Counting on Love

by R L Burgess

  She left work early that day, stopping at the school to pick up Holden before heading for home. She didn’t want to see Zoe leave the building. Her building. That would be too much. Somehow she had kidded herself into believing something would change at the eleventh hour. They would sort things out and Zoe would stay. She had them working together into the future, perhaps until Holden was older, more settled, and then they’d see what might lie between them. Fantasy, she realised as she parked the car in the driveway and followed Holden into the house. That had been pure fantasy.

  “Do you have homework to do this afternoon?” Reyna asked as she made her way to the kitchen.

  “Yeah. Maths.” He dumped his bag on the floor and pulled out a thick folder. “I hate maths.”

  “You hate it? That’s a strong word.”

  “It’s stupid. It’s hard and I don’t get it.”

  “I can understand that. How about we have a chocolate milk and look it over together? I’m actually pretty okay at maths, but don’t ask me to spell anything. I’m useless at that.”

  “Are you? But how do you manage to be the boss if you’re a crap speller?”

  “Spellcheck, my friend. Good ol’ spellcheck.”

  “We’re not allowed to use spellcheck.” Holden pursed his lips. “We should be able to if you do.”

  “I think they want you to try to learn it first,” Reyna answered with a laugh. “I just was a dunce at it.”

  “But you’re good at maths?”

  “Not just good, pretty damn good. Crack open your book. I’ll get the chocolate milk.”

  They sat up at the kitchen table going over his homework problems, Reyna taking him methodically through the principles of each question in a patient and easy way that allowed him to grasp the underlying concepts. Under her tutelage he began to understand how to work out the problems for himself.

  “Correct again,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “At this rate you’ll be moving on to advanced calculus before you know it.”

  “Thanks, Aunty Rey.” He stretched his little arms above his head with a yawn. “It makes sense when you explain it to me. I wish you could be my teacher. Hopefully we don’t have to do the advanced cactus stuff. This is enough for me.”

  She ruffled his hair, feeling a flash of guilt that she wasn’t around in the afternoons more often to help him with his homework. “Why don’t you have a play before dinner? I’m going to make some spaghetti.”

  “Yes!” he crowed, jumping down from the table and making a grab for a couple of his Lego figures on the couch. “Bolognaise?”

  “The pretend bolognaise.”

  “Tastes real enough to me.”

  She watched him slide around on the floor, battling his Lego people with intense sound effects. If only Zoe could see this. She would understand how important it was that Reyna not stuff this up. How could she have made any other choice? He needed her, and he needed her here.

  On Saturday afternoon it stormed so hard it was if the sky was trying to shake something loose. Reyna could commiserate. She and Holden hunkered down in the living room, snuggled into doonas, reading (comics for him, a report from HR for her) and eating popcorn. The thunder was so intense they looked at each other in awe with every boom and crack. The windows rattled and the corrugated roof sang with the sound of the relentless rain. When her mobile rang she wondered for a moment if she should answer it. She had heard somewhere that you weren’t supposed to use your mobile during a storm, but she couldn’t remember why so she answered it anyway, seeing Samira’s name on the display.

  “Are you guys getting this?” Samira asked excitedly. “What a wild storm, hey?”

  “I know! I was worried the windows might actually blow out.”

  “The rain radar says most of it will have passed over in the next half an hour. The boys want to know if Holden wants to come around and get muddy with them when it’s calmed down?”

  “I’m sure he would love that. Hang on I’ll ask him.” Reyna smiled at Holden who was looking at her expectantly.

  “What?” he asked.

  She put her hand over the receiver. “Jessie and Gid want to know if you want to go and jump around in puddles with them when the storm has passed.”

  “Yes!” he cried, untangling himself from his doona and jumping off the couch. “Let’s go.”

  “Not right now, darling. We need to wait for the storm to pass.” Reyna directed her conversation back to Samira. “That’s a definite yes.”

  “Okay, come over when it’s safe to drive. The boys can make mudpies out in the yard and we can have tea. John’s making scones.”

  “Yum. He is so Martha Stewart.”

  “I know! I’m so glad I married him right now,” Samira said with a laugh and rang off.

  Holden bounced over to the window, pressing his nose against the glass as he stared out at the storm. “I think it’s mostly stopped now,” he said as a flash of lightning made him jump back from the window with a start. “Woah! That was massive! Maybe not.” He gave her a sheepish grin.

  “Why don’t you go pack a bag with a change of clothes and a towel so we’re ready to go when the storm passes. I’m sure it won’t be too long. When they’re violent like this, they usually move pretty quickly. We can look at the radar together and watch it moving if you like.”

  The sky was still dripping with tendrils of grey cloud as they pulled up at Samira and John’s house. The road was awash with pools of rain and Holden had to leap from the car, over the rushing gutter and onto the sodden nature strip.

  Samira threw open the door, kissing them both and ushering Holden straight through the house into the backyard, where the boys were already up to their elbows in mud. “Get on out there,” she said, but Holden needed no encouragement, running out into the yard with a joyful whoop.

  “And now we drink tea and eat scones,” Samira said, leading Reyna into the kitchen.

  The kitchen was warm and smelled of freshly baked, floury goodness. John’s legs were sticking out from under the kitchen sink and Reyna could hear banging and swearing.

  “You all right there, John?” she called out.

  “Changing… the… seal,” he grunted. “Bloody annoying.”

  “Need a hand?”

  He wriggled out from the under the sink and raised his eyebrows at her. “You any good with plumbing?”

  “No,” she admitted with a grin. “But I could pass you something.”

  He growled something incoherent and shuffled back under the sink.

  “Ignore him. He’ll work it out. He’s playing house god today,” Samira said. “He does cooking and repairs. Tea?”

  “Yes please.”

  Reyna settled on a stool at the bench as Samira made them a pot of tea and popped a load of scones into a bamboo basket. “Voilà,” she said with a smile as she arranged the condiments in front of them at the kitchen bench and sat across from Reyna. “You joining us, John?”

  “Done!” he cried as he emerged from under the sink, wrench in hand and a smudge of something black across the tip of his nose.

  Samira snorted and Reyna giggled as he waggled his eyebrows at them. “What is it? Why you laugh, oh cruel sirens?”

  “Come here, husband.” Samira grabbed a cloth and wiped the smudge clean. “Now you are presentable.”

  “Reyna,” John said, kissing her on the cheek and squeezing her shoulder. “You look ravishing but thin. And tired. Eat scones.”

  From the backyard there were yells of delight, and Reyna looked out the window to see Holden swinging from the Hills Hoist as Jessie and Gideon pelted him with mud. “They’re having fun,” she said with a wry smile.

  “We can chuck them in the bath afterward. You’ll never know the difference.”

  “Oh, I don’t care. He’s loving it. That’s what counts.”

  “Are you loving it?” Samira asked, through a mouthful of scone.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like John said. You look tir
ed. Sad. What’s going on?”

  “Great, so you’re both basically saying I look haggard. Gee thanks, guys.”

  “No,” Samira protested, swatting her with a napkin. “You just don’t seem entirely yourself.”

  “Work is…work.”

  “Problems?” John asked, pouring himself a beer. “The minions not behaving themselves?”

  “More like the boss isn’t behaving herself.”

  “What? What does that mean.”

  Reyna took a deep breath and told them everything that had happened up in Alice Springs, ending with Zoe’s resignation.

  “So I basically cost her her career and lost a star employee in one fell swoop,” she finished, taking a small sip of her tea. She caught a look passing between them.

  “Sounds big,” John said, taking a swig of his beer.

  “It sounds,” Samira said carefully, “as if Zoe has chosen to move on for a good reason.”

  “Yeah, because she couldn’t work with me anymore.”

  “Don’t you think the new job is suited to her? From all you’ve said, I get the impression this is a good move for her.”

  “I do. I just feel bad. Maybe if I hadn’t behaved so unethically she wouldn’t have been tempted to leave.”

  John didn’t look convinced. “And it’s a loss for your business?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not for yourself at all?”

  “What’s that supposed mean?”

  “It means, that it sounds like you like this woman.”

  “Of course I like her.”

  Samira cut in. “I think John’s trying to ask if you have feelings for Zoe. As in, did you want more from your…encounter?”

  Reyna sighed deeply. She spread her hands helplessly, looking back out the window. “How can I?”

  Nobody said anything.

  Reyna transferred her gaze to her teacup, staring at the milky brew. “It’s like I told Zoe. There’s no room in my life for a relationship. I’ve committed to raising Holden, and I have a business to run.”

  “So that’s it for you, huh?” John asked, spreading jam thickly over a scone. “Single forever.”

  Reyna shrugged. “At least for the next few years. Until Holden gets a bit more independent.”

  “Reyna, it’s possible to do both, you know. You get a babysitter and go out for a drink while the kid’s asleep. You grab a coffee when the kid is having a play date with friends. Sometimes kids even have sleepovers. People have children and relationships all the time,” Samira said, her brow wrinkling. “I just don’t get why you can’t.”

  “Because those are the times when I’m trying to catch up on all the work from my firm. When Holden is playing, I’m working.”

  “Is that how you want it to be forever?”

  “I don’t know.” She hadn’t thought about that before. Was it possible to change the way her business was set up so that less burden sat on her shoulders? Should she be micromanaging less and would she even want to do that?

  “Can you get some more support at work, spread the love around a bit more? Perhaps you don’t need to have your finger on every pulse. I mean,” Samira took a bite of her scone, speaking through crumbs, “maybe let people do their jobs a bit more independently?”

  “Maybe. I’d need to think about it. The firm has grown so organically I guess I hadn’t noticed how large it’s become.”

  “I’m not saying you should quit your job so you can start dating, but maybe it’s possible to restructure things and change your approach so that you at least have the option of a life if you should ever want one. You’ve never been good at prioritising relationships, but you at least used to have some time for that stuff.”

  “Before the firm got so large.”

  “Exactly. Is this what you want? A life where you’re married to your firm, rather than a warm and loving partner to help you raise your child?”

  “God.” Reyna’s mind boggled at the thought. It was too intense. “I’m not looking to get married, and I’m really only just coming to terms with the idea that I’m raising a child as it is. Cut me some slack here, guys.”

  John patted her on the back reassuringly. “Have another scone. They’re a good pairing with an existential crisis.”

  That night after she had checked on Holden and settled the doona under his chin, she faced the mountain of unfinished paperwork on her desk and her inbox with over a hundred unread emails. For the first time, perhaps ever, she felt uninspired. Unbidden, an image of Zoe’s face, laughing as they cycled with no hands down the road in the early morning, came to mind. Reyna loved how joyful she was, how she seemed to embrace life, lighting up her surrounds with her infectious energy. She closed the lid of her laptop and walked away from her desk, her heart heavy. She no longer felt like working.

  It would be good to have someone to share these burdens with, she thought as she poured herself a finger of scotch and went to sit on the couch. She didn’t even have a good book to read, she realised, suddenly aware that all her spare moments were filled with work decisions and activity. There was always something to be done, something to be signed off on. When she had first started the firm it was small, boutique, just her and a few choice employees to service a select few clients. As their reputation had grown, so had the number of her employees, matching the demand with the service. It had seemed natural to set up around the country. In this technological day and age there was no issue working for clients in other locations, and gradually she had begun to set up her satellite offices as the profile of the firm grew.

  But when had she ever decided to do it like this, she wondered? Here she was, sitting at the top of her own empire, nursing a lukewarm attitude and a badly bruised heart. She had an HR department now and payroll; she had IT and accounts, and a group of middle managers, but she didn’t have a general manager, someone to oversee everyone and report back to her as CEO. Should she be looking for a deputy? Or a board of directors. It was suddenly clear to her that she needed some other kind of management structure to spread the load, because as it stood, she was it—kit and caboodle. It was time to change but it would be hard. She enjoyed the control, everything had to be signed off by her and no rogue decisions or alternative pathways would be taken by managers with differences of opinion. It would take a lot of trust to take a step back and bring in an extra tier of management to ease the burden on her.

  Perhaps she should just sell the firm, she mused, sipping her drink slowly and flicking randomly through channels on her rarely watched TV. Financially, she was already set up for life. Everything she did from here on in was just a bonus. But she really did enjoy the work her firm did, and if she wasn’t running Azoulay House, she knew she would gravitate toward doing the same sort of work all over again. She would just have to start from scratch, which would mean more work. No, she didn’t want to sell. But Samira’s voice rang in her head. Did she want to be married to her firm? No way, her body cried out in protest, reminding her of Zoe’s hands on her skin, Zoe’s mouth against hers, Zoe’s warmth and humour and attention, directed straight at Reyna, wanting to hear, to understand, to know. She had spent so long on her own, holding herself aloof at the top of her castle that she had forgotten how desperately beautiful it was to be seen, truly seen by another. She longed to pick up the phone and call Zoe, to tell her she had been wrong, to suggest a walk by the river or a coffee by the park. Zoe would like those kinds of places and Reyna felt an awakening inside her, a drive to get outside and see the world that she was missing, locked up in her office all the time. She had been getting out and about much more with Holden, and her focus had definitely begun to shift, but with Zoe it was as if a fire had been lit inside her and no amount of internal dousing would put it out.

  She thought about the card she had pocketed at Zoe’s farewell. It would be so simple to pick up her phone and send a simple email, not too confrontational like, Best wishes for the new job. But did Zoe even want to hear from her now? There was no mistaking the c
oldness between them. She had barely glanced at Reyna at her farewell, and Reyna couldn’t blame her for that. She had been ruthless in her office, cutting Zoe off in no uncertain terms.

  Her heart twisted painfully, recalling the look on Zoe’s face as she had left Reyna’s office. It was unlikely Zoe would ever want to have anything to do with her. She had lost her job and been rejected in one move. Reyna was probably the last person she wanted to hear from.

  Maybe she could consider a restructure, but what was the point of creating a whole bunch of extra time now that she had alienated the person she wanted to spend it with? Holden, she reminded herself. If she cut back on her work obligations she could rely on her parents a bit less, she could pick him up from school more often. They could do his maths homework together. She owed it to her sister and brother-in-law to give their son the attention he deserved. Sarit, whose only son was her whole world, would have desperately wanted her to do that. With a heavy heart she knew it was too late to fix things with Zoe, but maybe down the line there was the possibility that she would meet someone.

  There was so much to consider with a business restructure. Her head swam trying to imagine where to begin. You don’t have to do everything yourself, she reminded herself, switching off the TV and going to fetch her laptop. There were people to help with this sort of thing. She returned to the couch, her hands hovering over the keys. What was the name of that specialist firm who had tried to headhunt her for a board of directors last year? They did exactly this kind of thing. It came to her in a flash: Macintyre & Claud. She typed it into her search engine and clicked on their website, scanning their content. They looked excellent at face value and she remembered the woman she had dealt with, Linda Macintyre, had been extremely professional in her communication. Before she could second-guess herself, she clicked on their contact button and sent through a meeting invitation. At the very least, it was worth a discussion.