“You shouldn’t lose touch. What about Neal and Jody? You used to spend so much time with them. Always eating dinner at their place or having them over. You can’t just let that kind of friendship die.”
“They picked a side,” I said.
My mother blinked at me.
“Don’t be so silly,” she admonished. “There were no sides. It’s all in your head.”
“Did you pick a side?” Michael asked.
I stopped breathing.
“Excuse me?” Mum said.
“When Kylee needed you,” he said. “Did you pick your daughter’s side?”
I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath.
“Well, as I said, there were no sides,” she murmured.
“So,” Michael started. I squeezed his hand. He squeezed mine back. “Your daughter went through a painful divorce, and you weren’t really there for her. You were too busy making sure her ex knew there weren’t any sides.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” my mother said stiffly.
“I know Kylee was hurting,” Michael said, barely containing the fury in his voice. “I know she needed someone to tell her she’d be all right.”
“We were there for her,” my mother whispered.
“No,” Michael said. “I was.”
They left ten minutes later. It would have been five, but my father lingered at the door hugging me, tears in his eyes.
56
You Didn’t Give Him A Chance
I stood on the doorstep to April’s new house and counted my breaths diligently. She only lived a few streets away from us, which was something to think about.
I hadn’t seen her in over two years.
She opened the door and smiled at me. She looked just the same. Maybe a little more harried, but still bright and bubbly.
April had always been a breath of fresh air.
I hugged her, and she hugged me.
And then she led me into her house and introduced me to her new baby. Harrison ran about in the back yard while I cuddled Kimberly. April made us a coffee and came and sat down opposite me.
“You look good,” she said.
“So do you,” I replied. “And this little angel is gorgeous.”
“She is, isn’t she?”
I nodded, and April shifted in her chair.
Harrison came barrelling through yelling at the top of his lungs. I cringed, Kimberly started crying. April laughed and said he was definitely going to be a loud one.
I said, “He takes after his mummy.”
April looked at me and then looked away.
That had come out wrong. I hadn’t meant to say it. But there it was. April was loud and often got told to be quiet in Comms. It was one of the things I had loved about her. She was so full of life; it had burst out of her; loudly.
But, right then, my words sounded more like a judgement.
I didn’t know how to say sorry.
I didn’t know if I should.
I handed over Kimberly and took a drink of my coffee. The silence stretched too long.
“How’s Comms?” I asked.
“Oh, you know, busy.”
“Is Gregg still there?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “He’s expecting a baby.”
I smiled back. April relaxed marginally.
“George Blunt is still in charge,” she said conversationally.
I grimaced. He’d been hard to work with.
“Funny thing,” she said. “He talked a lot about you when you left.”
I looked up from my coffee and silently prayed April wouldn’t go there.
“Everyone did.”
I shook my head and tried to breathe.
“George, though, said he always believed you’d make a cuckold of your husband. He thought you probably had lots of affairs while you were married.”
“Did he?” I said. “He tell you this?”
“Yeah. He told anyone who’d listen.”
“Speaking from experience, no doubt,” I muttered.
“Did you?” she asked.
I closed my eyes. This had been a mistake. You couldn’t go back. The past was the past, and sometimes, it was too thorny to navigate safely.
I sat in April’s lounge as she fed Kimberly, and Harrison ran past yelling, and I realised she was no longer a friend. She’d picked a side.
She’d picked her side the moment I left Sean. And time and space could not change that. I envied Sean her loyalty.
I grieved again the loss of a friendship.
I could feel April watching me. I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t speak.
“Just tell me,” she said. “Help me to understand. Why did you leave him?”
“You still don’t know?” I asked.
He’d moved on. I’d moved on. But April hadn’t.
It devastated me.
“It was so sudden,” she said. “No one saw it coming. You two were so good together.”
No, we weren’t.
“It was such a shock. Such a shock,” she repeated. “Just help me to understand.”
I realised then that heartache was not only the purview of those involved in the breakup. April had