a young man’s response, Janey, pretty unthinking in some areas, far too black and white. I’ll never have to see a child of mine go through this, because I’m damned sure now that I’m never having kids. As for enjoying my freedom, that’s just how you would phrase it, isn’t it? The negative connotation. We all needed a bit of a release in those days. I changed. I loved Frankie Jay like—When was this? When did she say this? After my phone calls?’
‘After, when she came back to Australia.’
‘When you already knew how desperate I was to get in touch with her and see my son.’
‘It’s easy to say. Especially on the phone from half a world away. That you’re desperate to get in touch. It’s the expected reaction. Casts you in a heroic—’
He swore. ‘You thought it was just a performance? Hell, I knew you never thought all that highly of me marrying your sister, but…’ His lips had gone white. ‘We worked together. I saved your backside a couple of times, and you even returned the favour. There was a degree of respect between us. Professional respect, at least. I thought. But that’s what you think I’m capable of.’
‘I wasn’t accustomed to think my own sister was telling lies. I didn’t know what to think or believe or feel. You know what she was like, Luke. She drew us all in.’
‘Captivating,’ he said bitterly. ‘She weaves these beautiful, magical webs around her life. You want to be in her world because it looks so sparkling and wonderful. You believe every word she tells you. She casts spells. Wait a minute…’ His face changed, and Janey knew he’d belatedly registered her use of that tell-tale word ‘was’—the past tense.
‘She died,’ she told him simply. She swallowed. Luke didn’t need to see her in tears. She’d shed enough of those when she’d first heard the news. ‘A week ago. No, ten days. Oh, hell, nearly two weeks, I’m still in such a fog.’
She sketched in the medical facts for him, then continued, ‘She was living at Mundarri, it’s a retreat. A commune, some people would call it. And they didn’t realise how ill she was until it was too late. Charles Wetherby knew of the place when I told him. Up in the rainforest. I don’t know if—’
‘Yes, spiritual healing, or something. I guess that fits. She’d begun to get heavily involved in that sort of thing in England before she disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’
‘Just went off the grid, Janey. Do you think I didn’t try every avenue I could think of to track her down when she took Frankie Jay?’ His whole face blazed, and she could see the way his tightly held fists made his forearms knot with muscle. ‘She did it deliberately, no matter what she might have told you. That would have been when she changed their names, not when she got to the rainforest place, Mundarri. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she changed them more than once. Poor kid, probably doesn’t know what he wants to be called. It wasn’t me. I wanted our marriage. To try and save it, for his sake. I wanted to be a good father. She sabotaged everything.’
‘Luke—’
‘I don’t use that word lightly, and the only reason I never spoke of it in those terms when I called you from London was that I thought if I sounded too harsh about her you wouldn’t tell me where she was.’
‘Why didn’t you try again when you came back to Australia? I didn’t even know you were back in the country until I found your contact details amongst Alice’s things. She must have kept track of you.’
‘While making damned sure I couldn’t trace her. I gave up, that was why I didn’t make contact with you or your parents when I got back. Maybe I shouldn’t have given up. But it was killing me. I didn’t get a senior fellowship in the US that I wanted, because of it. I was too distracted, trying to find my wife and child. The fellowship went to someone else, and deservedly so, because I hadn’t been giving a hundred per cent and I couldn’t fake it any more.’
Luke Bresciano? Unable to fake it?
Again, she let too much show on her face.
‘Yes, you’re right, OK? I did used to fake it sometimes, when we were interns.’
‘Sometimes?’
‘OK, a lot. Never the actual medicine, but the bedside manner, the confidence, sure! It was a survival strategy. We all had them. Apparently you weren’t impressed with mine.’
‘Finish the story, Luke.’
‘I came home to Australia instead. I knew my son was at least safe, that Alice loved him. I decided that would have to be enough, the abstract knowing. I’m not the first parent to have lived through losing a child completely when a marriage breaks down—to have a son or daughter or a whole family just vanish out of your life, and your ex to go to incredibly extreme measures to deprive you of any contact. I joined a support group for a while, but some of the bitterness and desperation I saw in those other parents…No. For sheer survival I had to turn my back and start again.’
‘Oh, Luke…’ She slumped against the raised upper half of the hospital bed, her energy completely drained. Her hands were actually shaking, cold despite the tropical heat.
He reached out and covered her clammy fingers with his warm palm. Instinctively, she closed her eyes. The contact felt good, far better than she would have expected. It oriented something in her universe, and she didn’t stop to think if that might be in any way dangerous.
Couldn’t stop to think.
Didn’t have any thought power left.
‘This is too exhausting for you,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be talking about it now.’
‘We had to. How could we have put it off? What would we have said instead?’
‘Where is he? Will you let me see him?’
‘Let you see him?’ Her eyes flew open, she tried to sit up and saw stars.
His voice seemed to come from a distance. ‘Your sister didn’t let me, for over five years. Who has legal custody of him now?’
‘I do, but it’s temporary.’
‘Your parents…?’
‘Mum’s not well. Dad’s struggling, taking care of her. Alice’s death has hit them hard. They couldn’t manage a child now. They want me to have him, but—’
‘You don’t?’
‘Oh, I do, with all my heart, but I thought you should have a say in it, Luke.’ He was still holding her hand. Instinctively, she squeezed it. ‘That you should have him, if you want him. I—I do trust that your heart’s in the right place.’
He’d never been bad, after all. Just because she hadn’t liked him, just because he’d made her spit chips every time they met, and she had thought him so arrogant and immature…She wouldn’t let personal feelings win out over the objective realities of right and wrong. He’d be a good father, if he wanted to be.
‘All the stuff that happened with you and Alice…’ she said, ‘a bad marriage can bring out the worst in people.’
‘We were never right for each other. We dazzled each other at first, but I wouldn’t want those stars in my eyes again.’
‘Luke, if you want Felixx…Frankie Jay…then he’s yours. He has to be. It’s the right thing. That’s why I came to Crocodile Creek.’
Approaching the doctors’ house where he’d lived for almost five months, Luke saw the place as if he’d never seen it before.
Because now, since Sunday night, his child had been here.
He’d left Janey to rest, knowing there were still a million things to say but that she was too exhausted for either of them to do any more talking at this point. In any case, the urgency to see his son was suddenly shattering.
It