A LIFE MADE OF LAVA

by Del, Lissa

  I take a liberal sip of wine. “He’s always loved her. He kissed her once – a long time ago, but other than that he’s kept his feelings to himself.”

  “Until now?”

  “Until now.”

  She seems to steel herself. “What happened?”

  I press my lips together. I don’t know if I should be discussing this with her before I’ve even mentioned it to Evie, but the truth is, I might not mention it to Evie at all.

  “Truthfully?” I ask. Julia nods.

  “He doesn’t like you being here. He thinks…” I trail off, shaking my head. “He thinks it’s inappropriate.”

  She turns scarlet. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that she’s thinking about that moment last night. I know, because I’m thinking about it too.

  “But Evie’s the one who hired me. What could he possibly think…?” It’s her turn to trail off as I smile at her and the penny drops. “Oh. He thinks that you… that you and I…” She blinks, rapidly, in succession.

  “Yeah,” I say, taking another slug of wine and feeling the anger mount again. “So there’s that.”

  “I’m glad you told him to fuck off,” she announces, so suddenly that I almost spit out the wine.

  “It did feel good,” I admit. A small frown creases my forehead, one that Julia doesn’t miss.

  “But?” she asks.

  There’s no point in denying it. “But a part of me wonders if he might be right.”

  She recoils as if I’ve physically slapped her. “You don’t think I should be here?”

  “I think that my wife is very ill and I’m drinking wine with a beautiful woman who isn’t her.”

  I don’t know what makes me say it. I don’t know why I’m tempting fate when my whole life is in tatters. All I know is that, in this moment, I feel drawn to Julia in a way I never expected to be and I crave oblivion.

  Julia’s glass stops midway to her lips. Her eyes are wide, a deer caught in the headlights with nowhere to run, as she processes my words and tries to decipher their meaning. Without warning, she sets her glass down on the counter beside her, her fear giving her feet wings as she slips past me. She almost makes it. Almost. If I had just an ounce more self-control, I would’ve let her go, but I don’t. At the last moment, my hand snakes out to grab hers, halting her in her tracks.

  We stand, shoulder to shoulder, Julia’s hand trembling in mine. Her head turns back toward mine, questioning, confused, and I know I have about two seconds before she bolts. Right now, there is no Evie, there is no illness - there is only me and Julia. It is heartbreak and bliss, grief and joy, all at once.

  It takes only the barest dip of my head to bring my lips down onto hers, another tiny movement to prod them open with the tip of my tongue and bury it inside her warm, sweet mouth. Julia gasps and I fill her mouth with flesh and heat and breath, until I know nothing but the honeyed taste of her and the long-dormant fire that bursts to life inside of me.

  When Julia pulls away I don’t stop her. The empty space she leaves behind is cold and lifeless, but I don’t follow her, even though my body aches to do so. Instead, I clench my fists at my sides, and let the reality of my shame wash over me in waves. The heavy burden of what I’ve done presses down on my chest until I forget how to breathe and I can’t help but think it’s the least that I deserve.

  29

  Evie

  I’m watching the TV above my bed on silent when Julia pops her head around the ward door. “Hey you!” I glance at my watch. “How did you get in here, it’s not visiting hours yet?”

  “I snuck in,” she admits, handing me a small gift bag. I peek inside. Chocolates and a shiny new paperback book. I recognise the cover immediately. It’s The Book Thief, but I don’t tell her I’ve already read it, because there are unshed tears shimmering in her kind eyes and her long legs are trembling like a new-born calf’s.

  “Julia?” I jab at the remote and switch the TV off. “What’s wrong?”

  Her throat bobs as she tries to swallow, but she licks her lips, summoning her courage. “Evie, I’m so sorry to do this but I can’t work for you anymore.”

  My heart beats faster, speeding up so quickly I feel like a hummingbird has taken flight in my chest. “What are you talking about? Why?”

  Her head droops like a wilting sunflower. “Something’s come up. I’ve had another job offer and I can’t afford to turn it down.”

  She’s lying. She’s lying, and she’s so bad at it that I want to laugh, but the situation is anything but funny. “What salary did they offer you?” I ask briskly.

  “What?”

  “This offer that’s too good to refuse. How much money are they offering?”

  “Evie, this isn’t about…”

  “You just said it’s an offer you can’t refuse. I’ll match it.”

  “I don’t expect you to do that. I can’t take any more of your money.”

  “Oh, nonsense. You’re worth every penny and you know it.”

  Her face crumples and it hits me between the eyes. The reason she wants to leave has nothing to do with money, not that I really believed that to begin with. Something’s happened. Something serious enough to make her flee.

  “I’m not going to change my mind,” she whispers, her voice cracking under the strain.

  I steel myself to pull the cancer card. I don’t want to do it, but there’s no way she’s leaving now. My family needs her. I need her.

  “I’m dying, Julia.” Her tears blossom into a fully-fledged sob, but she doesn’t contradict me. She’s the only one who never has. “I can feel myself slipping away, a little piece of me every day and I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.”

  “Evie, please…”

  “No.” I take her hands and will her to look at me. “I need you, Julia. My family needs you. Please, I’m begging you, don’t abandon us now.”

  She meets my gaze levelly, not so quick to break. “That’s blackmail, you know.”

  I smile despite myself. It’s easy to forget how alike we are in so many ways. “I know. Doesn’t make it any less true. You know my kids, Julia. You know what this is going to do to them. I need to know they’ll be okay.”

  “They have Nick,” she whispers.

  “How do you think Nick’s going to deal with it?” I ask. “He’s going to fall apart. You know it and I know it. He’s using up every single ounce of his herculean strength to get through this, to keep our family together and to be strong for me, strong for the children. He can’t sustain that forever.”

  “He’s going to fall apart,” she whispers, echoing my words.

  “And you aren’t.”

  A watery smile. “How do you know that? I love you too – so much...” Her voice breaks and I pull her toward me, wrapping my arms around her.

  “Then stay, please. For me?”

  She doesn’t give me an answer, other than to tell me she won’t accept any more money and, by the time she leaves, I still don’t know if I’ve convinced her. When she’s gone I turn the TV back on, trying not to think about what could’ve happened to make her want to leave. I stare at the screen, unseeing, as tears stream silently down my face.

  Nick arrives mid-morning, at formal visiting hours. He’s quieter than usual but I don’t hold any punches.

  “Julia came to see me this morning,” I tell him. “She wants to resign.”

  “What?” he’s genuinely oblivious. “She said that?”

  “Yes. She said she had another job offer. For more money. I offered to match it.”

  “You what? Evie, why would you do that?”

  “Because we need her, Nick.”

  “Maybe we don’t! I can take care of things at home until you’re…”

  “Don’t!” He jerks back as I fling my hand up, my finger pointing right in his face. I’m grateful that Mrs Hinchcliff was discharged this morning and no one is around to witness me losing control, but I don’t think it would have stopped me. “Stop saying things like tha
t, Nick! Stop trying to delude yourself that I’m going to get better, that I’m going to make a full recovery. It’s not going to happen. I know it and deep down so do you.”

  “So, what?” he snaps, sounding disgusted. “Julia is your idea of a replacement?”

  “Of course not! I know that nothing will make any of this okay, but right now she’s good for our family. For our kids.”

  Nick draws in a deep breath, his face hollow, haunted. “If she wants to go I think we should let her go.”

  I smile sadly down at him as he slumps in the plastic visitor’s chair. I don’t ask the question that burns in my mind because I don’t know if I want to know the answer: whether he’s really willing to let her go. Forcing down the sour taste in the back of my throat I place my hand over his. “I have a feeling that if she really wants to go she’ll be gone already.”

  30

  Julia

  Somehow, I blame the beef. The beef and those blasted Yorkshire puddings. I feel like if I hadn’t made that dish, none of this would’ve happened. It wasn’t even my idea – it was Kat who had suggested it. That’s the last time I listen to her. I shove my clothes into my suitcase without any consideration, balls of tangled fabric filling it far more quickly than I’m ready to accept.

  The perfume Evie gave me is on my dresser but it feels wrong to take it with me. Evie has been nothing short of wonderful to me and I repay her by kissing her husband. I don’t deserve any of her kindness.

  I slump on the bed in the room I’ve come to call my own, in the house I’ve come to call home, while tears splash onto my lap. There isn’t time for self-pity. The kids will be coming out of school soon and Nick will no doubt be at the hospital visiting Evie. I need to make a plan for someone to collect them, or, I could pick them up and wait for Nick to get home before I leave. There’s a six o’clock bus I could take, if I hurry. I certainly can’t take the car. I haven’t stooped that low yet.

  Around and around, my thoughts crash and collide in my head, a spin-cycle that won’t stop. How did I get to this point? How did I allow it? I’ve ruined everything. I kissed a married man, and worse, if I’m being one hundred percent honest with myself, I would do it again.

  I ball my hands into fists and press them against my temples, trying to make sense of the two parts of me that have split down the middle. On one side, there’s Evie: Evie, and the children, and this beautiful family that I’ve come to love as if they were my own. This side claims my morality, my guilt, my pain. And on the other side, there’s Nick. Nick, who, despite everything, I’m falling in love with. Evie’s side doesn’t exclude Nick and Nick’s side doesn’t exclude the children, and the two halves are so blurred and so entwined that I cannot condone or deny either one, because to do so would be to deny the other.

  “Oh God,” I sob, reaching blindly for my pillow. I clutch it to my chest, trying to ease the aching in my heart.

  “Julia!” I sit bolt upright, my heart hammering as I hear the front door slam. “Julia!” Nick yells again. His footsteps pound up the stairs and I don’t have any time to act before he bursts into my room, not bothering to knock. The door slams against the wall and rebounds, almost knocking him senseless, but he stops it with lightning reflexes. I can tell by the expression on his face that he didn’t expect me to be here. I must be imagining the flash of relief which crosses his furious face. I brace myself for his rage. Then he catches sight of my own swollen eyes and the tears streaming down my face, and his face crumples.

  “Oh fuck, Julia, I’m sorry.” He crosses the room in two strides, pulling me up onto my feet and crushing me against his chest. “I’m so, so sorry.” His hands stroke my hair, my back, as I’ve seen him do to console Casey so many times. “I thought you were gone,” he mutters into my hair. “This is all my fault.”

  “No,” I sniff, pushing him away. “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going to see Evie but I couldn’t face you after what I did.”

  “After what you did?” He steps back and opens his arms, incredulously. “Julia, I kissed you. I’m the one who screwed up. I’m the one who…” he gives a bitter bark of laughter. “I’m not worthy of either of you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  He holds my gaze, levelly, for the longest time. “Will you stay?” he asks. “I swear to you, I won’t ever do anything like that again.”

  “I can’t, Nick.” I press my lips so tightly together they start to go numb, but fresh tears prick at my eyes anyway because he has this so completely wrong. “You don’t understand. I know I should feel nothing but guilt about what happened, but I don’t. There’s a part of me that wants it to happen again – that wants you.”

  Nick sucks in a rush of air between clenched teeth and I feel the heat of shame rise to my cheeks.

  “How can I stay if I have feelings like this? I’m a terrible person.”

  “Then we’re both terrible people,” he croaks. I raise my eyes to his and his face is tortured. “I don’t know how this happened,” Nick continues. “Never, in eighteen years, have I ever so much as looked at another woman. Never,” he iterates, as if I might not believe him. “I love Evie. I love her to the depth and breadth of my soul, and then some. But there’s something about you…” He reaches for me, his fingers edging toward my cheek, then remembers himself and his hand falls away. If I close my eyes I could imagine his touch on my skin, but I don’t. “I don’t want you to go,” Nick admits through a ragged exhalation of guilt. “And I hate that I don’t want you to go.”

  We face each other, neither of us budging. My chest rises and falls in time with his – too fast, too laboured. When he finally speaks I feel my resolve slip. “Will you stay?”

  31

  Nick

  “How was Evie?” Amy asks as I step into the office. It smells of wood varnish and tile cleaner. Amy is obsessive about cleaning. I could probably eat off the floor.

  “She’s good. Much better. They said they’ll probably discharge her tomorrow.”

  “Oh, that’s awesome news! You must be so relieved.” A snap of guilt because, right now, Evie isn’t the only woman on my mind.

  “I am,” I force a smile. “Any messages?”

  “Just one, for a quote down in Bridgestone. It’s a new development. I told them you’d probably only get there tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Amy.”

  “No need to thank me,” she teases. “It’s what you pay me for.”

  “True.” My eyes fall on the half-full coffee mug on her desk, the one that says I don’t work here. It used to be Evie’s.

  For so long it had just been the two of us: Evie and me. We had worked together, lived together, raised our family together. Over the past seven months my life has literally been turned upside down. Steph, Amy, Julia – it’s as if the universe is determined to cast Evie into the shadows, as if she’s fading away and, in her place, a line of not-Evie’s are stampeding through my life, wreaking havoc, making me question everything I’ve ever known. The floor isn’t lava – it’s quicksand, impossible to escape and collapsing beneath me.

  “Are you okay, Nick?” Amy gives me a strange look and I pull myself together.

  “I’m fine. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  I closet myself in my office, wondering if I might be having a nervous breakdown. My heart is racing, a thunder in my chest that reverberates through my skull. I try to focus on work and the outstanding quotes I should’ve sent out this morning, but I can’t concentrate. I’m terrified that Julia will leave. I’m even more terrified that she’ll stay. And, most of all, I’m horrified that I’m thinking of her at all.

  Maybe I should take Evie on a holiday – get us away from all of this and find a way to get back to where we were before… Before what? The taunt echoes in my mind. Before Julia? Before the cancer? There’s no going back, there’s only here and now and what we do with it.

  Hours must have passed when Amy raps on my door.

  “Come in.�
��

  I blink in astonishment as Kat pokes her head through the door. The look on her face is one of sympathy. A second later my children erupt into the room and it hits me like a ton of bricks. Julia is gone.

  I set my face into a smile and listen while Dylan and Casey bombard me with stories of their day. Jesse hangs back, near the door, and Kat watches everything with her hawk-like eyes. When the children finally start to run out of steam, she asks Amy to keep an eye on them and shuts the door.

  “I’m guessing you’ve worked out by now that you no longer have a nanny,” she says, draping herself over the chair opposite me. “And I’m guessing, by the look on your face right now, that you might be part of the reason for that.”

  I close my eyes. “What did she say to you?”

  “Nothing. She called and asked me to fetch the kids, said that she’s resigned.”

  “I think she had another job offer…”

  “Bull shit.”

  The weariness has crept into my bones. “What do you want from me, Kat? Do you want me to admit I’m a shitty husband? Fine, I’ll admit it! I betrayed my wife and my family. Believe me, you can’t think any less of me than I think of myself.”

  “Did you screw her?”

  “What? No!”

  She fixes me with that unnerving glare that must have intimidated even the most ruthless of businessmen over the years.

  “I kissed her,” I admit.

  I wait for the hammer to fall but Kat astonishes me by laughing. “So?”

  “So? Did you hear what I just said? I cheated on Evie, Kat!”

  “No, you kissed a girl that you shouldn’t have. A very nice girl, if I’m being honest.”

  “You can’t seriously be okay with this. You’re Evie’s best friend for shit’s sake.”

  “I’m your friend too.”

  That takes me aback. “Well, yeah, I mean I know that, but…”

  “No, I don’t think you do, actually.” Kat leans forward to pick up a piece of stray paper on my desk, which she rolls between her fingers until it looks like she’s holding a bizarre white cigarillo. She taps it on the wooden desktop. “I’ve known you for nearly twenty years, Nick. No one knows better than me how much Evie means to you – how you’ve always put her first. You’re a rare breed, hell, half the reason I haven’t found a husband yet is because I hold everyone up to the standard you’ve set, and no one comes close.” She sets the paper down, but I’m too stunned to speak. “You’re human, Nick. You’ve had the weight of the world on your shoulders these past few months and you haven’t given a second’s thought to your own needs. It’s admirable, but did you really think you could keep it up forever?”