‘I like the picture. It’s not about the girl.’
‘It’s about what might have been,’ Ella said softly.
She looked at the picture again, Jake’s words in her head, weighing heavy on her heart. She lost her patience with Sam sometimes, but she wouldn’t be without him. So many of her fears around telling him the truth about Marshall revolved around the possibility of losing him. Marshall was rich, in the media, famous. Meanwhile, Ella was starting on her own, all over again, living in a rental house that wasn’t big enough to swing a disco ball.
What could Marshall offer Sam? That’s if Marshall wanted him now, of course. He’d never wanted to know about Sam before but maybe he’d changed?
Come on, Ella. This isn’t about Marshall. She didn’t care about Marshall, or Marshall’s feelings, but she was being incredibly selfish keeping the opportunity to know his father away from Sam.
Gooseflesh snuck up the back of Ella’s arms and onwards, up her neck.
‘Ella?’ Jake said gently. ‘Are you okay? This picture means nothing to me. I don’t think about Cassidy that way anymore, ever. I promise. Okay?’
‘It’s not that,’ she whispered. ‘Just some bad memories. I’m fine.’
Jake stepped closer. ‘Bad memories of what?’ He stroked the raised flesh of her arms. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
So quiet, here in the halls of this old house, and Jake’s voice felt almost hypnotic. Surely she could tell him some of it? Just not the worst parts. Not yet.
‘When I got pregnant with Sam, my parents were so angry. They didn’t want me to have him. They said they’d sacrificed all those years to drive me to and from the pool, and they’d paid for lessons and elite coaching, and they’d swapped jobs and sold houses to be nearer the pool. They said I’d cost them everything they had and I was an ungrateful little bitch. So that was the first thing I did with my first sponsorship cheque. I sent it to my mum. I sent quite a few after.’
Jake pulled her into him, wrapped his arms around her and held tight.
‘When they kicked me out, Erik saved me from ending up on the street. I had no other skills except swimming. I had no other place to go.’
‘So he should have, Ella,’ Jake said. ‘You and Sam were his responsibility.’
Of course he’d think that. It all came back to that same old lie. People assumed Erik was Sam’s dad. Why wouldn’t they? Certainly, neither she nor Erik had given anyone reason to doubt it.
‘My parents hated Erik, after that. They wanted him barred from coaching because they thought our relationship was … inappropriate.’
‘Ella, you married him when you were just a kid. I mean, I can kind of see your parents’ point of view.’
Ella tensed, and Jake hugged harder and muttered, ‘Sorry,’ into her hair. ‘But it’s true.’
‘I wasn’t as young as people think when I got married. It wasn’t like I got pregnant at eighteen and had a shotgun wedding, but you wouldn’t know that from what was in the magazines. It makes a better headline that way. I hadn’t swum in the Brecker squad for two years. We didn’t get married till after Beijing. Sam was more than a year old. Erik and I weren’t …’ She ducked her chin. ‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It’s old news now.’
She could hardly tell Jake that she and Erik had never slept together before they got married, and not for a while after. They’d become great friends, they’d worked together and she’d hoped that marriage might fill that space in her heart that cried out for something more than the peace and security Erik’s friendship offered. She’d hoped, and Erik deserved that chance.
‘There was a court case,’ Jake prompted. ‘I remember it in the news.’
‘A tribunal. The hearing went nowhere. Erik was cleared.’
‘Something bothers me about you two, Ella.’
She tensed. ‘What?’
‘You say he’s your best friend. You talk about him saving you when your parents kicked you out, more like he’s a father figure? So why did you get married? Why take that step?’
‘He asked me.’
‘You don’t say yes just because someone asks you. You’re allowed to say no.’
‘It was what Erik wanted. I didn’t mind.’
‘You didn’t mind? You didn’t owe him, Ella.’
She put her palms on Jake’s chest and pushed to clear a space. ‘We shared a life together before and after my swimming career finished. It just happened that way.’
He let her push him away, but he didn’t give up his questions. ‘Getting married doesn’t just happen. It’s a big decision. Or it should be.’
‘Jake … it was a long time ago. Who can say why people do what they do?’ She repeated his words back to him. ‘I can’t change it, so I move on.’
His expression told her he knew what she’d done, what she was doing, but maybe he recognised how intense they’d become, standing before a picture of this girl from his past, the ghost of those decisions between them.
‘Anyway, weren’t you about to wow me with your room?’ Ella stepped in front of Jake, crossing the threshold.
‘It’s the only bit of renovation I’ve actually finished. I have plans for the whole house but I need to get Mum and Dad sorted in a new place first, and so far they haven’t been keen to leave. Lucky they got the caravan. That keeps them out of my hair. Hardest thing ever has been to get Dad to let go of the farm.’
Ella turned a circle. ‘I’m impressed. It’s beautiful.’
If the rest of the homestead had stayed traditional, this room was contemporary to the extreme. Two sides of the room had windows, one to the garden, another with a sliding door to a secluded suspended deck with a view all the way to the purple shadow of the Porongurups.
Ella wanted to open the sliding door and step out onto the deck, but first she ducked her head into the bathroom … because that was
