some water. Just to do something, rather than just lying there. Thinking. Anything was better than that.
He didn’t bother to look at the clock. It was dark. He was tired, which could only mean it was late. Any other information seemed irrelevant. He wasn’t going anywhere, not even to sleep, it seemed.
The sanded wooden stairs felt smooth under foot. It’d taken him the whole of last year’s 4th July holiday weekend to complete them. Unlike the unfinished kitchen of the ranch. Seven years untouched. Semi-masked up, with unopened paint tins with names such as Ancient Map and Cottage Leaf and Proud Peacock, colors he couldn’t even guess without opening the tins, yet colors he and Ellie had argued about when they’d bought them… just before he’d been deployed to Lamu.
He hadn’t seen the point of finishing the kitchen. Not now. He never cooked anyway. At a push he used the microwave to heat up the meals Maddie or Dorothy Walker made for him. Because it was Ellie who’d wanted the big, open plan room with a Sully seven burner stove and a view out over the acres of meadow which ran up to the aspen covered hills and on to the mountain ridges beyond. She’d wanted it. Not him. But like the ranch, which she’d fallen in love with when the realtor had simply shown them photos of it, he’d been happy to give it to her. He’d have given her anything.
So now he was stuck with the ranch along with the paint and the unused brushes and the stove which he’d always thought too big and the view of the goddamn meadow. And the only way he could see round the problem was for her to come back. Come back to him. Just so he could give it to her all over again. Because he needed her to remind him of what the colors were, to prove to him why the hell, when there were just the two of them, they needed seven burners instead of four, but this time, this time, he wouldn’t care if she painted the whole of the goddamn place bright green.
He shook his head. This was bullshit. He wasn’t thinking straight. Didn’t know if it was the pills beginning to work or just him. He snorted with audible self-contempt. Jesus, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d managed to spend more than a few days at the ranch. Hell, nor did he have any desire to try. He wasn’t good at quiet. Give him a crowded prison cell any day. What the hell had he been thinking coming here? He never learnt. He thought each time it would be different.
Already he could feel the tightness in his chest. And it wasn’t just the opiates. It was his warning sign. The sign telling him he had to stop. Get away. Because any minute now it was going to hurt. Hurt real bad. Memories hypoxic. Stopping him breathing. Depriving him of air.
Turning to leave the kitchen to grab his clothes, he stopped, not wanting to, but unable to force himself to walk past without looking. To his right, where he and Ellie had planned to build a row of cream wooden cupboards, was a map. A map of Africa adorned with multi colored pins and criss-cross patterns of nylon red string, depicting the towns, the routes and ultimately the dead ends. Illustrating all the days and weeks and months which had translated to years he’d spent searching for Ellie.
His thoughts spilled aloud. ‘Come on, Ellie. Where did you get to baby? Where the hell are you?’
‘Tom?’
‘Ellie?’
Maddie threw down her car keys on the side as she walked into the kitchen.
‘What did you say…? What did you just say to me?’
Confused, Cooper said, ‘I didn’t say anything.’
She brushed past Cooper, her face sketched with tiredness and stress. Looking around and shaking her head she picked up a photo of Ellie and Cooper before resting her eyes on him.
‘Seriously? Jesus, Tom, this place is like a shrine to her. Why the hell did you get all this stuff out of the attic? Could you push me away anymore?’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘You really did skip charm school didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
Maddie’s gaze drifted from Cooper to the large table in the corner of the room. Her voice accusatory. Her manner tense. She said, ‘What are they?’
Cooper followed Maddie’s stare. He shrugged. Never met her eye. ‘Nothing.’
‘You’re back on those pills aren’t you?’
‘Maddie… look…’
‘Don’t, Tom. I don’t want to hear any bullshit. No more than you’ve told me already.’
Cooper walked across to the table. Scooped the bottle of pills up. Quickly threw them in the khaki canvas bag on the floor. ‘I’m not. They’re old pills. Stuff from before. I was just having a clear out, okay? Anyway, you didn’t answer my question. How come you’re here?’
Hands on hip and a shake of the head. ‘Well if you do turn off your phone for two days what do you expect? And you know what, Tom, some people might think a wife coming to see her husband was kind of a normal thing to do, but not you, Tom? Not you, hey? You want to just disappear whenever you feel like it and don’t give a damn how anyone else feels.’
It was Cooper’s turn to shake his head. He licked his lips. Tried to conjure up saliva from his dry mouth. A side effect of the pills. ‘You came all this way to tell me what a hopeless husband I am? Well you wasted your time. I already know… but believe it or not, I’m sorry.’
Her beautiful brown face flushed red. Flushed anger. ‘No, Tom, I didn’t come here to tell you how bad you are as a husband. I came to tell you our daughter wouldn’t blow out her candles at her party until her daddy came. And you know we waited. Me and her friends, Levi and Granger, and my parents all waiting for you. But guess what…’
‘Maddison, I’m so sorry. Is Cora okay?’
‘Oh she will be, once she’s put her heart back together. No little girl should have their heart broken at four years old. Especially not by her daddy.’
‘I don’t know what happened, I was going to come. I got her a present.’
Maddie’s voice was loud and broken. ‘She doesn’t want a present, she wants you. That’s all, Tom. You!’ Her tone softened. ‘A bit like the rest of us.’
‘Please, Maddie…’
‘Don’t say you’re sorry, Tom because you’re not. No, I’m wrong, you are sorry but only sorry for yourself. I came to get you from Eritrea, Tom, and you couldn’t even come home to us. That hurt.’
‘I thought you might want some time on your own.’
‘No you didn’t, because you never even asked me! You came here so you could be close to her. Let me ask you something. Why did you marry me?’
‘What?’
‘Just answer me.’
‘Maddie, do we really need to do this?’
Maddie cocked her head to one side. ‘Is it that hard to tell me?’
‘No…
