‘After we’d made love,’ she said softly, remembering, ‘you’d sleep on the far side of the bed so I didn’t disturb you. You needed space, as I remember. You always needed space.’
More silence. Loaded silence.
‘I’d have seen your injecting sites,’ he said at last.
‘Would you?’ She shrugged. ‘That needs real intimacy, Cal. Making love in the daylight with our eyes open. We hadn’t reached it. I’m not sure we would have.’
‘Why are you telling me this now?’
‘I’m being honest. I don’t know where else to go.’
‘You don’t need to go anywhere.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning you have to stay here.’ The anger was growing, she thought, and the anger was self-directed. Fury at himself for not noticing?
Just plain fury.
‘You can’t go back to the States,’ he told her.
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Hell, Gina, you need-’
‘I don’t need anything,’ she flashed at him. ‘Get that through your head, will you? I don’t need you. CJ doesn’t need a father. He’s got great memories of Paul and they’ll last him a lifetime. I don’t need a husband. I have family and friends back in Idaho. I have a great career. I’m not a lost soul here, Cal.’
‘I can look after you.’ It was as if he wasn’t hearing her. He was gripping the steering-wheel so tightly it was likely to crack at any minute.
‘I can look after myself.’
‘Look, Townsville was a bad idea,’ he said. ‘I know that. It was a dumb suggestion. At least, by yourself it was a bad idea. But together maybe things could work as they did last time you were here. We could set up house here.’
‘You’re not suggesting I marry you?’ she said, astounded.
‘We’re good together.’
‘No, we’re not. Have you been listening to a thing I’ve been saying?’
‘How did you cope with a pregnancy and type one diabetes and a quadriplegic husband?’ he demanded, and she sighed.
‘I’m sure I don’t know. And I did it without you. Astounding, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not astounding,’ he said, catching the sarcasm in her voice and his own voice gentling in response. ‘But it must have been hell.’
‘Maybe. But that’s got nothing to do with the here and now. Or with what I do in the future.’
‘You say you love me.’
‘That has nothing to do with it either,’ she told him.
‘Hell, Gina, if I’d known… If you knew how much I’d wondered about you…’
‘You would have come galloping to the rescue,’ she whispered.
‘Of course I would. Gina, I love you.’
‘See, that’s the problem here.’ She bit her lip, aware that her hold on the thread of this conversation was growing tenuous. She was barely making sense to herself, much less to him. ‘I’m not sure you’ve really figured that out. You think it was dumb not telling you I was diabetic. You don’t know why I didn’t tell you.’
‘No, but-’
‘Shut up, Cal,’ she told him. ‘Just shut up.’
The country around the car was changing now, the bushland near the coast giving way to the rocky country where they’d driven last night. They were nearing the site of the crash. Cal slowed, but there was no need. There were a couple of deep gashes in the gravel, a pool of spilt oil but nothing else. Everything had been cleared.
They drove in silence for a couple of minutes more, and Gina knew Cal was thinking exactly what she was thinking. What an appalling waste. And how quickly life could be snuffed out.
Was she crazy, throwing away Cal’s offer? she wondered. He was saying marry him. Live here. Happily ever after?
Maybe she was just plain dumb, but she glanced across at Cal’s set face and knew she was exactly right. She had no choice.
‘Cal, I don’t want a relationship based on need,’ she told him. ‘Or…not just my need. Sure, I love you but…’
‘Well, then-’
‘Let me explain,’ she snapped. Honestly. Maybe a letter would be easier. She had to get her tongue around the right words.
‘Even if I needed you-which I don’t-that’s no basis for a marriage,’ she told him. ‘Paul taught me that. He worked out the hard way that marriage was a really special thing. He sacrificed a lot to try and find it, and he didn’t find it for himself, but I know exactly what it is and I’m not prepared to opt for second best. Cal, I love you, and all right, in one sense-in the sense of never being really happy apart-I need you. You say you love me and you want me, but you’re only admitting that to yourself because you believe that I need you. You’d never in a pink fit say that you need me.’
‘I don’t need anyone.’
‘There’s the rub,’ she said sadly. ‘There’s the reason the whole thing’s not going to end in happy ever after. Because you won’t let yourself need. You won’t cuddle me to comfort yourself because you might get dependent. You say you didn’t know I was diabetic? That’s because you were so busy preserving your private space that you didn’t notice that I had mine. I’m sorry, Cal, but CJ and I need more than that.’
‘Gina, I’m asking you to marry me.’
‘Am I expected to be grateful?’
‘No. Yes. But-’
‘I am grateful, Cal,’ she said, softening in front of the anguish in his face. ‘And I would love to be married to you. But I need to be needed, too, and I won’t spend my life being grateful.’ She thought about it-or tried to think about it. They were approaching the settlement now and time was running out.
‘Cal, I want you to sleep with me and hold me and miss me desperately when I’m not there,’ she told him, speaking almost to herself rather than him. ‘I don’t want you to train yourself to sleep on the other side of the bed in case one day I disappear. I want a relationship that’s based on us being together for ever. Sure, one day it’ll end and it’ll hurt like crazy when that happens, but your way, hurt will be there all the time. Why let that happen when we could have forty years of cuddling?’
She caught her breath and blinked. Whoa, she was being too deep for comfort.
‘Unless you snore,’ she added, trying frantically to retrieve the situation. ‘Then you’re off to your side of the bed so fast you’ll probably be ejected to the middle of next week.’
He didn’t smile He didn’t even try to smile.
‘Gina, I can’t do that,’ she said slowly. ‘You know I can’t. What you’re asking…’
‘Is too much. I know that. That’s why I’m going home.’ She took a deep breath and tried to regroup. ‘So let’s cut out the talk of marriage, Cal Jamieson,’ she told him. ‘Let’s see what this community needs. Move back to medicine. It’s the only sanity in a world that seems often to be nuts in every other department. Tomorrow Bruce has asked that CJ and I go croc spotting with him, and the day after that I’m going home. We’ll exchange Christmas cards and birthday cards and leave it at that. Your precious independence won’t be compromised at all.’
‘There has to be a middle road.’
‘There isn’t,’ she said bluntly. ‘Get used to it.’
