and Laura flung her arms around him. He’d agreed they should get a puppy, this puppy, but in her heart she suspected she’d broken down a wall and he was agreeing to more.
At least she prayed that he was.
Nine
Bishop put a deposit down on the pup and Laura gave her furry baby another big cuddle goodbye. She spoke of little else all the way to the Darling Harbor apartment or on the way home to the Blue Mountains. Bishop couldn’t decide if he felt relieved or ridden with guilt that he’d agreed to her getting a dog.
This time two years ago they’d had very near the same conversation. He’d stuck to his guns about checking out potential pets yet had agreed a short time later to Laura falling pregnant. He knew why he’d made that call. Laura would be able to abide by the logic behind checking out a dog’s pedigree, but despite his own reservations, in his heart he understood, now more than ever, that Laura would never forget about conceiving and having her own child. Clearly, regardless of everything they’d gone through—everything she’d gone through—Laura hadn’t put aside her deeper feelings.
Had he been wrong to expect such a sacrifice on her part in the first place? Had his insecurities been more important than her desire to be a mother in the truest sense? He’d thought he was merely being cautious, a responsible parent-to-be, but perhaps he’d simply been selfish putting his wishes above hers.
After he swung the Land Rover into the garage, he removed the luggage from the trunk, recalling how he’d rationalized this all the first time, when they’d been three months married. If Laura was willing to take the risk, he’d come to the conclusion that he could do little other than support her choice. It wasn’t about courage or recklessness or defeat on his part. Back then it had been about love and, initially, she’d understood that. The here and now was about seeing if there was any chance they might get that love back.
When he’d married Laura he’d believed to his soul that she would be his wife for life. Divorce papers and living apart hadn’t changed that ingrained perception, which was only one of the reasons he would never marry again. Beneath all the murk of the breakup, behind the smoke and mirrors of her amnesia, did Laura feel the same way? Reasonably, why else would her mind wind back to this precise point in her life, in their relationship, if not for some deep desire to change the misfortune that had come before? Statistics said her memory would return over time. When it did, she could tell him whether he’d taken advantage of the situation or if this time he’d been the one who’d taken a risk that might pay off.
When Bishop moved inside with their luggage, Laura was standing in front of the fireplace, peering up at their wedding portrait, her head tilted to one side as if something wasn’t quite right.
While she’d chatted to Grace Saturday morning, he’d found their wedding photograph stashed at the back of a wardrobe in the adjacent guest room. His heart had thudded the entire time he’d perched atop a stepladder and rehung the print, but he had an excuse handy should she walk in. A spider’s web had spread across one corner, he’d decided to say, and he’d taken the print down to see if the culprit was living behind the frame.
But she’d stayed on the phone a half hour and hadn’t noticed the portrait either way after that. As he watched her now, inching closer to the fireplace, examining the print as though it were a newly discovered Picasso, he considered the other discrepancies she might wonder about now that they were home again. Things that didn’t quite fit.
He’d bat the questions back as they came and tomorrow he’d get her into a general practitioner who could give them a referral to a specialist. Until then he’d wing it and let the pieces fall as they may.
Still engrossed in the photograph, she tapped a finger at the air, obviously finally figuring out what was wrong.
“It’s crooked,” she announced.
After lowering the luggage, he retrieved the stepladder, which was still handy. As he set it up before the fireplace, ready to straighten the frame, Laura continued to analyze.
“It seems so long ago,” she said, “and yet …” She released a breath she must have been holding and a short laugh slipped out. “Can you believe we’ve been married a whole three months?”
He grinned back. “Seems longer.”
He straightened the frame. She took in the angle, then nodded. “Perfect.”
On his way down the ladder, he remembered the sketch lying on the car’s backseat. “Have you thought where you might hang the other one?”
“Mr. Frenchie’s? We’ll need to get it framed first. Something modern, slim-lined, fresh!”
She was headed toward the phone extension. As she collected the receiver, Bishop’s pulse rate jackknifed and he strode over. When he took the receiver from her, her chin pulled in.
Hoping unease didn’t show in his eyes, he found an excuse.
“We’ve only just come home.” He set the receiver back in its cradle. “Don’t you want to unpack, have a coffee, before we let the outside world in?”
“I was expecting Kathy to leave a message about the library. I told you about the literacy program we want to set up. We usually get together Wednesdays if there’s anything to discuss.”
She waited for him to back down, to say, of course, call your friend. But if he did that, Kathy would likely ask what on earth Laura was rabbiting on about. Laura would expand and not clued in, Kathy would laugh, perhaps a little uneasily, and say that her friend was living in the past. That what Laura was talking about happened two years ago.
Should he protect her from such a harsh jolt or hand the phone over and let friend Kathy help unravel this tangle of yarn? He’d been prepared to field any blow when last night he’d questioned her about losing a baby, so what was different now? Other than the fact that he wouldn’t have control over how this conversation wound out. No control at all.
He glanced over the luggage by the door then their wedding portrait, rehung on that wall. Were they home again or should he have kept the engine running?
Resigned, he stepped back.
“I won’t be on the phone all day,” she said, guessing at his problem. She could talk under water once she got started. “I just promised Kathy I’d call her early in the week to check.”
“Take as long as you like.”
He moved down the hall, feeling as if he were walking the corridor of a listing ship … as if he were traveling back, deeper and deeper through time. If he walked far enough, fast enough, maybe Kathy wouldn’t ask questions and the present, and its regurgitated disappointments, wouldn’t catch up … at least not today.
He ended up out on the eastern balcony. For what seemed like a lifetime, he absorbed the warm afternoon sun and soothing noise of the bush … the click of beetles, the far-off cry of a curlew. To his left, a couple of wallabies were perched on a monstrous black rock. They chewed rhythmically and occasionally scratched a soft gray ear. Their manner was lazy, instinctive, as it had been for many thousands of years. Bishop breathed in, and the strong scent of pine and eucalypt filled his lungs. As fervently as he’d wanted to leave here a year ago, he’d missed this place.
Hell, he’d missed this life.
But
