The Seven Steps to Closure

by Donna Joy Usher

  I staggered to the couch and sat with my head in my hands. An abortion? Jake wanted me to get an abortion. It made me realise that I wanted this child, but whoever that stranger was in the kitchen – the cold hard angry man, I wanted him gone.

  Exhausted and utterly depressed, I climbed into bed, fully clothed, and slept until my alarm woke me the next morning.

  I didn’t bother going to work that day. It was all I could do to make myself get up and pull a comb through my hair. I was tired and miserable and confused. The spotting was a little heavier, but now I wasn’t sure if I cared. Jake had left me. Part of me was sure he would come back when he got over his little tantrum, but another part was already imagining me with a crying baby – or even worse twins – in one of those big double pram contraptions. In my mind, I was walking home from the grocery store, pale and fat, with two babies and the small amount of food I had been able to afford when I see Jake. He’s sitting at the lights in a convertible sports car with his arm around a blonde skinny woman, whom I recognise off the cover of the latest Vogue magazine I had read at the checkouts. If that isn’t depressing enough, he looks up and sees me standing there at the lights trying to shut up Jake junior – who hasn’t stopped crying since we left home two hours ago, and rather than say hello, look a little guilty and ask me if I’m all right, he leans over and whispers something in the model’s ear. She looks at me and I distinctly hear her say, ‘Her?’ He nods, the lights turn green and I can hear her peals of laughter as they speed off up the road.

  I know it would never happen, simply because Mum and Dad would take me in well before I ever got to the stage of poverty, but it still terrified me. And the thought that Jake would be fine without me, well it had never crossed my mind before.

  The doctor took a blood test to confirm my pregnancy. The results wouldn’t be in for a few days. He also made an appointment at the hospital for me to get an ultrasound to see how advanced I was. He told me that spotting can be normal, and not to worry unless I had some cramping as well.

  The cramping began that night. I hopped up and made myself a hot cup of milk with honey and waited to see what would happen. The stabbing pain started an hour later. Intense sharp pain in my abdomen, radiating up into my shoulder and neck, it buckled me in two and left me gasping for breath. I rang Natalie and then I rang for an ambulance. Dinah and Nat beat the ambulance, and found me on the floor in the lounge, clutching my stomach and crying. I wasn’t sure if I was crying out of fear of losing my child, or fear of losing Jake.

  I passed out before the ambulance arrived. The last thing I remember is a gush of blood and Nat rocking me and telling me that everything was going to be all right.

  I regained consciousness a few hours after the surgery. The doctors told me it was an ectopic pregnancy. They managed to save my fallopian tube, but told me that my chance of another ectopic occurring was increased due to the scarring.

  Nat, Dinah, Mum and Dad were all there; but there was no Jake. Turning my face into the pillow I cried softly, my sorrow so absolute that I didn’t hear him enter the room.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me she was awake?’ he demanded.

  ‘Where the hell were you? She needed you and you weren’t there.’ I heard Dinah, angrier than I had ever heard her. But all I knew was that he had come back and now everything would be fine.

  ‘Shhhh.’ I beckoned him to me and held him at arm’s length staring into his face. I wanted so desperately to hug him, and yet at the back of my mind was a niggling thought. Where the hell had he been? He should have been with me, and maybe if he hadn’t left, this never would have happened. What if his ill thoughts had caused the little foetus to get trapped? Maybe it could sense that it wasn’t wanted. I knew it was a stupid thought even when I was thinking it, but it persisted.

  Tracing one finger down my cheek he whispered, ‘My God I thought I had lost you. I love you so much.’ And then he kissed me.

  A little voice in my head was shrieking, ‘Well if you love me so much where the hell did you go? What was all that crap about you don’t know who I am anymore.’ But I told it to shut up. This was my wonderful Jake kissing me, and I wanted to hold him forever and never let him go.

  We never spoke of the pregnancy. It was like a fragile shell that we walked around but did not touch. Sometimes I looked at it and examined my feelings. I realised that I wanted children one day, but I was too scared to mention it to Jake in case I would be forced to act on the information. So I told myself that I was too young anyway – I was only 24, and that when the time was right we would have children and Jake would be excited about the prospect.

  * * *

  You know when you wake first thing in the morning feeling great, then you remember something you had managed to forget in your dreams, and you feel the world come crashing down around you? That was what happened to me the morning after the bombings. I woke and stretched in my bed of cushions feeling wonderful. And then I remembered, and I felt my body tense with remnants of last night’s fear. I felt guilty for having slept so soundly. And then I remembered Matt and I wanted to cry. He hated me. He hated me because I had been married to the person he detested most in the world, and I couldn’t find it in my heart to blame him.

  ‘If you’re married to a bad person, does that make you bad by association?’ I asked Jessie, when I staggered into the lounge. I had been relieved to catch a glimpse of Tahlia asleep in his bed.

  Looking up from his computer, he scratched the growth on his face as he pondered my words. ‘Are you talking about the terrorists?’ he asked confused.

  ‘No me?’ I said, running my hands through my tangled hair in an attempt to tame it.

  ‘Being married to Jake?’ he clarified.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Does that make me a bad person being his brother?’

  ‘No, you didn’t choose to be his brother. I chose to love, honour and obey the son-of-a-bitch.’

  ‘It doesn’t make you a bad person – naive perhaps, but not bad.’

  Tahlia stumbled into the lounge in her nightie and croaked, ‘Coffee.’

  I poured both of us a cup from the pot Jessie had brewing. She took a sip and groaned in appreciation.

  ‘If it makes you a bad person for marrying him, what does it make Sydney for electing him to be their Mayor?’ she asked. She managed to look beautiful even with smudged make-up and bed-head hair.

  ‘Sin City,’ I answered. ‘So what happened last night?’

  ‘It was mayhem. Unfortunately the heads of the police force were taken out fairly early on so there was no real leadership.’

  ‘The police station was attacked?’ I asked dismayed.

  ‘No, they were out to dinner together when some of the terrorists drove past. They had a shoot-out and were all killed.’

  ‘But they got the terrorists?’

  ‘Unfortunately no.’ She shook her head sadly.

  ‘But it’s all over, isn’t it?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Jessie, looking up from his computer, ‘the Taj Palace is still under attack. They’ve also found out that they came in on boats from the bay to launch the attack.’

  I had goosies thinking that while Matt and I had been sitting in the Taj Palace having high tea, terrorists had been hiding out on the bay strapping bombs to their bodies.

  ‘What’s the body count at?’ mumbled Tahlia through a huge yawn.

  ’100 dead, another 150 wounded,’ Jessie informed her.

  100 people dead? I couldn’t fathom it.

  ‘I’ve got to get back out there,’ she said, heading to the bedroom. ‘Want to come?’

  For a second I thought she was asking me, and for half a second I considered it. I imagined myself commando crawling behind her up the streets of Mumbai while bullets whistled over our heads and Tahlia stopped to check people for pulses.

  ‘This one’s alive,’ she’d say and yell ‘MEDIC’ like in the movies, before flicking open her notebook and saying to the victim, ‘So tell me,
what happened in there?’

  And then the next half a second my brain froze up with the sheer terror of what it had been contemplating – and then I realised she was talking to Jessie, not me.

  ‘Sure, why not?’ he said, hopping to his feet and stretching. ‘Tara, you should spend the day contacting your friends and family. Use my computer to email them, or there’s Skype set up on it you can use if you want.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, wondering how you use Skype. I didn’t want to appear a total edjit, so I refrained from asking and decided that emails would work well.

  I finished my coffee and jumped in the shower before I sat down in front of Jessie’s computer with some toast. Flipping on the small television so I could keep an eye out for any developments, I logged into my Hotmail account and was overwhelmed by the increasingly frantic emails. Poor Mum was going ballistic. By the sound of it, she practically had my funeral planned. I logged into windows messenger and saw Mum’s icon waiting.

  Calm down Mum. I typed. I’m safe at Jessie’s apartment, why didn’t you ring me here.

  She must have been sitting on the computer because within a few seconds I had a response.

  Oh Thank God you’re safe. They said some tourists had been killed and I thought it was you.

  Mum there are thousands of tourists here in Mumbai. Why didn’t you ring?

  I tried but I couldn’t get a line to Mumbai. Maybe they’re damaged.

  Or overloaded.

  What are you going to do? When are you coming home?

  I’m not sure. Just staying indoors till it’s all over and then I’ll make up my mind. Don’t worry about me. You know I’m too much of a chicken to put myself in danger!

  Love you.

  Love you too Ma. I’ll let you know when I know.

  I flicked off an email to Lil and the girls that had way more information – information about a certain Matthew King - but it was hard to be enthusiastic about that with thoughts of terrorists killing hostages whirling around in my head.

  I was bored by the time Jessie and Tahlia got home. Having emailed everyone and responded to numerous questions from them, I cleaned up the kitchen and tidied up the lounge room. Then I watched the English news channel for updates and did my nails with some of Tahlia’s stuff I found in Jessie’s bathroom.

  (Yes, I had been snooping. And yes, I know snooping is wrong. But as I mentioned earlier, I was bored.)

  I had some more toast for lunch with some cheese I discovered in the back corner of the fridge, and tried to nap on the couch – but the annoying tinkling of Here comes the Bride from the elevator soon drove me into my bedroom to sleep. Finally I heard the front door open. I was eyeing off the area under the bed wondering if I could make it before I was discovered, when I smelt the unmistakeable wafting of Indian cuisine. Surely terrorists wouldn’t be luring out foreigners with curry? They wouldn’t be that clever.

  It was Jessie and Tahlia. I don’t think I’d ever been so pleased to see two people.

  ‘Thank God you’re safe,’ I said, launching myself at them.

  ‘Bet you’re hungry,’ said Jessie.

  ‘Starving. You’re out of bread by the way.’

  He laughed and put the curry on the table while Tahlia grabbed the cutlery and plates.

  ‘How is it out there?’ I asked, digging my fork into my pile of butter chicken.

  ‘Getting better,’ Jessie answered, around a mouth full of curry.

  ‘So it’s still going?’

  ‘You can hear gunshots at the Taj Palace and occasional groups of tourists are still escaping,’ he replied, once he had swallowed.

  ‘I got great photos of some climbing down curtains they had tied together,’ said Tahlia. ‘They were trapped in the conference rooms. It’s going to make a great story.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to do that,’ I said.

  ‘What, get trapped in a conference room?’

  ‘No tie the sheets from my bed together and climb out through the window.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘Maybe just a little,’ she admitted laughing.

  It was after we had finished eating that they dropped the bombshell on me.

  ‘We ran into Matt today,’ said Jessie.

  ‘He’s good isn’t he?’ Tahlia said to Jessie.

  ‘He’s on another level totally.’

  ‘What did he do?’ I asked.

  ‘God,’ Tahlia continued, ‘I couldn’t believe it when he ran into that burning building.’

  ‘I could have saved those kids,’ Jessie said defensively.

  ‘I’m sure you could have,’ Tahlia said soothingly, reaching over and rubbing his arm.

  ‘He went into a burning building?’ I asked, when I had managed to get my mouth to function again.

  ‘An orphanage caught on fire,’ said Jessie. ‘They thought they had everybody out and then these two little faces appeared at a window on the top floor. It was awful.’

  ‘Heart wrenching,’ said Tahlia. ‘They were crying and clutching each other.’

  I shivered at the vision, trying not to remember the other tear jerking images I had seen in the last 24 hours.

  ‘The authorities wouldn’t do anything so Matt went in to save them.’

  ‘I thought he was dead for sure,’ said Tahlia.

  ‘So what happened?’ I asked, feeling more like I was asking about an action movie plot than a real life event.

  ‘Well, about a minute after he went in we could see him through the window talking to the kids,’ said Jessie.

  ‘You should have seen it,’ gushed Tahlia, ‘he just swept them up and threw them over his shoulders.’

  ‘It did look pretty heroic,’ Jessie admitted. ‘But of course when they didn’t come back out, well, I thought that was it.’

  ‘It was horrible, wasn’t it?’ Tahlia said to Jessie.

  I was sitting on the edge of my chair, my hands clenching the armrests. ‘And?’ I finally asked, unable to take the suspense anymore.

  ‘He went out a rear door,’ Jessie said. ‘We didn’t realise it for a few minutes though, but he and the kids are fine.’

  I sat there shell-shocked. I had been hiding all day while Matt was out saving lives. I could see now that even if he didn’t hate me, he was far beyond my reach.

  ‘Anyway – it turns out that he’s going to Rajasthan to do an article for a travel magazine and he said you could tag along if you wanted,’ said Jessie.

  ‘What?’ I asked, thinking I had totally misheard them. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Matt,’ said Tahlia, ‘he’s going up to Rajasthan for a couple of weeks, and we thought since Jessie or I can’t go that you might want to go with him.’

  I tried to get my head around the information. ‘But,’ I said, ‘won’t he be here covering the story?’

  ‘He’s been paid in advance for this article by Travel Abroad so he has to go,’ Tahlia explained. ‘Lucky you,’ she sighed.

  ‘You know I can just step aside and give you and Matt a little space,’ said Jessie teasingly.

  ‘Nah,’ Tahlia said, ‘you’ll do. Besides I think I’d have some competition.’ She looked at me meaningfully. ‘I saw the looks you were shooting him last night.’

  I tried to look innocent, but I was also dying to ask if she’d seen him shooting me any looks. I managed to maintain my air of nonchalance with extreme effort. I thought I’d gotten away with it until Jessie piped up.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, his journalistic instincts kicking in, ‘for two people who’ve never met, you two seemed quite chummy.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, examining the job I had done on my nails.

  ‘Oooooh goody,’ said Tahlia, ‘a secret. I love secrets.’

  ‘She’s relentless,’ said Jessie, ‘just spill your guts now and save us all an evening of persistent questioning. Just when you’ve lowered your guard, bam, she’ll slip in another one. She’ll get you in the end.’

>   ‘I don’t really know him,’ I said weakly.

  ‘You’ve admired him from afar? You’ve been stalking him? He’s an old flame from before you were married? He’s a one night stand?’

  I was sure my facial expression didn’t change at all – I certainly didn’t flinch or do anything obvious.

  ‘A One Night Stand!’ she yelped in excitement. ‘When, where, details I need details. God was he fantastic?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Jessie apologetically. ‘She’s like a heat-seeking missile.’

  ‘She reminds me of my friend Elaine,’ I admitted. I could feel myself blushing.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Tahlia, in a pathetic, girlish voice, batting her long eyelashes at me.

  I grimaced and bit my tongue, but she came and sat behind me on the couch. ‘You look so tense,’ she said, starting to give me a back rub. Groaning I leaned into her; she had hands of gold. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she said after a few minutes, ‘but if you feel like sharing, I’d love to listen.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ I said, breaking away from her. ‘I’ll tell. But just to shut you up. ‘

  ‘Oh thank God,’ said Jessie from his computer, ‘I thought I was going to have to put my ear muffs on.’

  ‘It was a few months ago. I was out with Elaine, she’s the one you remind me of,’ I informed Tahlia, ‘and the aim was to have a one nightstand to help me achieve closure from Jake. I’ve been doing this stupid Seven Steps to Closure thing and it was step number four.’

  ‘What’s step number five?’ she asked, fluffing up a cushion behind her.

  ‘Travel to an exotic destination.’

  ‘Tick.’ Tahlia mimed a big tick as she nestled back into the cushion and crossed her legs. ‘You’re almost there. What’s step number six?’

  ‘Have meaningful sex,’ I said, trying not to blush again.

  ‘I’m confused. Wasn’t that step number four?’ said Jessie.

  ‘No, that was to have meaningless sex,’ I explained.

  ‘So you had sex with Matt?’ Tahlia clarified.

  ‘Yep.’ This time I did blush.

  ‘Wow,’ interrupted Jessie. ‘That’s totally out of character for Matt.’