‘Hey, there.’ I lean forward and kiss her. She leaves a berry kind of taste on my mouth from the lipstick she’s wearing. ‘What did you do today?’
Her voice is small. Flat. ‘Same as every other day. The puzzle. Mum called in the morning. Tess, the dry-cleaning lady, called before I left home. We need to pick up three of your shirts, two pairs of trousers and a tie. Caitlin called in the afternoon. And Hope called me when I was on my way here. I swear they’ve got a roster going on behind the scenes.’
‘They care about you.’ Even though I know the menu off by heart, I pick it up and cast an eye over it anyway. ‘I think I’ll go for the cassoulet.’ This dish always over-delivers, but I don’t have much of an appetite, since it’s almost too early to be eating dinner. Paige has rescheduled her first two appointments with Imogen Banks, a counsellor Dr Sanders recommended. She missed the first appointment when she feigned a headache; the second time she didn’t bother feigning anything. Now Imogen has squeezed her in for an after-hours appointment and I hope Paige is going to keep it.
‘So, you ready for your appointment?’
As soon as I ask this question, I want to take it back, afraid she’ll back out forty-five minutes before she’s due in Imogen’s practice. And if I’m totally honest, I want to talk to Paige about other things – normal things. Like when the cars are due for their next service, or about plans to visit my mum in Tassie. At this point, I’d even be happy to talk about her favourite Netflix series, The Crown. Heck, I’d even be happy to sit through every single episode of every season of The Crown with her.
Paige lifts the menu up so it partially hides her face. ‘I know you think she can help, but there’s nothing that’s going to change what happened, and dredging it all up again with Imogen, no matter how good she is, is only making this nightmare more painful than it already is.’
After giving it only a cursory glance, she sets the menu down. ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’
‘The cassoulet.’
‘Is that what you’re having?’
‘Yes, I just told you that’s what I’m having.’ I stretch out my legs. ‘Never mind. Just tell me what you need from me, Paige.’
She stares into her lap, and her shoulders sag, making her look smaller. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I need from you. I don’t even know what I need for myself.’ She gives a small shake of her head, like she’s totally confused. But I get it. I feel the same way. ‘I can’t talk about it without crying.’ She’s blinking away tears now and I’m sitting here like an idiot, not sure what I can say to make it better, as if that’s even possible. She rummages through her handbag for something to dry her eyes with. ‘No tissues,’ she says desperately.
‘Here,’ I say, handing her my cloth napkin.
She wipes her eyes with the stiff corners and then starts rubbing the fabric against her lips, removing all traces of her pink lipstick. ‘Jesus, I feel like such a clown,’ she mutters. She folds the napkin and moves onto her cheeks. I stare at her as she takes an elastic band from the zipper pocket of her handbag and ties her hair back.
‘I don’t know how to make this easier for you,’ I say once she finishes.
‘You could just be there for me.’
‘But I am.’ I pause. ‘Aren’t I?’
She waves a hand in the air. ‘You’re right. Forget it. Sorry.’
‘I’m not going to forget it – we need to talk about it.’ I’m trying to be patient, gentle, a listener. All the things everyone tells you to be when someone is grieving. This is the only way I know how to be. But, of course, it isn’t enough. Because nothing can bring Max back.
‘I don’t know how to talk about it! Just thinking about it makes me cry, so how are you expecting me to find a way to talk to you about it? We lost a baby, Nick! A beautiful little baby. We walked out of that hospital alone!’
She bunches up the napkin and puts it on the table.
‘And dressing up for a nice dinner in these… these clothes that belong to someone who hasn’t just lost a baby is…’ She shakes her head and stands up. ‘It’s wrong. And I can’t do dinner at Paris for Two. Because all I can think about is the fact I really, really, really wish we were three.’
I leave some cash on the table for the waiter and follow Paige outside.
‘Paige!’ I call, jogging to catch up to her. ‘Talk to me. Please just talk to me.’ As I speak the words, it occurs to me that I’m asking of Paige something I haven’t been especially good at recently.
She turns around in the middle of the street to face me and yells, arms up in the air. ‘I can’t!’
I know, I want to call back. It hurts too much to talk about it. But it’s too late. By the time I manage to say anything, my wife is sliding into a cab without me.
Fifteen
Paige
Windsor Lakes is a sandy-brick building that sits happily in the middle of an expansive boulevard thronged with Californian bungalows and well-maintained buffalo grass nature strips. Inside, it smells of old furniture and citrus air freshener, and I don’t realise how much I’ve missed working here until this moment. The main reason I’m here is because of Imogen. We’ve had eight sessions together, set two weeks apart from each other, and this is my big step towards getting some semblance of normality and routine back in my life since I haven’t been working for almost six months.
‘Morning, Mr Healy.’
Frank jerks his head up. ‘Call me Frank,’ he croaks, his sultana eyes coming to life.
‘Okay, Frank.’ I smile to myself.
‘Ah, Paige. You’re back.’ I turn around to face Elsie. ‘When’s that grandson of mine going to visit?’ she says, pointing a knobbly finger at me.
‘Well, he’s been pretty busy at the hospital lately,’ I say, placing her blanket over her lap.
I give her a smile with no heart to it. ‘I’ll come back a little later. Let me go say hi to Viv.’
Viv, one of the Windsor Lakes cooks, is in the kitchen, peeling potatoes, swaying her hips to an Ella Fitzgerald tune. A rotund woman in her late fifties, Viv believes that love is cultivated in the kitchen, which is why she never turns down an opportunity to reach for her baking tins. Cupcakes when Beryl informed her she had glaucoma, hummingbird cake when Giuliano was discharged from hospital after his hip replacement, lemon meringue pie when Claudine became a great-grandmother for the fourteenth time. Oh, and petit fours when Bill proposed to Bernadette. She was four days shy of her seventy-ninth birthday and wore that ring of hers with as much pride and excitement as a twenty-five-year-old.
‘Well, hello there!’ She holds her arms wide open and locks me in an embrace. She smells of lemon rind and cake batter. She turns the music down. ‘Phone not working?’ she says knowingly.
‘Bad service at my place.’
‘Mmm, so I noticed. For what it’s worth, we didn’t miss you a bit. Except for maybe Frank.’
‘I’m sick of Frank’s crossword puzzles.’