Adam’s Boys

by Anna Clifton

  “What?” Adam questioned.

  “We need to talk,” JP replied.

  “Is that why Alex disappeared so quickly?”

  “She’s worried that you seem so unhappy.”

  “I’m not unhappy.”

  “Rubbish. You’ve been unhappy since Ellen died. But you’ve been unhappier than ever lately. Have you got any idea how much Justin and I miss the old Adam? Do you know how we used to rely on you to put a positive spin on everything, to always see the funny side of things, to never be affected by a dark mood?”

  “I’m sorry I’ve withdrawn all my sweetness and light from your lives,” Adam replied drolly.

  “So am I. Anyway, I need to find out what will make you happy, Adam. Because it’s time you went out and got it. Ellen died a terrible death in terrible circumstances, but you’ve worn black long enough. It’s time to change your wardrobe. What will make you happy?”

  Adam desperately wanted to say Abbie’s name in immediate response to JP’s appeal. But she was so intertwined with all his friends’ lives that he didn’t want to make things messier by airing his heartache over her.

  “There is one thing that I want to talk to you about,” Adam began tentatively. “It’s not so much about what will make me happy but what I need to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I need to move to Australia—permanently.”

  JP laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. You’re the most English Englishman I’ve ever met.”

  “I’m serious, JP.”

  “But what about your parents? What about your plans for politics here? I’m sorry, but I don’t think the peak hour commute from Sydney to Westminster will work.”

  “Very funny,” Adam shot back before sighing roughly. “The thing is, Henry coming into my life has changed everything.”

  But as Adam heard his own words he knew he wasn’t being completely truthful. The complete truth was that it wouldn’t matter what arrangements were in place for Henry, if Abbie didn’t occupy centre stage of his life he would never be happy.

  JP became more serious. “I see, but a move to Australia?”

  “I’ve given it hours of thought over the last week and a half,” Adam explained gravely. “Abbie moving here is not an option and so Pete and I will move there for good.”

  “Justin’s going to love us then!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he depended on the two of us to run the London office and within six months we both want out.”

  “You too?”

  “Alex and I have been talking about it for a while. She’s an only child like you so it’s tricky living away from her parents. And to be honest, I want to live somewhere where the thermometer makes it over twenty degrees most days in the year. In fact, to be really specific, I want to buy a boat and laze around off Palm Beach every other weekend. And as for Alex, it’s a no-brainer.” JP shrugged. “Her main loves in life are the beach, hot weather and me.”

  “In that order?” Adam smiled.

  “Quite possibly,” JP replied with a wry lift of his eyebrows. “And she reckons she can have the lot by transporting me back to Australia for good.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “But what about your parents?” JP queried, raising that impediment again. He knew Tony and Clarissa and what a blow it would be to have their son and grandson living so far away.

  Adam frowned in concern. “It’s not a good outcome for them but Abbie and Henry have to take priority now. And Pete will be happy so long as he’s with the three of us.”

  At that moment Alex wandered back into the kitchen having slipped on a dress, a jacket and a pair of heels for work. “I think there are two little munchkins Skyping you, Adam. I can hear your laptop pinging from the front room.”

  “Thanks,” he replied and immediately climbed to his feet. He was anxious to speak to the boys, as he did every morning at that time. But sharpening that anxiety was the persistent hope he carried that Abbie might make an appearance on his screen as well—so far she’d been conspicuously absent.

  “Hi guys!” Adam said as he settled down at the desk in front of his computer.

  “Hi!” they returned in chorus.

  “How was school today?”

  “It was okay,” Pete replied. “But Cameron took my packet of cookies and ran away with it.”

  “That’s annoying. Did you miss out on morning tea?”

  “No, Henry got it back. He’s tall, so he reached up to Cameron’s hand and snatched them back when he wasn’t looking.”

  “Good on you, Henry.”

  “How’s work going with JP and Alex?” Henry asked.

  “All good. Nearly finished here. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  “That’s good. It’s really boring here without you.”

  “Why’s that?” Adam asked, but then saw the boys exchanging whispers.

  It looked as though Pete was reminding Henry that he had to keep a secret. Adam frowned and wondered what was going on in his Sydney home.

  “How’s Mum, Henry?”

  “She’s okay.”

  “You know I haven’t heard her in the background for a few days. Where is she when I’m talking to you?”

  “In her bedroom,” Pete explained.

  “She’s in her bedroom every time?” Adam asked dubiously. “What’s she doing in there?”

  “Nothing much,” Pete replied, acutely circumspect.

  “Right, I smell a rat, you two. You’d better go and get her for me.”

  With that the boys looked at each other in alarm.

  “We can’t,” Henry blurted.

  “Okay, Pete,” Adam began by targeting his elder son, knowing he was incapable of a direct lie. “What’s going on? I want the truth—now.”

  Pete looked at Henry who shrugged his shoulders in response.

  “She told us not to tell you but she’s really sick, Dad.”

  “What’s wrong?” Adam demanded to know, his heart bolting away at a canter.

  “She has a really bad headache and is sick all the time,” Pete explained. “She only gets out of bed to get us ready for school and get us things to eat.”

  “Where’s Aunty Maeve?”

  “In Ireland,” Henry threw in.

  “Of course she is,” Adam thought out loud, completely forgetting that Maeve had gone back to look after her sister who was unwell. “Has Mum been to the doctor?”

  “She’s too sick to go to the doctor,” Henry explained, unaware of the contradiction within his reply.

  “So how did you get to school today?” Adam asked, a million questions filling his head as he grappled to understand what was going on in his Sydney home.

  “Abbie asked James’ mum to take us and bring us home.”

  “I see. Okay boys. This is what’s going to happen now. I’m going to ring the house and Pete, I’d like you to answer it. Then I want you to take the phone into Abbie and tell her I want to talk to her straight away. Then after that I’m going to ring Mum’s work friend, Sophie, to see if she can head over and look after you and check on Abbie. You know Sophie Reynolds, don’t you, Henry?”

  Henry nodded.

  “Okay then. I’m ringing you now.”

  He watched as Pete got up to go and get the phone as his international call went through. Then he could hear his son’s voice at the other end as he explained he was heading into Abbie’s room.

  There were some muffled voices as he picked up the odd word from Pete and Abbie before he finally heard her voice on the line, weak and husky.

  “Adam?”

  And if his heart had been cantering earlier it was now going at a full gallop, the sound of her voice permeating every nerve ending in his body and setting each and every one on fire.

  “Are you sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure. It just keeps getting worse.”

  “What does?”

  “The mi
graine and the nausea.”

  “Why haven’t you been to the doctor?”

  “I thought it would get better. Adam, I thought I could manage this but I can’t. I need you.”

  “You need me?” Adam repeated in disbelief, ignoring all of the possible meanings of those words except the one he wanted to hear—she needed him.

  “Is there any chance you could come home a few days earlier?”

  “I’ll be on the next plane,” he replied as his chest heaved with anxiety, but also a fragile hope that perhaps all was not lost between them after all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Letting himself into his dark Paddington home Adam dropped his luggage with a crash in the hallway. He ascended the stairs three at a time and burst into Abbie’s room.

  Then he stopped in his tracks. Everything was so quiet that the thought flashed through his mind that perhaps Sophie had taken Abbie back to her place with the boys. But as his eyes adjusted to the dim light he could make out her figure in the bed, lying on one side, still, and deathly quiet.

  “Abbie,” he murmured as he sank down beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

  As she stirred and rolled over on to her back he was fighting for air, because even in the darkness he could see that she was thinner than he’d ever seen her before, her eyes like sunken holes in her pale face.

  “Adam?”

  “It’s me,” he croaked, a shudder of remorse, relief and worry convulsing his body.

  “You’re here,” she whispered and then rolled onto her side with a small groan of pain at the effort it had cost her to move and talk.

  “Why did Sophie leave you like this?” Adam asked in disbelief.

  “I told her I was feeling better and just needed sleep.”

  “And she believed you?”

  “I was very convincing,” she murmured weakly. “I didn’t want her to fuss.”

  “Well I’m going to fuss. You’re going to hospital right now.” And gently rolling her on to her back he wrapped her in a cashmere bed throw and lifted her effortlessly out of bed—she weighed almost nothing.

  “Please don’t move me. It hurts my head,” she whimpered.

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised soothingly.

  Carrying her downstairs he left the house and gingerly slid her into the back seat of the waiting cab as the driver held the door open for them.

  The hospital was only five minutes away, and on their arrival the triage staff in reception showed Adam straight through to a bed where he could lie Abbie down.

  In something of a daze he provided the few details he could about her medical condition to one of the nursing sisters. She then settled Abbie more comfortably and took her temperature and blood pressure. Tucking her in with another warm blanket she left them alone after promising a doctor would be along in a few minutes. Perching on the side of the bed he took her hand in his. But if she was aware of his presence, she didn’t show it. Her lids were closed, heavy and still, imprisoning her in her own world of pain.

  Within minutes a doctor of his own age appeared and gave him a smile. “Are you Abbie’s husband? Partner?” he asked, reading through her notes.

  “No, but we have a son,” he explained awkwardly, reluctantly releasing her hand and getting to his feet.

  “Then I’ll need to ask you to wait outside while I examine her.” Noticing his anxiety he gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder as he moved to Abbie’s side.

  With worry weighing heavily upon him Adam walked out of Abbie’s cubicle. He didn’t want to leave her, but there was nothing else for it. As the doctor had said, he wasn’t her husband or her partner. He had no right to be there by her side. And so wandering outside he sunk down onto the first chair he found and buried his face in his hands, lost in a world of waiting room anxiety that was so painfully familiar.

  Fifteen, twenty and then thirty minutes slipped by on the clock. Eventually, reading every minute as a sign that Abbie was in real trouble, he wandered fearfully back along the corridor to where he’d left her, nearly falling over the doctor himself as he emerged from behind her curtain.

  “Ah! I was just coming to find you,” he explained. “Abbie’s severely dehydrated. We’ve put her on intravenous fluids and given her something to stop the nausea and migraine. She should be feeling a whole lot better very soon. We’ll get her to stay here for at least twenty-four hours to keep an eye on her though. It’s the usual procedure when a migraine has gone on as long as it has for Abbie. Do you mind if I ask if you live together?”

  “Yes, we do,” Adam replied, relief seeping through his body as he absorbed the news that Abbie was going to be okay.

  “Then you’re going to have to keep an eye on her. She can’t afford to leave it so long before getting treatment next time—it could be serious. Anyway, Abbie can explain all that to you,” he finished, but as he wandered away down the corridor he called back over his shoulder, “You can go in and see her now.”

  Adam didn’t need a second invitation.

  Stepping behind the curtain he pulled a chair up to Abbie’s bedside, sat down and took her hand in both of his. She looked weak and exhausted but more peaceful than when he’d first brought her in.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi yourself.”

  “They gave me something. I’m already starting to feel better,” she explained, drinking in the sight of his handsome face like a tonic, noting his jaw set hard with tension, his eyes fathomless and blue amidst the dark circles.

  “That’s good,” he replied croakily.

  “You look exhausted.”

  He nodded. “I’m all right. Don’t worry about me. The doctor said they won’t let you home tonight.”

  “I know. Probably tomorrow. Are the boys okay with Sophie?”

  “They’re fine. She’s looking after her brother’s two kids so the four of them are having a ball. I’ll pick them up tomorrow.”

  Abbie smiled weakly as Adam’s brows furrowed in concern. “Why did you leave it so long before letting me know you were sick?”

  “I thought it would ease off on its own but it didn’t. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. My migraines have always gone away within three days in the past, but not this one.”

  But that was not the whole truth. The whole truth was that she’d been too proud and stubborn to call upon him for help.

  The days that had followed her departure from the village and from him had been the lowest of her life. He’d let her down—badly. For a day or two she’d even wondered whether she loved him anymore. But then some time had passed and the pain eased a little. The veil of hurt and disappointment fell away and she began to see things clearly. And throughout it all one thing sustained her: Adam loved her—he’d told her so.

  And the simple truth was that she loved him too—she always had. But the problem was that the things about Adam that she loved most—his decency and his dedication to everyone and everything he cared about – had already been spotted and claimed by the world he moved within. She would never be able to change that about him—nor did she want to. The global sense of responsibility he lugged around on his back was so much the essence of him that she couldn’t love him without loving that part of him too. Sure, it made him totally headstrong and thoughtless sometimes—to the point of doing her head in. But the worrying flipside was that he was so busy being all things to all people he had no clue what he needed from the world in return. And she was a long way from sure he’d ever recognise that what he needed from the world was her.

  * * *

  Seconds after passing the open door a long, cool wolf-whistle floated out from the conference room and caught up with Abbie as she made her way along the corridor. She stopped dead, guessing it was Justin and guessing too that she might find Adam with him. She retraced her steps and entered the room.

  Her guess was right.

  Justin and Adam were sitting at the conference table with a drink as they talked over their long and bu
sy week. But their conversation ground to a sudden halt as two sets of male eyes stared at her in stunned amazement[11] .

  “Where are you going?” Adam asked in a tone that sounded somewhat flustered.

  He’d risen to his feet as she entered the room and seemed incapable of dragging his eyes away from her figure in the glove-like black dress and her legs in three-inch heels.

  “Business development,” she answered with a grin.

  “Business development!” Justin guffawed. “Then why don’t you wear outfits like that when we’re attending business development conferences?”

  “Because this is a cocktail party thrown by Atlantis Bank to thank their professional advisors.”

  “But we don’t act for Atlantis Bank,” Adam corrected her.

  “Not yet,” Abbie smiled cryptically. “I’m going as a guest of one of its in-house lawyers.”

  “Are you serious? How did you get a berth to that?” Justin asked eagerly.

  Abbie picking up a major boutique-banking client like Atlantis would be a huge coup for the firm, and Justin knew it.

  “Nick Peyton,” Adam muttered.

  “Who?” Justin swung around to face him.

  “Nick Peyton,” Adam repeated. “A year ahead of us at uni. He’s General Counsel at Atlantis. I don’t know him that well but we got to talking yesterday when I ran into him buying lunch downstairs. He told me he’d been impressed with the way Abbie had run the Mornane Media trade practices litigation. He’s invited you tonight hasn’t he, Abbie?”

  His tone told her that he was already confident of the answer. But Abbie noticed he wasn’t looking quite as excited about the prospect of her attending the function with single, good-looking Nick Peyton as Justin was.

  “That’s fabulous!” Justin blurted in delight. “Don’t forget to yammer away about the commercial department as well as litigation.”

  To this Abbie threw him a look as if to say that he was stating the obvious and of course she’d be doing that at every opportunity.

  “Anyway, I may be late, Adam,” Abbie began again, her voice feigning a light airiness that she wasn’t feeling.