Ella took a German beer from the fridge for Erik, poured a glass of lemonade for Sam and another glass of white wine for herself, then she took those out towards Wrestlemania currently in full swing in her garden.
‘Pinned you,’ Sam shouted.
‘Never,’ Erik threw back.
Both of them looked surprised to see Ella, as if they were wrestling in the backyard of a totally different house, one in which she didn’t pay the rent.
‘Who’s winning?’ Ella asked.
Both Sam and Erik shouted, ‘Me.’
‘Okay, I give up,’ Erik said, tousling Sam’s hair before he put his hand out for the beer. Sam dusted himself off and Ella passed him the lemonade.
‘So did you sell your house?’ Erik asked.
‘Can I watch TV, Mum?’ Sam asked as soon as the conversation turned to Ella’s work.
‘Sure, Sam.’
Ella told Erik all about Henry Graham and the house. How she thought she might have interest from her first genuine buyer. Then she told him about how Jake and the lady next door recognised them.
Erik listened, muttering the occasional ‘mhmmm’, as Ella talked.
‘Do not let it worry you, Ella,’ Erik advised. ‘So you will get people talking to you about their kid doing his freestyle at his swimming lessons and how he holds his fingers, and how he strokes his arms. This is not a problem.’
‘This town doesn’t even have a pool, Erik. I don’t think anyone will be quizzing me at swimming lessons.’
Later, as they sat around the outdoor table eating spaetzle, with Erik’s own-recipe warm red cabbage salad and German sausage, talk turned to Erik’s swimming squad and training programs until they’d polished their plates and Sam asked to be excused.
‘What did you two talk about all afternoon?’ Ella asked Erik when Sam had gone.
‘Not school or study or grades,’ Erik said, scratching his fingernail around the top of his beer bottle. ‘Time for this tomorrow.’
‘I know he’s stoked to see you here.’
‘He asks if I am staying. I think he means for always.’
Not good. ‘I didn’t want your visit to confuse him, but I really needed to see you. I’ve missed you.’
‘I miss you too.’ Erik reached across the table to put his hand over hers. He rested it there for a moment, then gently slid his palm beneath hers and picked her hand up. He ran his thumb over her tendons, back and forth. ‘Will it be so terrible if we are a family again?’
His touch was pleasant, as always. Pleasant. Nice enough. That was part of the problem. Ella ached for passionate. Desperate. Mind-blowing. Frantic. ‘Please let’s not do this now. I really can’t.’
‘If you want to sell houses, you can do this in the Perth city.’
‘We’ve been through all this. I hate seeing you hurt, and I was only going to hurt you more if we stayed together. We know all that. You were there when I made my list after the last Olympics—’
‘Mhmmm. This crazy list of things you say you must do before next Olympics.’
‘They’re my goals. Don’t call them crazy,’ Ella said. ‘I made a list after Athens. I did it after Beijing. After London. Now after Rio. All the things I want to achieve before Tokyo.’
‘Sorry,’ Erik added, squeezing her palm gently. ‘You do not show me what is on your list. You guard this list like a Löwin.’
‘Like a what?’
‘Like a lioness,’ he said.
Ella tried the German term in her head. Löwin. ‘You know telling Sam about Marshall is on top of the list.’
‘I know.’
‘It was on top of the before-London list too.’
‘Mhmmm.’
Start a new career was point two. There had been a third bullet point on the page, but she’d never told it to Erik.
Stop leaning on Erik. Let him go. He deserves more from life than having a wife who loves him like a brother.
Those were the biggies.
It had never been a sudden thing, this sense of dissatisfaction with her life. It crept up on her, slowly, slowly, like a caravan park waking in school holidays. A tent zip here. A caravan door there. Then the whole park was up and the day had begun before you could blink.
Beijing Olympics came and went in 2008 and that was okay; Sam was just a baby and he’d kept her busy. Erik had gone to Beijing, coaching.
She hadn’t watched the 400m freestyle, her pet distance. She hadn’t watched the Aussie girls in the 4 x 200m freestyle relay. She hadn’t wanted to think about how a spot on that team could have been hers.
London passed in a flash, and Erik had swimmers on that Aussie team too. Those were busy years with an energetic toddler and growing boy, Ella helping with the coaching programs, and keeping corporations happy through the various sponsorship deals they secured. That’s when the bulk of their money came in.
But Rio 2016? When Erik left as part of the Australian swim contingent to the Rio Olympics, it made those 2006 Nationals seem so long ago.
‘When we get to Tokyo in 2020 it will be fourteen years since those National Trials, Erik, and I’ve done nothing with my life.’ Her voice broke. ‘Not like you. You’ve been to the Paralympics as a competitor and the last four Olympic Games as a coach. I’ve done nothing.’
‘No. No. No.’ Erik gave her one of his famous craggy-faced frowns, the one all his swimmers feared. ‘You have Sam. You have me. Now you have this new job idea and your real estate qualification.’
She gave her hand a tug and Erik let her go. ‘It’s not enough. Not anymore. I’m tired of feeling like an imposter in my own life. Ella, failed swimmer. Ella, Sam’s mother. Ella, Erik’s wife. It’s time to be, just, Ella.’
‘Mhmmm.’ Erik did one of his slow, drawn out German grumbles that Ella had come to learn meant he neither agreed nor disagreed, he was just considering every possible angle and taking his own sweet time about it. ‘It’s best for Marshall and for Sam to know they
