Everyone expected him to want to stay with the baby, but he’d just wanted to escape. To be alone—away from his mum and dad, Claire’s parents and her brother and his wife who’d also arrived at some stage in the evening. At least he knew Tim would look after Claire’s folks so he didn’t need to worry about them.
‘We’re home, darling,’ said his mum, turning around from the front seat to look at him. ‘Let’s get you inside.’
Jasper glanced out the window to see that they’d arrived at his parents’ place. ‘This isn’t my home. It’s yours.’
‘Your mum thought you might be best staying with us tonight,’ said his dad. ‘We can take you over to your place in the morning for a change of clothes before we head back to the hospital.’
He shook his head, trying to digest his dad’s words. ‘We? But what about tomorrow’s balloon flight?’
‘We’ve cancelled all flights for at least the rest of the week, out of respect to Claire.’
In all their years of business, Jasper couldn’t remember his father ever cancelling a flight for any reason other than the weather or if there’d been a fatal balloon accident somewhere. The latter had happened only a few times in his lifetime and not to anyone he’d known. The reality of what had happened suddenly hit him.
Claire’s really gone. She isn’t coming home.
But right now he wanted to be as close to her as he could get. And that meant going home to the haven they’d created together. They loved their house and their garden and when they weren’t hot air ballooning, they liked nothing more than to simply hang out there together.
‘I’m not staying here. I want to go home.’
He saw his parents exchange a look, then his mum said, ‘Okay. But I’m going to stay with you tonight. You shouldn’t be alone after a day like that.’
‘I’m not going to do anything stupid,’ he snapped, although right now the idea of flying up in a hot air balloon and never coming back down didn’t seem stupid at all.
‘Oh Jasper, I really don’t think—’
‘Let him be, Wendy,’ his dad interrupted. ‘He’s right, he’s a grown man and I don’t blame him wanting some time alone right now.’
She relented with a heavy sigh. ‘Okay.’
His dad turned the four-wheel drive around and drove the short distance to his place. When Jasper climbed out of the vehicle, he slammed the door shut behind him but his parents followed.
‘Do you want us to come in for a little bit?’ asked his mum. ‘I could make you a hot drink or something to eat. I really don’t like the idea of leaving you all alone.’
He looked down at her standing before him and shook his head. ‘No, thanks. I think I’m just going to go to bed.’
With any luck he’d wake up and discover today had been some kind of twisted nightmare.
‘If you’re sure.’ His mum threw her arms around him and held him tight while he stood there like a wooden soldier. He knew she only wanted to comfort him, but he couldn’t bring himself to hug her back.
When she let him go, his dad clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I love you, son. Call us any time during the night if you change your mind about being alone and we’ll be over here pronto.’
He nodded. ‘Thanks.’
‘We’ll be back first thing in the morning,’ Wendy said. ‘And you’ll need to start giving some thought to what kind of funeral you’d like. Do you know if Claire wanted a burial or to be cremated?’
Jasper ran a hand through his hair angrily. ‘For fuck’s sake, Mum, she only died this afternoon.’
Wendy flinched. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I just …’ She sniffed and then wiped her eyes as Paul wrapped his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart.’
‘We’re all in shock,’ Paul said. ‘We don’t know how to navigate something like this, but somehow we’ll get through it together.’
Jasper nodded. Although he didn’t want to get through it, he felt like a jerk for swearing at his mum. ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’
‘Don’t you apologise, my darling. Go inside. Try and get some rest and we’ll see you in the morning.’
He forced himself to give them both a quick hug and then he retreated into the house, closing the door without waiting for them to get back into the car and drive off.
Claire’s two cats greeted him at the front door, winding themselves in and out of his legs and meowing loudly for their dinner. Oh boys. He dropped to the floor and pulled them into his arms, burying his head in their soft fur. Although Gerry and Sunny had grown to love him pretty fast, Claire would always be their first love. How were you supposed to explain to an animal that their owner was never coming back?
After a short while, the cats squirmed to be let go and started down the hallway. He followed them on autopilot, randomly switching on lights as he went. Despite the cats, the house was eerily quiet. He reckoned he could count on his hands the number of times he’d been here without Claire. As they worked and played together, they rarely did anything separately. If they attended a local event, they went together. They both played tennis for the local club and the friends they had in the area were other couples, so if they hung out socially they both went. If they went to Sydney to visit Polly and Scotty and the kids, they went together.
Polly and Scotty! Had anyone told them?
His hand went to his mobile phone in his back pocket and he drew it out. Looking down at the screen he saw he had over twenty missed calls and even more unread messages. Some were from Scotty, some from Polly, others from his sisters and close friends. He guessed bad news travelled fast. Although it was after midnight, he figured that no one would hold it against him if he called them back now, but what the hell would he say? What would they say?
No words could make things better so he didn’t want to hear any at all.
He dumped his phone on the kitchen table and went over to the spot by the back door where they fed the cats. After shaking dried biscuits into their bowls, he left them to it and grabbed a beer from the fridge. The click-clack of his boots echoed on the floorboards as he walked through the house and his favourite beer tasted bitter on his tongue.
Claire was everywhere he looked.
She was in the sunny bright yellow paint on the walls—her choice, her favourite colour. She was in the floral themed artworks and inspirational quotes in funky frames that hung on said walls. She was in their furniture, a mix of modern and vintage-chic. She was smiling back at him from their wedding photos scattered all over the house.
But nowhere was more Claire than the room they’d spent the last few months doing up as a nursery. He flicked on the light and hesitated in the doorway. In here she’d gone for a pale mint green rather than her usual yellow and they’d painted big white clouds around the perimeter. The furniture was all whitewashed wood. There was the cot and matching change table that had taken hours to put together—flat packs weren’t his forte—and the two mobiles, one balloon-themed and made by his mother, the other a floral one Claire had picked up at the local markets.
A low white bookshelf took pride of place beneath the window, already filling up with books and cute cuddly teddy bears from the future grandparents. There was also a whiz-bang pram with a capsule they could switch from the car to the house without waking the baby. Polly and his sisters had sworn by the brand so that’s what they’d bought.
But Claire’s favourite thing was the big comfy rocking chair. ‘Feeding chair’, she’d called it. She’d spent days on the internet researching about the best one, telling him she’d be spending hours in it breastfeeding so she wanted it to be perfect. Folded neatly on the seat was a soft white mink throw rug and a feeding cushion in the shape of an animal. Polly had told Claire she couldn’t live without one of them as well, that having the right lift could really help in the early days of breastfeeding.
A lump formed in his throat and he put the beer down on the change table. Fancy cushions and comfortable chairs meant nothing
now. Claire would never sit in here and nurse their baby.
One day in the not-too-distant future he’d have to bring that baby back here without her. That thought filled him with nothing but dread. How the hell was he supposed to look after a child all by himself? He might be good with his nieces and nephews, good at building Lego models and playing Nerf gun wars, but he didn’t know the first thing about infants.
How could he do this alone? He wasn’t supposed to be doing this alone. That wasn’t the plan, dammit.
Why the hell had he let Claire drive to Newcastle by herself? He’d been with her for every other blasted appointment and if only he’d gone with her to this one, they probably wouldn’t have been on the Expressway at that fatal moment. And if they had been, he’d have been driving and perhaps he’d have been able to react quicker than she had and avoid the other car altogether.
Damn CASA and their stupid checks. Had Big Basket Ballooning ever failed them before?
He stormed out of the nursery—slamming the door shut behind him—and then went into their room and glared at their marital bed. The doona was a large sunflower print that Claire had chosen. He’d always loved it because it reminded him of the dress she’d been wearing the night they met. On the bedside table sat the book she was halfway through reading, splayed open in a way that always made him cringe. He liked his books kept in good condition, Claire liked hers to look well-loved—it was one of the few things they ever disagreed on.
It suddenly hit him that she’d never finish reading it and at this thought he doubled over in pain. Clutching his stomach, he fell onto their bed. Part of him never wanted to lie on it again, but a stronger, more needy part of him grabbed hold of her pillow and hugged it close. He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent, which still lingered on the pillowcase.
She always smelt of flowers due to the amount of time she spent out in the garden and also the floral shampoo she used on her hair. And as Jasper breathed in that familiar aroma now, he couldn’t believe that he’d never be able to smell, see or touch her again. This had to be some kind of cruel mistake. There had to be something he could do to make things normal again. He would do anything to turn back time.
Anything.
He’d give up ballooning tomorrow if it meant he could wake up and have Claire sleeping beside him again.
He’d move to Antarctica.
Hell, he’d become a monk. Even if it meant he couldn’t be married to her anymore, at least she’d still be alive.
Yet even as he clutched at these desperate ideas, he knew they were all futile. The house was chillingly quiet—Claire’s absence already a gaping hole.
Grief rocked him in waves as he held her pillow close and closed his eyes, craving the sleep that would perhaps bring some reprieve. But two hours later when he was still lying there wide awake—his body physically fine but aching all over—he wondered if he’d ever be able to sleep again.
Chapter Twenty-five
Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Harper must have fallen asleep because when she woke up on Tuesday, Samuel had already left. She hadn’t heard him at all. She rolled over to stare at the empty space beside her and the memories of the day before came flooding back.
Claire is dead.
At this thought, she felt shocked all over again and prayed that yesterday was simply a nightmare. But when she crawled out of bed and caught sight of herself in the mirror on her dressing table, she knew this was an empty hope. Her eyes, her cheeks—she looked like the nightmare. All red and puffy but at the same time washed out. She was going to need a hell of a lot of make-up to make herself presentable for work. And caffeine. Lots of caffeine.
An hour later when she walked into the studio carrying two takeaway coffees, Lilia took one look at her and she knew she’d failed in her cover-up attempts.
‘Are you sure you should be here today?’ Lilia asked. ‘You look like you’ve been out on an all-night bender.’
‘Luckily this is radio, not TV then, hey?’ She thrust one takeaway cup at her producer. ‘What’s on the agenda today?’
‘Well, first up is you telling me what happened last night in Newcastle. Did you see Jasper? Did you see the baby?’
Harper just wanted to blank the last twenty-four hours from her mind but Lilia had held her hand and poured wine down her throat yesterday afternoon while she’d waited for Willow’s call, so she deserved some sort of explanation. She flopped into her seat, sighed and then took a long sip of her coffee before giving Lil a brief rundown.
‘As for the baby,’ she concluded, ‘I wasn’t allowed in to see her. So I really don’t have any idea how she’s doing. But plenty of babies have been born earlier than thirty weeks and lived, so I’m hopeful she’ll be okay.’
‘No wonder you look shattered, that sounds horrid. And that poor man. That poor baby.’ Lilia’s eyes glittered as if she might break into tears at any moment. ‘Poor you. That’s a lot to go through. Why don’t you take the day off? Go have a nap. I can reschedule today’s guest and play one of our pre-records. And we can get Leo to work a little longer and cover the first part of your show. He won’t mind.’
‘No.’ Harper shook her head. Leo was on air every day before her and wouldn’t mind helping out, but she didn’t want to go home and have nothing for company but her own depressing thoughts. At least at work there was the possibility that she’d be able to think about something else. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Lilia raised one eyebrow but knew better than to argue. ‘Okay. If you’re sure.’
‘I am, but thanks.’ She turned towards her computer screen; this conversation was over. Her first task every day was checking over the latest news and seeing if there were any current affair hot topics that she could discuss on air.
But today the news at the top of her screen was of yesterday’s ‘fatal accident’—the last thing she wanted to talk about with her listeners. The media had grabbed hold of the story, giving it more attention than a regular car accident because of all the drama involved. The high-speed chase of a drug addict in a stolen car. The tragic death of a young mother to be. The miraculous delivery of a premature baby. Thank God they hadn’t got hint of her involvement.
She felt sick as she gazed at the photo of Claire and Jasper on her screen. It was clearly a shot from their wedding day. She guessed the journos had sourced it from Claire or Jasper’s Facebook pages, but it seemed in such bad taste to splash their personal life and previous happiness all over the newspapers and internet. How would Jasper feel if he saw all this? And what about Claire’s parents? She could only hope that they were too busy with the baby to think about checking the news, and that the media would be respectful enough to give them time to grieve in peace.
As if, said a little voice inside her. At the same time she heard a ping, signalling she had a new email.
Harper clicked the mail icon at the bottom of her screen, happy for the diversion. Although part of her was curious to read if there was any new information about the car accident and the baby, it felt wrong—almost as if she were stalking Jasper—to try and glean such info from news sites.
She frowned, her fingers hovering over her mouse as a name she’d never seen in her inbox before sat right at the top. Wendy Lombard? Her heart skipped a beat as realisation dawned—Jasper’s mother.
With shaky fingers, she clicked open the email and held her breath as she read.
Dear Harper
I hope this email reaches you—I went online to the radio station to try and find a way to contact you. I almost called but after last night I wasn’t sure whether you’d want to speak to any of us, and I’d probably sob through any phone conversation right now anyway.
Paul and I just want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for everything you’ve done—for giving Claire and Jasper the gift of a baby and for caring enough to come last night and pay your respects. Jasper, as I’m sure you’ll understand, is devastated and still in shock over Claire’s sudden death, but I know tha
t once he has had time to digest all this, he will be appalled at the way he treated you yesterday. He didn’t mean what he said. Grief does crazy things to a person.
But in case he takes a little while to come around, I wanted to give you a brief update on Anaya—that is the name of their beautiful baby girl. Claire chose it and we think it fits her perfectly. She weighs a tiny 1.5 kg or 3 pounds in the old way. At the moment she’s inside a heated incubator and will probably stay there for a few weeks. The paediatrician told us that once she reaches 1.8 kg she’ll be able to regulate her own temperature and go into a normal open air cot.
Right now, we can only hold her little hand through a hole in the side of the incubator but the nurse told us that this afternoon they’ll initiate some skin-to-skin contact with Jasper. Anaya’s being fed through a feeding tube with expressed breast milk. I didn’t know people donated such a thing but they do and it’s so good that she can get a little of that goodness, even if just for a short while.
She’s also on respiratory support for now but the medical staff are calling her birth a miracle and we are just so thankful that on such a tragic day for our family, there was also this amazing joy.
So thank you from all of us for what you did. Attached are a couple of photos of Anaya and my contact details are below. Please call or email if you want to know anything else. I’m sure in time you’ll hear from Jasper as well.
With love,
Wendy.
Harper’s gaze dropped to the two photos at the bottom of the screen and she gasped.
‘You okay?’ Lilia asked from across at her desk.
She barely heard and didn’t answer as she gazed at the image of the tiny baby on the screen. It was sleeping, its little hands fisted, tubes sticking out of its button nose. Something in her heart squeezed.
This was what her egg had created. Because of her, this little person was alive. Despite her devastation and sadness over Claire, she couldn’t help but smile at the image on the screen.
The Greatest Gift Page 23
