LITMIR.BIZ

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she really think because she hadn’t moved on that things weren’t going to change around her? ‘She’s seventy-four, Tess. She’s getting old. Did you think she was just always going to be here, frozen in time, waiting for you to come around?’

      Tess recoiled as if he had slapped her, colour draining from her face. ‘I doubt your mother has been sitting around waiting on me,’ she retaliated.

      ‘You’re like a second daughter to her, Tess,’ he dismissed impatiently. ‘She’s missed you every day.’

      I’ve missed you every day.

      Fletch blinked at the thought. He had. Standing here in front of her, talking to her for the first time in nine years, he realised just how deeply he had missed her.

      Tess felt the truth of his starkly delivered words wrap around her heart and squeeze. She wanted to deny them but she couldn’t. He was right. They had been close. And Jean was getting older.

      Fletch sighed as Tess gnawed on her bottom lip, looking utterly wretched. He raised his hands in a halfsurrender.

      ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …’ To what? Get angry with her? Make her feel guilty? ‘Will you, please, just come and see her? She gets anxious easily these days and you’re the one she wants to see the most.’

      Tess was torn. She’d love to see Jean again. Had missed her wise counsel and warm hugs over the years. And if it helped ease some of her mother-in-law’s anxiety to see her then that was the least Tess could do. But would it be Jean? And would it build an expectation, make it harder to walk away?

      Because she was getting on that plane tomorrow. Just like she did every year.

      And most importantly, what if Jean wanted to talk about Ryan? What if she didn’t remember he was dead? Talked about him as if he was alive and just down for a nap?

      Tess looked at Fletcher. ‘What about …?’ She cleared her throat as a lump formed there. Even just saying it was beyond difficult. ‘What does she remember from …?’

      Fletcher watched the shimmer of emotion in Tess’s amber gaze as she struggled with her words. He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t remember him at all, Tess.’

      It had been a particularly difficult thing for Fletch to cope with. After Tess had refused to hear his name, his mother had been the only person he’d been able to talk openly with about Ryan.

      Now it was as if his son had never existed.

      ‘Her memory seems to stretch to about a year after we were married. As far as she’s concerned, we’ve just got back from Bora Bora.’

      Fletch had taken Tess to the tropical paradise for a surprise first wedding anniversary present. They’d lazed in their over-water bungalow all day. Making love, drinking cocktails and watching the multitude of colourful fish swim by their glass floor.

      He shrugged. ‘There’s an occasional recall of an event beyond that but it’s rare.’

      For a brief moment Tess envied Jean. The thought of forgetting how Ryan had felt in her arms or at her breast, forgetting the way his hair had stuck up in the middle from his double cowlick and how his giggle had filled the whole room. Forgetting that gut-wrenching day and all the empty days that had followed since.

      It sounded like bliss.

      The fantasy was shocking, wrong on so many levels, and she quickly moved to erase it from her mind. Jean was suffering from a debilitating disease that was ravaging her brain and would rob her of her most basic functions.

      There was no upside to that.

      And no justice in this world.

      Although she already knew that more intimately than most.

      Tess nodded. ‘Okay.’

      Fletch blinked at her easy capitulation. ‘Really?’

      ‘Sure.’ She frowned, his disbelief irksome. ‘For Jean.’ He should know she’d do anything for his mother. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’

      He shrugged. ‘Yes.’

      His bluntness hurt but she pushed it aside—it was, after all, a fair statement. She had been sneaking into the country once a year for the last nine years with only two paltry visits to Jean to defend herself against his conviction.

      But they’d agreed on a clean break.

      And she’d stuck to it.

      Eventually, so had he.

      She gave him a measured look. ‘It’s Jean.’

      Fletch nodded as the husky note in her voice didn’t mask her meaning. She wasn’t doing it for him.

      And that was certainly what he was counting on now.

      ‘Thank you.’ He gestured to his car. ‘Do you want to follow me?’

      Tess shook her head. ‘She’s at Trish’s, right? They still live in Indooroopilly?’

      Fletch shook his head. ‘No, she’s at my place for the moment.’

      Tess blinked. ‘You have a place in Brisbane?’

      Since their separation Fletch had moved to Canada, where he’d been heavily involved in research and travelling the world lecturing. Or at least the last time she’d heard, that had been where he’d been. It was suddenly weird having absolutely no idea where he lived—or any of the details of his life for the last nine years.

      She honestly hadn’t cared until today but it somehow seemed wrong now to know so little about someone whose life had been so closely entwined with hers for so long they may as well have been conjoined.

      When she thought about him, which she still did with uncomfortable regularity, it was always against the backdrop of their marital home. The ninety-year-old worker’s cottage they’d renovated together.

      Polished the floorboards, painted the walls, built the pergola.

      The house they’d brought Ryan home to as a newborn.

      ‘I’m renting an apartment on the river.’

      ‘Oh. Okay.’

      Tess tamped down on her surprise. Fletch had always despised apartment living. Had loved the freedom of large living spaces and a back yard.

      But, then, a lot of things had changed over the last ten years.

      ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll follow you.’

      Fletch nodded. ‘It’s only about a ten-minute drive. See you soon.’

      ‘Sure,’ Tess murmured, then walked on shaky legs to her car.

      Nine minutes later they drove into the underground car park of a swanky apartment block. She pulled her cheap hire car in beside his Jag in his guest car space. They didn’t talk as he ushered her to the lifts or while they waited for one to arrive.

      Tess stared at the floor, the doors, the ugly concrete walls of the chilly underground car park—what did one say, how did one act around one’s ex? An ex she’d deliberately put at a fifteen-thousand-kilometre distance?

      A lift arrived, promptly derailing her line of thought. He indicated for her to precede him, which she did, and then stood back as Fletch pushed the button for the nineteenth floor. More silence followed. Surely at least they could indulge in inane conversation for the duration of their time together?

      A sudden thought occurred to her and she looked at him leaning against the opposite wall. ‘How did you know I was going to be there today?’

      Fletch returned her look. ‘Because you’re there every year on the anniversary.’

      Tess blinked at his calm steady gaze. ‘How do you know that?’

      ‘Because I watch you.’

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