by Lily Malone
Excuses. She’d spent all of Sam’s life making excuses to make her own world easier. She told herself it was for Sam, waiting till he was older and he’d better understand. Waiting till he could cope with the rejection if Marshall never wanted to know his boy.
She was doing it for Erik. Showing support for the man who loved Sam as if he was his own.
‘Then I thought about what you said, Jake. About how when you were a kid when you were angry you’d strip a willow branch from the tree, and bash the bark off the other trees … that’s why I went looking for the willows near the river,’ Sam said.
‘I nearly got the biggest one too. I had to balance on the bridge and lean right out to get the big one, and I was pulling it back to twist it off, then it slipped and I fell.’
Ella shuddered in her seat.
The terrible truth was for ten years she’d lied to her son because it was easier than telling him the truth. Lying risked nothing. The truth risked losing Sam completely.
Jake snuck his hand across the gap between them and squeezed her thigh.
She couldn’t look at him.
CHAPTER
31
Jake helped her get Sam inside. Ella opened his bedroom door and Jake laid her boy out on his bed, dead to the world.
Ella pulled off his dirty boots. They stripped off his jeans and then cut the shirt from him rather than try to take it off over the sling.
Ella tugged pyjama bottoms up Sam’s legs and made him as comfortable as she could on the pillow, smoothing blond hair from his forehead and kissing his skin. She breathed his Sam smell once more, and cried when the scent was more antiseptic and hospital than her Sam.
It was one o’clock in the morning when she left him. This Ella knew because Jake stood in her kitchen, under the clock.
‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’ she asked him.
‘What?’ His hands bounced off his hips. He reminded her of his brother, that day at the dam, nervous energy, constant motion.
‘You can’t want coffee at this hour. I don’t have anything stronger.’
‘Ella, I don’t want anything to drink. I want you to tell me what the hell is going on. The whole story this time. Don’t leave anything out.’ He paced between the kitchen counter and the door to the backyard, and when she didn’t answer, he stopped and met her gaze. ‘Maybe it’s you who needs the tea.’
Maybe.
Ella made a cup and blew on the brew as she took it to a chair at the kitchen table and sat.
Jake was already there. ‘You were telling me about Sam. You said Erik isn’t his father? Sam must have heard that and that’s why he ran away.’
Ella shook her head stubbornly. ‘He knew Erik wasn’t his dad.’
‘You’ve got to talk to me. I’m here for you, honey, but you can’t keep something like this from me. Come on, Ella. Please.’
And it would be a relief, really, Ella told herself, so good to actually get the whole thing out, but where did she start?
She took a sip of her tea.
Examined the tendons on her wrist, flexing and moving where she gripped the cup.
There was a chip in one of her nails she’d painted hot pink to match her boots, and a nick in another.
Need to file that down.
‘Ella? Who is Sam’s father?’
Her gaze flew from her tea, hands and nails, and shuddered to a stop on Jake.
‘The whole thing is pretty messed up,’ Ella said, voice tiny and small, but it was her voice and that was something.
‘Come on,’ he said, the barest flick of his finger waving her on.
‘The night of the 2006 Australian trials, I did what just about every swimmer does after a big meet. I went out. I got terribly, terribly drunk. And I made a really shit decision. I was eighteen years old.’
‘What shit decision?’
‘I slept with Marshall Wentworth—’
Jake let out a breath and sat back, like the words had punched something out of him.
‘Marshall was in Erik’s squad. I had the biggest crush on him, and, well, I’d never had a crush on anything or anyone except Kieren Perkins, and that wasn’t a crush so much as hero worship. I’d never been with a boy. I’d never been drunk either.
‘That’s life when you’re swimming. You don’t go out at night because you can’t. You have to get up too early to get to the pool, and you swim a bazillion laps, then you go to school. When you get home from school you swim a bazillion laps, and somewhere in there you do some weight-work in the gym. Somewhere in there you do your homework and you eat. Not much. Soup mostly. Protein shakes. And you die in bed at night because you’re so damn tired, and then you get up and do the whole thing all over again the next day. You don’t go to birthday parties. You don’t go to friends’ houses.’
Ella swiped at a tear trying to roll its way down her cheek. Jake stayed quiet.
‘So when Marshall and all the others from our squad headed out in the city when the Nationals wrapped up, they asked me to go with them and I went. We all snuck out. Marshall knew someone. Marshall always knew someone. He got the cars figured out. Found some people to give us a lift into the nightclub, and we drank. Shots. Beers.’ She shrugged. ‘After a while I didn’t know. We were the toast of the town and everyone wanted to buy us drinks.’
Ella heard the scuff as Jake shuffled a boot, and the clock ticked on.
‘The guy driving the car didn’t want to take me home in it. He thought I might be sick—I remember that. Marshall argued with him. He told the driver he had to take me. I thought he was looking out for me, taking care of me.
‘I don’t even know where we went. I must have crashed out in the car and he carried me out when the taxi got to his place. I woke up and I had no clothes on, and Marshall was with me, and I thought, you know, that this was the moment where I’d lose my virginity …’ Ella looked away, ‘and that was okay because I wanted it to be him. I’d wanted it to be Marshall since I joined Erik’s squad. I dreamed about it all the time.’
She shuddered in her kitchen, and the tea couldn’t warm her because it had gone cold, and because this was where it got ugly.
Jake reached across and tucked his finger under her chin, bringing her head up.
‘He’d already done it, Jake,’ Ella said. ‘Marshall was getting dressed. He looked at me and he said, “Get your clothes on and get out. Don’t know why I bothered. That was like sandpaper.’”
‘Jesus,’ Jake breathed, and on the table his hand clenched to a fist.
‘He said the driver would be outside. He said he told the driver to … wait because he …’ She nearly choked on it. ‘He knew he wouldn’t need long to break me in.’
‘Break you in?’ Jake breathed, his face hard as stone.
‘That’s what he said.’ Ella had the tears now; she couldn’t stop them. Fat and angry, raw and hot, running so hard she had to wipe the wet from her neck before salt bled and ruined the hired seventies’ dress.
‘That one time and you got pregnant?’ Jake asked.
‘Pregnant, and chlamydia.’
‘No condom then.’
‘I didn’t know enough to even think about a condom. I didn’t know a lot of things.’
‘I can’t believe Erik let you go …’
Ella sat straight. ‘Erik didn’t know. No one knew. We were swimming kids in the big city, letting off steam. It happens all the time, Jake. But it was the first time for me. Erik blamed himself, after, you know? Because it happened on his watch—I snuck out with Marshall and the others on Erik’s watch. But I never told him what really happened that night. Not the way I just told you. I’ve never told anyone that.’
‘What about Marshall? Did he, shit, did he even apologise?’
Ella huffed. ‘You don’t know Marshall. It was like he’d done me a favour, you know? I don’t think he’d have thought he had a thing to apologise for.’
Jake scrubbed his fingers through the hair on top of his head. ‘Surely w
hen you knew you were pregnant … when you dropped out of swimming and every magazine had the story. Didn’t Marshall contact you? Wouldn’t he have known? I mean, he must have asked himself the question. I would have.’
‘I wrote to Marshall and I got this horrible letter back from his coach that said Marshall was too busy training for Beijing to be distracted by someone who was jealous she’d missed her chance. Swimming at the elite level is pretty insular. You try to stay in the bubble and not read the magazines. Facebook and Twitter, all that stuff wasn’t so big then. These days it would be impossible.’
‘I want to punch his lights out. I want to strangle the guy,’ Jake said.
‘He’s not worth it.’
She stared at her tea. Cold, lifeless, bleak-coloured tea. Jake was quiet, thinking. Then he scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, and pushed to his feet.
‘I’m knackered, Ella. You’re out on your feet. Can I stay on your couch tonight? I can run you into Mount Barker tomorrow morning to the hospital if you want, for the X-rays. We can go first thing.’
‘You don’t have to stay. I’ll be okay.’
‘I’m happy to come with you,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to do it all alone.’
She picked up the teacup and emptied the dregs into the sink, and she caught Jake’s gaze as she turned around. He pulled her in a hug, strong as an ox, and she took comfort in his strength, in his faith. He’d heard her story, every sordid detail, and he didn’t hate her.
‘Thank you.’ She stood on tiptoe and their lips met, briefly, both of them too strung out and numb from the events of the night to do much else. ‘I’ll get you a blanket. I’ll be back in a second.’
She left Jake sitting on the couch, pulling off his boots.
* * *
It was 4:13 am by her bedside clock when Ella snapped awake because she heard Sam yell. She was out of bed in a microsecond, grabbing for her dressing gown slung on a hook on the door.
She rushed from her bedroom and almost collided with Jake in her kitchen before she could reach the light.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I heard Sam call.’
‘Me too. I’ll go.’ Ella flicked on the kitchen light, and moved straight from there to the pantry where she kept the Pain Stop and the band-aids and whatever else she had in the first-aid kit. She filled the plastic syringe with the correct dose of pain medicine.
Jake kept out of her way.
Ella put the hall light on, but didn’t flick the switch in Sam’s bedroom. No point waking him completely.
‘Are you okay, mate?’ she said, moving in and checking where his arm lay on the sheet so she didn’t sit on it and hurt him.
‘My arm hurts,’ he said, with a little hiccup that usually meant he was trying to be brave and not cry.
‘I know, Sammy. You broke your arm, mate. That’s no little thing. You’re being so brave.’ She helped him sit up. ‘Here, mate. This is the special syrup. It won’t work straight away but it won’t take long.’
She put the syringe in his mouth and pressed the plunger and when he’d finished, Sam laid back down.
‘It still really hurts, Mum.’
‘You’ve got to give it longer than that.’
His eyes shone in the muted dark. ‘Can you wait till I fall asleep?’
Ella leaned over his body, careful with his arm, and kissed his hair. ‘Of course.’
It didn’t take long for the medicine to kick in, and Sam’s eyes drifted closed. Ella left his bedroom door open a crack so she would hear him if he called out, and left him to sleep.
In the kitchen, she rinsed the syringe and put it on the sink to dry.
‘Is he okay?’ Jake queried her from the couch.
‘Yes. He’s sore, though. That’s what woke him up.’
‘Have you got any sleep yourself?’
‘A bit. I keep waking up.’
‘I didn’t know if he’d let you give him that stuff, you know. He was so angry in the car.’
Ella’s heart ached. ‘I know. He’s half asleep, though. I don’t think he remembered how much he hates me. He will in the morning.’
Jake swung his feet off the couch so they were flat on the floor and sat straight, and Ella registered that his chest was bare, and that he’d slept in his jeans. He looked so smoking hot, and she’d been standing there staring at him, screwing the lid on the bottle of Pain Stop for at least twenty seconds without getting the thread connection right.
‘Do you need a cuddle, Ella?’
‘I think I do. If you don’t mind.’ She gave up on the lid and put the bottle on the counter.
He stood up, and Ella walked all the way around the kitchen counter, past the bar stools and Jake’s boots, and she let him wrap his arms around her and hold her tight, crushing her into a chest that felt as big as a mountain.
‘I want to say something, but it’s probably going to upset you. But I can’t stop thinking about it,’ Jake said. ‘But I can just hold you instead and ask you in the morning. It’s not a nice question.’
‘Go on. I’ll only lie awake adding that to all the other stuff I’m thinking about.’
‘What Marshall did to you, the way you describe it—’ Ella felt the tension in the arms holding her tight, ‘Ella, that’s rape. Every way you look at it, he raped you.’
She went stiff in shock, not at the words but that he was bold enough to come out and say it. Then she shook her head.
He pressed the point, and the words came out on a growl. ‘If a girl is drunk and unconscious, and a bloke puts his penis in her for his own pleasure … Ella, it’s rape. Every day of the week.’
Ella met his eyes in the dim light and tried to explain. ‘I can’t think of it like that, Jake. That would make my beautiful boy the product of a rape, and he can never know that. I don’t want him to think that. I never want him to think he was conceived causing me pain, or hurting me. I love him too much.’
He didn’t argue after that, just tucked her head into his collarbone and smoothed her hair, over and over and over again.
CHAPTER
32
‘I don’t want to go with her. I want you to take me,’ Sam said the next morning, and if there was any doubt which ‘you’ he meant, he added, ‘Jake.’
Ella said, ‘We’ll all go, Sam. Jake said he’d come too.’
‘No,’ Sam said, lips tight, his feet planted and chin set. Now that Jake knew who Sam’s father was, he saw it in everything Sam did. ‘I don’t want Mum to come at all.’
Jake felt terrible for Ella, and he tried to fix it. ‘Your mum needs to be there, mate. She wants to make sure you’re okay. There’ll be forms to fill out—’
‘No, no. It’s okay,’ Ella said, face tired and drawn. Like his too, probably; he’d barely slept a wink once he’d had Ella in his arms. Even after she’d gone back to her own bed, he’d lain awake with the whole mess running through his head.
Ella, Erik, Sam, Marshall.
If he was Marshall Wentworth, how would he feel if he knew there’d been a boy on this earth for ten years, his son, and no one told him?
Put it this way: if Cassidy had their kid, Jake’s child, and never told him? If she let some other man bring up his kid? Jeez, he’d want to break something.
It was hard to think with Ella in his arms last night, but once she returned to her own bed, his brain could function.
He didn’t feel her breath puff against his neck. He wasn’t reduced to a man enjoying the smooth curve of her arm under his fingers as he stroked, back and forth, back and forth. Her hair didn’t tickle his chest and her hand on his ribs didn’t make his muscles quiver.
When she was there, over and above everything else, he wanted to punch Marshall Wentworth into the next postcode for being a prick.
Without her, his sympathy moved more to Sam.
Poor kid.
‘Let me get our Medicare card and give that to you,’ she said, turning to her handbag and rummaging through.
Jake coul
d see the shake in her shoulders, but Sam wasn’t looking.
‘We can go once you’ve had breakfast, Sam. The sooner we get there, the sooner they can sort you out.’
Sam started shovelling cereal into his mouth.
‘Lucky you busted your left arm, not the right,’ Jake said.
Sam nodded.
Ella made Jake coffee and toast, and the two of them were out the door before nine. Ella stood in the doorway, watching them go.
Jake waved to her. Sam didn’t.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Jake asked Sam after they’d made ten miles and the rhythm of the car and the road seemed to knock some of the stiffness out of the boy on the seat.
‘Nope.’
‘Bit of a shock, finding all that out last night.’
‘I guess.’
‘Not sure you should have gone and broken your arm because of it, though,’ Jake said.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam glance up. ‘You’re the one who told me when I was angry I should smash the trees, rather than smash up myself or anyone else.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’m proud of you for not smashing anyone else, but you did manage to do a bit of a job on yourself.’
‘I slipped.’
‘I know.’
Silence.
Paddocks were turning green after the rain; the season was off to a good start. Canola growers out this way would be happy.
‘I thought you might be my dad,’ Sam said.
Jake had to correct the steering wheel out of its sudden swerve. ‘What’s that, mate?’
‘Mum always said my real dad lived far away. “A long way away” was what she always said. I thought Chalk Hill might be far enough, but she said it wasn’t.’
‘Far away from where? From Perth?’
Sam’s shrug said he didn’t know, hadn’t thought about it. ‘Just far away from wherever we were. We were in Perth and my real dad was far away. We moved to Chalk Hill and he was still far away.’
Jake wasn’t ready for this. No way was he ready for this. What if he said the wrong thing? What if he wrecked Ella and Sam’s relationship completely? What about Erik?
