by Nicola Marsh
“Thanks.”
I knew I wouldn’t take Pam up on her offer. I could barely hold my shit together when I left here after my bi-weekly visits. No way could I face Pam’s kindness, especially if Mum was as bad as expected today.
I took several deep breaths to clear the buzzing in my head and waited until I could muster a halfway normal expression, before knocking on Mum’s door and entering.
“How’s the crossword coming along?”
My heart twisted as her head lifted and our gazes locked. Mine deliberately upbeat. Hers eerily blank.
“Who the fuck are you?”
And with those five words, I almost lost it.
My hands shook so I stuffed them into my jacket pockets as I cautiously crossed the room to sit in an armchair opposite hers.
Keep it simple, the nurses had warned if this happened. Don’t startle her or press her to remember. Be casual. As for the swearing, aggression was a common reaction in progressive dementia. But to hear the F bomb tumble from Mum’s lips was as foreign to me as seeing her sitting in a pink toweling bathrobe at five in the afternoon.
She’d always been glamorous, dressed to the nines with perfect make-up from the time she rose to the time she came home from whatever party she’d attended. Even as a kid, I had memories of Mum’s vivid red lipstick and strawberry-scented shampoo as she kissed me goodbye before heading to an audition, her high heels clacking on our wooden floorboards as she left me in the care of the teenager next door.
That glamorous woman was nowhere to be seen now. Her blonde hair had faded to a washed out yellowy-grey. Her brown eyes were ringed with lines and underscored by dark circles. Her shoulders were shrunken, her back curved, her muscles flaccid from lack of use.
My beautiful, exceptional mother was broken. An empty shell.
And it killed me a little bit more every time I visited.
“I’m Ashton,” I said, wishing I could elaborate, wishing I could yell, ‘I’m your son. The one who wiped the vomit off your face more times than I can count. Who found you passed out on the floor and carried you to bed countless times over the years. Who would do anything to have you back.’
But I said none of those things. Instead, I swallowed my resentment—at the lifestyle that had put her here—and forced a smile. “I see you’re a fan of crosswords.”
“Stupid bloody things.” She picked up the pen she’d discarded and tapped it against the magazine. “Can you think of a five letter word for a boy’s building toy?”
“Block,” I said, remembering the toy sets she used to buy me when she scored a role.
I’d treasured every single one, taking my time constructing the blocks into elaborate houses or fire-stations or castles, knowing it could be a long time between jobs for Mum.
Not that she didn’t try hard but she never quite cracked it for a starring role. She’d got by with TV commercials and bit parts in anything from soap operas to local feature films.
Having me at forty had changed her life.
Roles were scarce for aging actresses, especially pregnant ones. I often wondered if that had been the start of her downward spiral. If she blamed me for ruining her life.
If she did, she never showed it. Mum adored me, loving me to the point of smothering. And even as she deteriorated, partying harder to forget the fact she wasn’t working much, I always came home to dinner on the table.
“Thanks.” She scrawled the letters into the boxes, her hand shaky. “Could you help me do the rest?”
“Sure,” I said, taking care not to startle her as I cautiously edged my chair next to hers. “I like crosswords.”
Knowing I was pushing my luck, I added, “I used to do them with my Mum.”
I waited, held my breath, hoping for some sign she knew who I was.
“She must be a lucky lady to have a son like you,” she said, her smile wobbly as she glanced at me with those blank eyes that broke my heart.
“I’m the lucky one,” I said, as I settled in to spend some time with my Mum, hoping I had the strength to do this.
Because the way I was feeling now? As brittle as tinder-dry bark, ready to snap and fly away on the slightest breeze.
I had to be stronger. Strong enough for the both of us.
Read an excerpt from BLURRING THE LINE
Chapter 1
ANNABELLE
Being an Aussie studying in Denver was cool. Unless your BFFs were dating hot Aussie guys and never let up on your lack of a boyfriend.
“I don’t get it.” Mia handed me a champers, as I thanked the gods I’d had the smarts to come to the States in my final year of uni so I could drink legally at the ripe old age of twenty-two. “You’ve been here a year, Annabelle, and you haven’t hooked up.”
Dani snorted. “Not that I blame her. Half the guys on this campus have a pole stuck so far up their asses they can hardly walk.”
“Maybe she’s too picky?” Mia topped up Dani’s glass. “She needs to lighten up.”
Dani sniggered. “And get laid.”
I sipped at my champagne, content to let Mia and Dani debate my lack of male companionship. They’d been doing it the last three weeks, ever since opening night of Ashton’s first art show.
Dani never shut up about Ashton, her sensitive-soul artist boyfriend. The fact she’d met him in Melbourne, while staying in my flat, kinda irked a little. During my three years doing a bachelor’s degree in physiotherapy at Melbourne Uni, I’d never met a single guy I’d drool over the way Dani did with Ash.
As for Mia, she was just as pathetic with Kye, her sexy tennis jock boyfriend. With both guys being Aussie, it merely exacerbated Mia and Dani’s relentless assessment of my less than stellar love life.
“How do you know I haven’t hooked up or gotten laid?”
Mia clinked her glass with mine. “Because, dear friend, all you ever do is study. You don’t date. You don’t party.”
“And you don’t even consider Mia’s fix-ups,” Dani said, raising her glass. “Or so I’ve been told.”
“How can I put this politely?” I finished my champers in three gulps before glaring at them. “Piss off.”
Dani laughed. “I know for a fact that’s the Aussie version of fuck off.”
Some of the mischief faded from Mia’s eyes. “You know we’re only teasing?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but since the arrival of this one—” I pointed at Dani, “—you haven’t let up.”
Mia made a zipping motion over her lips at Dani, who was the more relentless of the two. “That’s because we want you to be happy.”
“I am.” The quick response sounded hollow even to my ears.
Because the truth was, I wasn’t happy. Sure, my studies were going great and I’d made a bunch of new friends while in Denver. But I missed Melbourne. And on a deeper level, I missed Uppity-Doo, the small country town in northern Victoria I called home.
If I was completely honest, the last time I’d been truly happy was back there, in my final year of high school, when the guy I’d adored had reciprocated my feelings on that one, fateful night I hadn’t been able to forgot. Several years and a trip across the Pacific hadn’t dimmed the memory. Sadly, no guy had come close to eliciting the same spark.
“Sure you are,” Dani said. “You could almost convince us looking like this—” She pulled a face with downturned mouth and deep frown, “—translates to happiness in Australia.” She rolled her eyes. “But I’ve lived there for the last twelve months, remember, and I happen to know that’s bullshit.”
Mia took the empty champagne glass out of my hand and draped an arm across my shoulders. “Listen, sweetie, we’ll lay off if you promise to keep an open mind tonight.”
“What’s on tonight?” Like I had to ask. Yet another party where my well-meaning friends would try to foist some unsuspecting guy on me. A guy I’d chat with and laugh with while pretending to enjoy myself, knowing by the end of the night I’d be heading back to my dorm alone.
I wasn’t
interested in transient flings. Never had been. And with an expiration date on my studies here in the States, it was the main reason I’d remained single by choice.
The other reason, where I was pathetically, ridiculously hung up over a guy who didn’t know I existed these days, was one I preferred to ignore.
“A few of us are heading out to that new bar in town.” Mia squeezed my shoulders. “Apparently there’s an Aussie guy in town Kye thought you might like to meet—”
“Not interested.” I held up my hand. Yeah, like that would stop these two in full matchmaking mode. “Aussie guys are footy-loving, cricket-watching, beer-swilling bogans.”
“We beg to differ.” Dani smirked. “The Aussie guys we know are sexy, sweet and incredibly talented in bed.”
“Hear, hear,” Mia said, removing her arm from my shoulders to give Dani a high-five.
“You two are pathetic.” I smiled, despite a pang of loneliness making me yearn for what they’d found with Kye and Ashton. “And for your information, I’m not going.”
“That’s what you think,” Dani said, a second before she and Mia gang-tackled me.
We tumbled to the floor amid shrieks of laughter and hair pulling.
“Get off me.” I elbowed Dani hard and followed up with a well-aimed kick to Mia’s shin.
“Crazy bitch,” Dani said, chuckling as she sat up and rubbed her midriff, while Mia inspected her shin. “As if a few well-aimed jabs will get you out of going tonight.”
Secretly admiring their determination to avoid me turning into a hermit, I folded my arms. “You can’t make me.”
“Want to make a bet?” Mia smirked. “If you don’t want to come for social reasons, maybe we can appeal to your professional side.”
Confused, I said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Apparently Kye met this guy when his shoulder tendonitis flared up today.” Mia’s smugness made fingers of premonition strum the back of my neck. “He’s a physical therapist.”
No way. It couldn’t be.
“What’s his name?” I aimed for casual, hoping the nerves making my stomach flip-flop wouldn’t affect my voice.
Mia shrugged. “No idea.”
“You’ll just have to come to the bar and find out,” Dani said, oblivious to the rampant adrenalin flooding my system, making me want to flee.
I was being ridiculous. There were many Australian physiotherapists working around the world. The odds of this Aussie physio being Joel were a million to one.
But that didn’t stop my hands from giving a betraying quiver as I snagged my long hair that had come loose in our wrestling match and twisted it into a top-knot.
“We won’t take no for an answer.” Mia and Dani stood next to each other, shoulders squared, determination making their eyes glitter.
“Fine, you win.” I held up my hands in resignation as they did a victory jig.
“You won’t regret it, sweetie,” Mia said.
I already did. Because if this Aussie physio was Joel Goodes, the guy who’d broken my heart, I was in trouble. Big trouble.
Chapter 2
JOEL
I’d had a shit of a day.
Back to back patients for eight hours straight. Four meniscectomies, three rotator cuff tears, two carpel tunnel syndromes, an Achilles tendon bursitis, ankylosing spondylitis, torticollis, Osgood-Schlatter’s, synovial cyst, popliteal effusion and a hamstring tear, and that had just been the morning.
I usually thrived on the constant buzz of diagnosing and treating orthopedic injuries at the outpatient clinic I’d worked at in downtown Denver for the last three months. The manic pace suited me.
Not today. Today, I’d been too busy mulling over Mum’s late night phone call to fully appreciate the varying conditions I’d treated.
Mum was considering retiring and wanted me to come home to run her practice. A good offer, if the practice had been situated anywhere but Uppity-Doo.
God, I hated that name. Hated what it stood for more. Staidness. Stability. Stifling. Small town fishbowl mentality with a healthy dose of outback narrow-mindedness. Not that Uppity-Doo was outback exactly. Situated close to the Victorian-New South Wales border, it was four hours from Melbourne. And a million miles from where I ever wanted to be.
I’d escaped the town as soon as I could. Did my physio bachelor’s degree in Melbourne and had been travelling ever since. Four years on the road. Locum work from London to LA, and many cities in between. Three months in one city was ideal, six months at a stretch.
I’d been enjoying my stint in Denver, until that phone call. Mum’s bollocking, about how I’d skirted responsibility all these years, rankled. She needed someone to take over her practice. That someone couldn’t be me.
So when my last patient of the day, an Aussie tennis player, had invited me to a bar with some of his mates tonight, I’d accepted. A few beers would take the edge off.
But it wouldn’t eradicate the inevitable guilt that talking to Mum elicited. She sure knew how to ram the bamboo under my fingernails and hammer the buggers home. She’d been the same with Dad. And it had killed him in the end.
I entered the bar and made for the pool tables, where Kye Sheldon had said his group would be. Would be good to chat to a bunch of fellow Aussies. Not that I didn’t appreciate the people I met on my travels, but nobody did laid-back humor like Aussies.
“Mate, good to see you.” Kye appeared out of nowhere as I neared the tables and slapped me on the back. “Come meet the rest of the gang.”
A boutique beer was thrust at me by a guy on my left. “Cheers, mate. I’m Ashton.”
“Thanks.” I raised the bottle in his direction. “Been in the States long?”
“About a month.” Ashton pointed at Kye. “This bloke’s practically a local though.”
Kye grinned. “Can’t tear myself away from the joint.”
Ashton snorted. “That’s because his girlfriend has his balls in her back pocket.”
I laughed and Kye held up his hands in surrender. “Guilty as charged, and loving it.”
These guys had an obvious camaraderie and I experienced a rare pang. Traveling continuously wasn’t conductive to mateship and I missed having someone, anyone, I could rely on.
I’d had a good mate once, back in Uppity-Do. A mate I’d eventually lost contact with deliberately, because of what I’d done with his sister.
Man, Trevor would’ve killed me if he’d found out about Annabelle and me.
“You can talk.” Kye pressed his thumb into Ashton’s forehead. “Yep, my thumb fits perfectly into the permanent indentation Dani has left there.”
Ashton clinked his beer bottle against Kye’s. “I’m a schmuck in love and proud of it.”
They turned to face me. “What about you, Joel? You seeing anyone?”
I shook my head. “I move around too much to maintain a relationship.”
The flash of pity in their eyes surprised me. Usually guys in relationships envied my lifestyle. And freedom was enviable. Not being tied down to one woman, in one place, for all eternity. Dying a slow death.
Ashton nodded, thoughtful. “Relationships are hard work, without the added pressure of distance.”
“Listen to you.” Kye sniggered. “Next you’ll be braiding our hair and painting our nails.”
Ashton’s eyes narrowed but he grinned. “Dani likes that I’m a SNAG.”
“You’re not a sensitive new age guy, you’re a lapdog.” Kye lowered his tone and leaned toward me. “He’s an artist. That explains a lot.”
In response, Ashton punched Kye on the arm. Considering the size of the tennis player’s biceps I’d seen while treating his shoulder earlier today, he wouldn’t feel a thing.
“Better than being a Neanderthal masquerading as a college student while playing tennis for fun.” Ashton made inverted comma signs with his fingers when he said ‘for fun’ and smirked.
I chuckled. “You two are like an old married couple. Been mates for long?
”
“A month,” Kye said, which surprised me. Ashton had said he’d been in the States a month but from their obvious bond I’d assumed they’d known each other longer. “Our girlfriends are besties, so since Ashton came over with Dani for his first art show, we’ve been hanging around a lot.”
Ashton raised his beer in Kye’s direction. “But lucky for me, I’ll be heading back to Melbourne in a few weeks, leaving this funny man behind.”
“You’ll miss me,” Kye said, deadpan.
“Like a hole in the head,” Ashton muttered, his amused gaze drawn to the door behind me. “Don’t look now, Sheldon, but your balls just made an appearance.”
Kye elbowed Ashton and the artist winced a little.
“About time the girls showed up,” Kye said, waving. “Don’t worry, mate, they’ve brought a friend so you won’t feel like a third wheel.”
Shit, this better not be some lame fix-up. I wanted to have a few beers to unwind, not feel compelled to make mindless small talk with some chick I wouldn’t see after tonight.
“She’s a real hottie, too,” Ashton said, elbowing me. “Check her out.”
I glanced over my shoulder, the epitome of casual, and froze.
Because I knew the petite redhead with the killer bod striding toward me. Knew her intimately. And damned if my cock didn’t harden at the memory.
Annabelle Cleary. The only good thing to come out of Uppity-Doo. And one of the reasons I’d bolted as fast as I goddamned could from that shithole town.
Kye bumped me. “What do you think?”
I am so screwed.
