You’re still my wife. I still love you, but the rest...it’s up to you.’
The night grew even more still. It was as if the world was holding its breath.
He was so close and he was holding her and he wanted her. All she had to do was sink into him and let him love her.
All she had to do was love in return.
But what did she have to give? It’d be all one way, she thought, her head spinning. Rob could say he loved her, he could say he still wanted her but it wasn’t the Julie of now that he wanted. It was the Julie of years ago. The Julie she’d seen on replay. Today’s Julie was like a husk, the shed skin of someone she had once been.
Rob deserved better.
She loved this man; she knew she did. But he deserved the old Julie and, confused or not, dizzy or not, she knew at some deep, basic level that she didn’t have the energy to be that woman.
‘Jules, you can,’ he said urgently, as if he knew what she was thinking—how did he do that? How did he still have the skill?
How could she still know him when so much of her had died?
She wanted him, she ached for him, but it terrified her. Could she pretend to be the old Julie? she wondered. Could she fake being someone she used to be?
‘Try for us,’ Rob demanded, and his hands held her. He tugged her to him, and she felt...like someone was hauling the floor from under her feet.
Rob would catch her. Rob would always catch her.
She had to learn to catch herself.
‘Maybe I should see the same shrink,’ she managed. ‘The one who’s made you brave enough to start again.’
‘The shrink didn’t make me brave. That’s all me.’
‘I don’t want...’
‘That’s just it. You have to want. You have to want more than to hide.’
‘You can’t make me,’ she said, almost resentfully, and he nodded.
‘I know I can’t. But the alternative? Do you want to walk away? Once the road is reopened, once Christmas is over, do you want to go back to the life you’ve been existing in? Not living, existing. Is that what you want?’
‘It’s what I have to want.’
‘It’s not,’ he said, really angry now. ‘You can change. Ask Danny. His Christmas list was written months ago. Amina said he wanted a bike but he got a wombat instead and you know what? Now he thinks that’s what he wanted all along.’
‘You think I can be happy with second best? Life without our boys?’
‘I think you can be happy. I think dying with them is a bloody waste.’
‘There’s no need...’
‘To swear? No, I suppose not. There’s no need to do anything. There’s no need to even try. Okay, Jules, I’ll back off.’
‘Rob, I’m...’
‘Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I couldn’t bear it.’
But there was nothing to say but sorry so she said nothing at all. She stood and looked down at her feet. She listened to the soft scuffles of the wallabies out in the garden. She thought...she thought...
‘Please?’
And the outside world broke in. The one word was a harsh plea, reverberating through the stillness and it came from neither of them. She turned and so did Rob.
Henry was in the open doorway, his hands held out in entreaty.
‘Please,’ he said again. ‘Can either of you...do either of you know...?’
‘What?’ Rob said. ‘Henry, what’s wrong?’
‘It’s Amina,’ Henry stammered. ‘She says the baby’s coming.’
ALL THE WAY to the bedroom Julie hoped Henry might be mistaken. They reached the guest room, however, and one look told her that there could be no mistake about this. Amina was crouched by the bed, holding onto the bed post, clinging as if drowning. She swung round as Julie entered and her eyes were filled with panic.
‘It can’t come. It’s too early. I can’t...last time it was so... I can’t do this.’
Right. Okay.
‘And it’s breech,’ Amina moaned. ‘It was supposed to turn; otherwise the doctor said I might need a Caesarean...’
Breech! A baby coming and breech! Things that might best have been known when the fire crew was here, Julie thought wildly. They’d had that one chance to get away from here. If they’d known they could have insisted on help, on helicopter evacuation. Amina would surely have been a priority. But now...it was nine o’clock on Christmas night and they’d already knocked back help. What was the chance of a passing ambulance? Or a passing anything?
They were trapped. Their cars were stuck in the garage. The tree that had fallen over the driveway was still there, huge and smouldering. It had taken Henry almost twelve hours to walk up from the road blocks and he’d risked his life doing so.
‘The phone...’ she said without much hope, and Rob shook his head.
‘I checked half an hour ago.’ He rechecked then, flipping it from his pocket. ‘No reception. Zip. Jules, I’ll start down the mountain by foot. I might find someone with a car.’
‘I didn’t see an occupied house all the way up the mountain.’ Henry shook his head. ‘The homes that aren’t burned are all evacuated. Amina, can’t you stop?’
Amina said something that made them all blink. Apparently stopping was not on the agenda.
‘What’s wrong with Mama?’ It was Danny, standing in the hall in his new Batman pyjamas. The pyjamas Julie had bought for her sons. The pyjamas that she’d thought would make her feel...make her feel...
But there wasn’t time for her to feel anything. Danny’s voice echoed his father’s fear. Amina looked close to hysterics. Someone had to do something—now.
She was a lawyer, Julie thought wildly. She didn’t do babies.
But it seemed she had no choice. By the look of Amina, this baby was coming, ready or not.
Breech.
‘You’ll be fine,’ she said with a whole lot more assurance than she was feeling. ‘Rob, take Danny into the living room and turn on a good loud movie. He had a nap this afternoon; he won’t be sleepy. Isn’t that right, Danny?’
‘But what’s wrong with Mama?’
