LITMIR.BIZ

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your bit.’

      Fletch nodded. ‘And I will. If you won’t … I will. But studies like this are so important, Tess. The results can help the way we treat acute head injury. What we learn from them can make a real difference to neurological outcomes. This is critical stuff, Tess.’

      ‘Someone else can do it,’ she snapped.

      ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘Someone else could … but this is what I do.’ He placed his hand on his chest. ‘This is my field of expertise.’ And his passion—Tess could hear it lacing every syllable. But chasing after medical rainbows wasn’t going to bring Ryan back. She stood up, the metal chair legs scraping against the terracotta tiles.

      ‘No, Fletcher. I’m sorry about your study, I really am, but I do not want to do this.’

      He rose too and opened his mouth to interject and she held up a finger, silencing him. She looked into his determined face, his jaw set, his hand thrust on a hip, and she knew he didn’t get it. Didn’t understand why she’d be rejecting his perfectly rational plan.

      He didn’t understand how just being around them—him and Jean—would be like a hot knife to her chest every day. How the reminders of Ryan that she was able to keep rigorously at bay on the other side of the world would be torturous.

      It was suddenly vitally important that he understand. Vitally.

      ‘I get by, okay? I make it through each day and I sleep at night and my life is on an even keel. It may not seem very exciting to you—I’m not setting the world on fire with my cutting-edge research, but it took a while to reach this place and it works for me, Fletch. I don’t want to undo it.’

      Fletch felt his breath catch as the fierce glow of her amber eyes beseeched him. He held her gaze, ignoring the anguish he saw there. ‘I came home the other day to a blaring alarm and smoke pouring out of the oven. She’d baked some biscuits and forgotten about them.’

      He refused to look away, refused to back down. His mother was his priority and Tess was the answer. He needed her.

      Whatever the emotional impact.

      He was pushing her, he knew that, but listening to her talk had him thinking that maybe this was exactly what Tess needed also. Maybe she needed to start living a life where she more than just got by.

      It was criminal that she was living this half-life stashed away in the English countryside where nobody knew her past and she could eke out an existence by pretending nothing had happened. That her whole world hadn’t come crashing down and sucked her into the deepest, darkest despair.

      Maybe it was time for both of them to confront the past and deal with it. To talk and grieve together instead of separately. He’d let her deny and avoid all those years ago because her sorrow had been all-consuming and he’d been walking through a minefield he’d had no idea how to navigate whilst suffering his own debilitating grief.

      He hadn’t pushed her back then.

      But maybe it was finally time to push.

      Tess swallowed as his intense look seemed to bore a hole right through her middle. It made her feel ill thinking about Jean almost burning the place down but her ex-mother-in-law wasn’t her responsibility.

      She was ex for a reason.

      And she didn’t want to get sucked back into lives that were too closely entwined with the tragic events that had defined all their lives since.

      It just would be too hard.

      She shook her head and turned away. ‘Goodbye, Fletcher.’

      Fletch shut his eyes as she whirled away, heading for the door. Damn it! He’d felt sure he’d be able to convince her. He opened his eyes, resigned to letting it go. He’d tried. But he had to respect her decision.

      Tess stalked into the apartment. Wheel of Fortune had finished, the show’s theme song blaring out. Jean was nowhere to be seen.

      ‘Jean?’ Tess called, reaching for the remote. Nothing. Not that anything could be heard over the roar of the television. ‘Jean?’ she called again, hitting the mute button.

      ‘Tess?’

      Tess walked quickly towards the feeble, panicked voice she could hear coming from the kitchen area. ‘Jean?’

      ‘Here … I’m here.’

      Tess rounded the bench to find Jean sitting on the floor, her back propped against the fridge, staring down at two raw eggs, one in each hand, the shells crushed, yolk oozing between her fingers. She looked at Tess with red-rimmed, frightened eyes, the papery skin on her cheeks damp.

      ‘I don’t know what these are,’ she said to Tess, holding them up.

      ‘Oh, Jean …’ Tess sank to the floor beside her and put her arm around skinny shoulders. ‘It’s okay,’ she murmured. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

      Jean shook her head, pulled away to look at her daughter-in-law. ‘I’m frightened, Tess,’ she whispered, and started to tear up again. ‘Something’s wrong. H-help me, please.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Please … h-help me.’

      Jean dissolved into soft tears and Tess felt her heart swell up with love for this woman who had been like a mother to her as she snuggled her into the crook of her shoulder.

      ‘Shh,’ Tess crooned, rocking slightly. ‘Shh, now.’

      Tess heard footsteps and looked up to find Fletch staring down at her with solemn eyes. He crouched beside them and Tess saw that all-too-familiar look of sadness sheen his eyes to silver. She watched as he reached for his mother’s shoulder, placed his long brown fingers over her pale, waxy skin and gently rubbed.

      ‘It’s okay, Tess,’ he whispered over his mother’s bent head. ‘I’ll fix it.’

      Tess shut her eyes as Jean’s plea tugged at her. She was almost out the door, damn it. She didn’t want to be needed like this. Not by Jean. And certainly not by him.

      Not fair. So not fair.

      But, as Fletch had only just pointed out, when had life ever been fair?

      Could she really turn her back on Jean who had never asked her for anything? Fletch maybe, but Jean?

      She opened her eyes. ‘Let me see if it can be arranged …’

      Fletch felt his heart swell with relief and something else far more primal. He sagged slightly as what seemed to be the weight of the entire world lifted from his shoulders. ‘Thank you,’ he mouthed. ‘Thank you.’

      Tess pushed the ‘end’ button on the phone thirty minutes later. Her boss at Estuary View Nursing Home had been very understanding of Tess’s predicament and had urged Tess, her best employee who only ever took the same two weeks off every year, to take as much time as she needed.

      So, that was that.

      She kept her elbows firmly planted on the balcony railing, staring out over the river darkening to liquid mercury. The city’s first lights winked on the polished surface and shimmered in the wake of a City Cat as it fractured the surface. She was surprised at the tide of nostalgia that crept over her.

      Brisbane was her home town.

      And she’d been away for a long time.

      In recent years it had been a place to dread, a place of terrible memories, a heinous pilgrimage. But a sudden strange melancholy infused her bones.

      Irritated by the path of her thoughts, Tess turned her back on the river. Through the open doorway she could see Jean sitting happily once again in front of the television, sipping a fresh cup of tea, her incident with the eggs forgotten. Fletch sat beside her, holding her hand, his dark wavy hair a stark contrast to the thin, white wisps of his mother’s.

      He looked up at her at that moment and for a second they just stared

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