‘Did it die because it was so young?’
‘It’s not that much smaller than Mum. It wasn’t a new calf, I’d say. Some whales last days, others only hold out for hours. Just like people, some are tougher than others.’
A deep sadness snaked out and tangled around her heart. She could identify with an animal that turned out not to be as tough as it might have thought. ‘Poor baby.’
Slosh … slosh …
‘You never had kids? You and McKinley?’
Beth was unprepared for the bolt of pain that question brought her. She turned her face away from him and busied herself around the whale’s small parched eyes. It had finally occurred to her that a marine animal wouldn’t object to having salt water around its eyes.
Marc’s question hung unanswered in the night silence. He patiently watched her.
‘No. No kids,’ she whipped out.
‘You didn’t want them?’
I didn’t deserve them. And they sure as heck didn’t deserve to be born into a life as wrong as hers and Damien’s. ‘Not particularly, no.’
Let him think whatever he liked.
‘Funny.’
That was it. Just that one word. She sloshed away for a bit longer, but then curiosity got the better of her. She straightened. ‘What’s funny?’
‘I always pictured you as a mother. Deep down, I thought that might have been the attraction with McKinley. He seemed like he was raring to get straight into the family and kids thing.’
Beth snorted softly. He was raring to get into one part of it, at least, like most teenage boys. If he struck strangers as family oriented, it could only be because he’d grown proficient at maintaining the same illusion as his own parents.
‘No. Damien didn’t really have any drive regarding family.’ Any drive at all. Except for drinking. When things had first started going wrong in their marriage, she’d briefly considered children, something to bring them together. But, as it got worse, she’d secretly made sure that was never possible. Even when she was in the deepest reaches of the abyss, she’d somehow managed to remember to protect herself against pregnancy. Not that the issue arose very often by that point.
Slosh … slosh.
‘What did you end up doing?’ Marc asked casually. ‘For a career.’
Her shoulders tightened up immediately, which made the sloshing even more uncomfortable. Embarrassment surged through her. Not because she hadn’t had a perfectly legitimate job but because it wasn’t even close to the glittering career he was probably imagining her having.
‘I worked in retail.’ She cringed at the blush she could feel forming and struggled to make working in a dry cleaners sound more impressive. ‘Customer service.’
He frowned. ‘You didn’t go to uni?’
Just one of the many lifetime goals she’d poured down her throat. She bit back a testy response. ‘No.’
He stopped sloshing to stare at her. Was that satisfaction in his eyes—or confusion?
‘Damien didn’t want me to start a career.’ Lord, how bad had her life become that admitting that was easier than admitting she’d soaked her professional future in alcohol before it began?
‘But he let you work in retail?’
Let. She tightened her lips. ‘I chose to work. I wanted something that was mine. Something that didn’t come from Damien or his family.’ And she’d had it. as long as she could keep a job.
He shook his head.
‘What?’
‘You were so gung-ho about going to uni.’
For three years it had been their shared goal, one of the things that kept them so close together, kept them in the same classes. In the same lunch timeslot. Until the conversation with his mother that had changed all of that.
You’re sucking him into your dreams, Beth, Mrs Duncannon had whispered urgently one time she’d visited the Duncannon household, her grip hard on sixteen-year-old Beth’s forearm. Her voice harsh. He’s not bright like you, he’s not suited to further study. He needs to get a job and start making his way.
That had struck Beth as an odd thing to say about the boy who was already flipping burgers after school to help out financially. Who’d done all the research on the best universities. Picked up all the pamphlets, looked into all the courses. Was making the grades. Who had a plan for where he wanted his life to go and his compass set to get there. But Mrs Duncannon hadn’t bought a word of Beth’s nervous reassurance.
As long as he’s with you, he’ll never go for what he wants in life. He’s not a pet to be trained and instructed. He’d walk through fire if you asked him to, Beth Hughes. And some days I think you really would ask, just to see if he’d do it.
She’d never visited Marc at home after that. The ugly picture his mother painted of their friendship filled her with shame and echoed in every event, every activity that followed. It made her question their relationship. Marc. Herself. She’d tentatively asked her own mother about it and Carol Hughes’s careful answer and sad expression had told Beth everything she needed to know.
Both women thought she was dragging Marc along with her. Both women wanted her to pull back from their intense friendship. For his sake. She looked at the capable grown man standing before her and struggled to see how anyone could have worried about his ability to speak up for himself. Even as a teenager.
The irony was that Mrs Duncannon and her own mother had it all back to front. Beth would have followed Marc into the pits of hell if he’d asked her. Because she trusted him. Because he was like another part of her. A braver, more daring part. The idea of studying biology had never entered her one-track mind until he’d mentioned it, but separating after school never had either. And so she’d thrown herself willingly into Marc’s dream. Adopting his had made up for having no direction of her own. Until the day she’d cut Marc loose and was forced to face her lack of ambition.
Her shoulders tightened another notch. ‘Goals change.’ She shrugged. ‘You went up north after school, you said.’
His eyes shadowed over. ‘I lost my. enthusiasm. for further study.’
‘Because of me?’ Or did Janice get in your head, too?
He glared at her. ‘Responsibility for your own actions is fine; stop taking responsibility for mine.’
‘If your goals shifted, then why are you surprised that mine did?’ she asked.
‘Because … ‘ Marc’s eyes narrowed. ‘Because it was you. You could have done anything in the world that you wanted.’
Silence fell. Sloshing dominated. When he did speak again, it was so soft he might have
