high-fiving every student he passed.

  She felt like Eeyore right now. Jake was Tigger trying to get everyone to catch his enthusiasm and she just wanted to crawl into a hole and hibernate. Not that donkeys hibernated, but still. Finally, she reached her destination and was relieved to find it empty. She retrieved her handbag, but, as she started towards the door, one of her colleagues entered.

  ‘Oh, hi Jose,’ Sarsha said, pulling her long black hair out of its ponytail. ‘I thought you’d be gone already. Isn’t Nik coming home tonight?’

  ‘Yep.’ She hitched her handbag to her shoulder, thankful she had an excuse not to stay and chat. ‘I’m heading to the airport now.’

  Sarsha flopped into a chair and rocked on it like a kid—the holidays had gone to everyone’s head. ‘You must be so excited. Does he have some time off too?’

  ‘No, he’s back to work Monday.’ Thank God. If Nik had holidays he’d want them to go out and do things together, like bowling. He thought bowling fixed everything and once upon a time she’d enjoyed playing with him, but the only thing about the bowling alley that appealed right now was the fact it sold alcohol.