they’d accepted Julie’s decision that she didn’t want to talk of them, ever.
But it had left a great hole. They were so careful to avoid it, and she was so conscious of their avoidance. That first Christmas with them had been appalling.
The next year she’d given them an Arctic cruise as a Christmas gift. They’d looked at her with sadness but with understanding and ever since then they’d travelled at Christmas.
And what had Julie been doing?
‘I work at Christmas,’ she said. ‘I’m international. The finance sector hardly closes down.’
‘You go into work?’
‘I’m not that sad,’ she snapped, though she remembered thinking if the entire building hadn’t been closed and shut down over Christmas Day she might have. ‘I have Christmas dinner with my brother. But I do take contracts home. It takes the pressure off the rest of the staff, knowing someone’s willing to take responsibility for the urgent stuff. How about you?’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘How about you?’ she repeated and she made no attempt to block her anger. Yeah, Christmas was a nightmare. But he had no right to make her remember how much of a nightmare it normally was, so she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. ‘While I’ve been neck-deep in legal negotiations, what have you been doing?’
‘To keep Santa at bay?’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
‘I’ve skied.’
It was so out of left field that she blinked. ‘What?’
‘Skied,’ he repeated.
‘Where?’
‘Aspen.’
She couldn’t have been more astounded if he’d said he’d been to Mars. ‘You hate the cold.’
‘I hated the cold. I’m not that Rob any more.’
She thought about that for a moment while the stillness of the night intensified. The smell of the smoke was all-consuming but...it was okay. It was a mist around them, enveloping them in a weird kind of intimacy.
Rob in the snow at Christmas.
Without her.
Rob in a life without her.
It was odd, she thought numbly. She’d been in a sort of limbo since the accident, a weird, desolate space where time seemed to stand still. There was no future and no past, simply the piles of legal contracts she had in front of her. When she’d had her family, her work had been important. When she hadn’t, her work was everything.
But, meanwhile, Rob had been doing...other stuff. Skiing in Aspen.
‘Are you any good?’ she asked inconsequentially and she heard him smile.
‘At first, ludicrous. A couple of guys from work asked me to go with them. I spent my first time on the nursery slopes, watching three-year-olds zoom around me. But I’ve improved. I pretty much threw my heart and soul into it.’
‘Even on Christmas Day?’
‘On Christmas Day I pretty much have the slopes to myself. I ski my butt off, to the point where I sleep.’
‘Without nightmares?’
‘There are always nightmares, Jules,’ he said gently. ‘Always. But you learn to live around them.’
‘But this Christmas—you didn’t go to Aspen?’
‘My clients finished the house to die for in the Adelaide Hills. They were having a Christmas Eve party. My sister asked me to join her tribe for Christmas today. I’d decided...well, I’d decided it was time to stay home. Time to move on.’
Without me? She didn’t say it. It was mean and unfair. She’d decided on this desolate existence. Rob was free to move on as best he could.
But...but...
He was right here, in front of her. Rob. Her beloved Rob, who she’d turned away from. She could have helped...
Or she could have destroyed him.
He reached out and touched her cheek, a feather touch, and the sensation sent shivers through her body. Her Rob.
‘Hell, Julie, how do we move on from this?’ His voice was grave. Compassionate. Loving?
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t think how to escape this fog.’
There was a moment’s hesitation and then his voice changed. ‘Escape,’ he said bitterly. ‘Is that what you want? Do you think Amina was escaping by coming here?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, I do,’ he said roughly, almost angrily. ‘She wasn’t escaping. She was regrouping. Figuring out how badly she and her family had been wounded, and how to survive. And look at her. After all she’s been through, back she goes, to her memories, to talking about the ones she loves. You know why I wasn’t going to Aspen this Christmas? Because I’ve finally figured it out. I’ve finally figured that’s what I want, Jules. I want to be able to talk about Aiden and Christopher without hurting. Call it a Christmas list if you want, my Santa wish, but that wish has been with me for four years. Every day I wake up and I want the same thing. I want people to talk of Christopher and Aiden like Amina does of her family. I want to admit that Christopher bugged me when he whined for sweets. I want to remember that Aiden never wanted me to go the bathroom by myself. I want to be able to say that you sometimes took all the bedcovers...’
‘I did not!’
‘And the one time I got really pissed off and pinned them to my side of the bed you ripped them. You did, too.’
‘Rob!’
‘Don’t sound so outraged.’ But then he gave a rueful smile and shrugged. ‘Actually, that’s okay. Outrage is good. Anything’s good apart from silence. Or fog. We’ve been living with silence for years. Does it have to go on for ever?’
‘I’m...safe where I am.’
‘Because no one talks about Aiden or Christopher? Or me. Do they talk about me, Julie, or am I as dead to you as the boys are?’
‘If they did talk...it hurts.’
But he was still angry. Relentless. The gentle, compassionate Rob was gone. ‘Do you remember the first time we climbed this mountain?’ he demanded, and he grabbed her hand and hauled her round so she was facing out to where the smoke-shrouded mountain lay beyond the darkened bush. ‘Mount Bundoon. You were so unfit. It was mean of me to make you walk, but you wanted to come.’
‘I only did it because I was besotted with you.’
‘And I only made you come because I wanted you to see. Because I knew it was worth it. Because I knew you’d think it was worth it.’ His hand was still holding hers, firm and strong. ‘So you struggled up the track and I helped you...’
‘You pushed. You bullied!’
‘So I did and you got blisters on blisters and we hadn’t taken enough water and we were idiots.’
‘And then we reached the top,’ she said, remembering.
‘Yeah,’ he said in satisfaction and hauled her against him. ‘We reached the top and we looked out over the gorge and it’s the most beautiful place in the whole world. Only gained through blisters.’
‘Rob...’
‘And what do you remember now?’ he demanded, rough again. ‘Blisters?’
‘No.’
‘So? Does my saying Aiden’s name, Christopher’s name, my name—does it hurt so much you can’t reach the top? Because