She gave Rob a tight hug in return and went to fetch the disc.
* * *
And there they were. Her boys. It had been the most glorious birthday party, held here on the back lawn. All the family had been here—her parents, Rob’s parents, their siblings, Rob’s brother’s kids, Rob’s parents’ dog, a muddle of family and chaos on the back lawn.
A brand-new paddling pool. Two little boys, gloriously happy, covered in the remains of birthday cake and ice cream, squealing with delight. Rob swinging them in circles, a twin under each arm.
Julie trying to reach Aiden across the pool, slipping and sprawling in the water. Julie lying in the pool in her jeans and T-shirt, the twins jumping on her, thinking she’d meant it, squealing with joy. Rob’s laughter in the background. Julie laughing up at the camera, hugging her boys, then yelling at Rob’s dad because the dog was using the distraction to investigate the picnic table.
The camera swivelled to the dog and the remains of the cake—and laughter and a dog zooming off into the bushes with half a cake in his mouth.
Family...
She’d thought she couldn’t bear it. She’d thought she could never look at photographs again, but, instead of crying, instead of withering in pain, she found she was smiling. Laughing, even. When the dog took off with the cake they were all laughing.
‘Luka wouldn’t do that,’ Danny decreed. ‘Bad dog.’
‘They look...like a wonderful family,’ Amina said and Rob nodded.
‘They are.’
They were. She’d never let them close. She’d seen her remaining family perfunctorily for the last four years, when she had to, and she’d never let anyone talk of the boys.
‘Aiden and Christopher were...great.’
She said their names now out loud and it was like turning a key in a rusty lock. She hadn’t said their names to anyone else since...
‘They’re the best kids,’ Rob said, smiling. He was gripping her hand, she realised, and she hadn’t even noticed when he’d taken it. ‘They were here for such a short time, but the way they changed our lives... You know, in the far reaches of my head, they’re still with me. When I get together with my parents and we talk about them, they’re real. They’re alive. I understand why you need your family tonight, Amina. For the same reason I need mine.’
Julie listened, and Rob’s words left her stunned. His words left her in a limbo she didn’t understand. Like an invitation to jump a crevice...but how could she?
The recording had come to an end. The last frame was of the twins sitting in their pool, beaming out at all of them. She wanted to reach out and touch them. She felt as if her skin was bursting. That she could look at her boys and laugh... That she could hold Rob’s hand and remember how it had felt to be a family...
‘Thank you for showing us,’ Henry said, gravely now, and Julie thought that he knew. This man knew how much it hurt. He’d lost too, him and Amina, but now he was tugging his wife to her feet, holding her...moving on.
‘We need to sleep,’ he said. ‘All of us. But thank you for giving us such a wonderful, magical Christmas. Thank you for saving my family, and thank you for sharing yours.’
* * *
They left.
Rob flicked the television off and the picture of their boys faded to nothing.
Without a word, Rob went out to the veranda. He stood at the rail and stared into the night and, after a moment’s hesitation, Julie followed. The smouldering bushland gave no chance of starlight but, astonishingly, a few of the solar lights they’d installed along the garden paths still glowed. The light was faint but it was enough to show a couple of wallabies drinking deeply from the water basins Rob had left.
‘How many did you put out?’ Julie said inconsequentially. There were so many emotions coursing through her she had no hope of processing them.
‘As many containers as I could find. I suspect our veranda was a refuge. There are droppings all over the south side. All sorts of droppings.’
‘So we saved more than Amina and Danny and Luka.’
‘I think we did. It’s been one hell of a Christmas.’ He hesitated. ‘So...past Christmases...Julie, each Christmas, each birthday and so many times in between, I’ve tried to ring. You know how often, but I’ve always been sent straight through to voicemail. I finally accepted that you wanted no contact, but it hasn’t stopped me thinking of you. I’ve thought of you and the boys every day. But at Christmas...for me it’s been a day to get through the best way I can. But, Julie, how has it been for you? I rang your parents. The year after...they said you were with them but you didn’t want to talk to me. The year after that they were away and I couldn’t contact you.’
How to tell him what she’d been doing? The first year she’d been in hospital and Christmas had been a blur of pain and disbelief. The next her parents had persuaded her to spend with them.
Doug and Isabelle were lovely ex-hippy types, loving their garden, their books, their lives. They’d always been astonished by their only daughter’s decision to go into law and finance, but they’d decreed anything she did was okay by them. Doug was a builder, Isabelle taught disadvantaged kids and they accepted everyone. They’d loved Rob and their grandsons but, after the car crash, they’d accepted Julie’s decision that she didn’t want to talk of them, ever.
But it had left a great hole. They were so careful to avoid it, and she was so conscious of their avoidance. That first Christmas with them had been appalling.
The next year she’d given them an Arctic cruise as a Christmas gift. They’d looked at her with sadness but with understanding and ever since then they’d travelled at Christmas.
And what had Julie been doing?
‘I work at Christmas,’ she said. ‘I’m international. The finance sector hardly closes down.’
‘You go into work?’
‘I’m not that sad,’ she snapped, though she remembered thinking if the entire building hadn’t been closed and shut down over Christmas Day she might have. ‘I have Christmas dinner with my brother. But I do take contracts home. It takes the pressure off the rest of the staff, knowing someone’s willing to take responsibility for the urgent stuff. How about you?’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘How about you?’ she repeated and she made no attempt to block her anger. Yeah, Christmas was a nightmare. But he had no right to make her remember how much of a nightmare it normally was, so she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. ‘While I’ve been neck-deep in legal negotiations, what have you been doing?’
‘To keep Santa at bay?’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
‘I’ve skied.’
It was so out of left field that she blinked. ‘What?’
‘Skied,’ he repeated.
‘Where?’
