she nor Jacinda had spoken.
It’s my turn, though.
Talking like this, in the middle of routine household chores, made it easier to tackle tough subjects, she decided. When you were silent as you gathered the right words, other activity was still going on and the silence didn’t seem so difficult.
“I think … I wonder if …” she tried after a moment. “I think he’s stronger than that, Kerry.” She thought about what he’d said yesterday about yelling and jumping to get rid of the fear. He had his own strategies. They might not be the ones suggested in the hospital leaflets—he didn’t want them to be the ones in the hospital leaflets—but they were strategies, all the same.
Kerry looked eager, as if she itched to talk about Callan, too. “Has he said something to you? Has he talked much about Liz?”
“Not much. A little. He’s said—”
“No, please!” She warded off Jac’s words with her hands. “Don’t tell me what he said. I’m not asking for that. But I do worry.”
“Of course you do.” Jacinda was a mother, just as Kerry was. She knew. “But I think Callan at least does know what he’s fighting in himself.” He’d talked about the fear, and this made more sense now. The fear of change. The fear, if Kerry was right, of there being no one in the whole world to match Liz. “And you know, Kerry, when you understand the enemy, that’s always an advantage.”
“True. He is a fighter. In his own way. Always in his own way!” She laughed, and ran water into the electric jug, which she then placed on the countertop and plugged in.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that, too.”
“The boys do him a lot of good. Lockie, now that he’s getting older.”
“It’s funny,” Jac said. “Before I had Carly, I always assumed I’d be the big influence on her. That I’d make her who she was. And of course I am doing that. But I think she’s changed me more than I’ve changed her. I never realized that would happen, that kids had such, oh, influence. Kerry, does that make sense?”
“It does.”
They talked about it a little more—kids and change, Callan and Liz. Nothing earth-shattering. Some of it a little tentative, still. But nice.
“Are you having coffee?” Kerry asked. “It’ll only be instant.” The electric jug was about to boil.
“Instant is fine. I’d love a cup.” Jac got the coffee down from the shelf while Kerry found two mugs and poured the boiling water in, leaving plenty of room for Jacinda’s big dollop of milk. Kerry had filled the jug just an inch or two higher than she needed, and rather than waste the precious water, she poured it in to soak the mixing bowl she’d used for the bread dough. Jac made a mental note to take more care with saving water from now on. Her shower, this morning, for example …
“Is it a pain in the butt, doing that?” she asked suddenly.
Kerry looked surprised. “Doing what?”
“Thinking about saving water all the time. Every drop. Pouring the dregs from the electric jug into the dough bowl. Piping the shower and laundry water out to the garden so it gets used twice.”
“I guess I don’t think about it, it’s such second nature. It’s part of living here, and I love living here.”
“Teach me, won’t you? Don’t let me do the wrong thing, here, without thinking. Make sure you teach me.” All at once, for some reason, the words meant more. She wasn’t just talking about saving water. She was talking about Callan.
Teach me about Callan.
Don’t let me do the wrong thing with Callan.
If Kerry understood, she didn’t refer to the fact directly. Instead, she poured milk into the two mugs, gave Jacinda’s the extra zap in the microwave that she liked. Handing Jac the hot mug, she took a big breath.
“Callan and Liz were too alike,” she said, at the faster pace she seemed to use when she wasn’t quite comfortable with what she was saying. Her voice had dropped, too, in case there was any chance of Josh listening in the other room. “I don’t want to say that, because it sounds critical. I loved Liz. I was so happy that Callan had found someone like her, someone who belonged here and belonged in his life. If I could have, I would have gone in her place. People say that. But I really would have gone in her place.”
“I know you would.”
“They were the kind of couple that grows together. Like two trees, the way trees shape each other sometimes. They would even have looked alike, after fifty years. She was the kind of wife a man should have for fifty years. She was so safe for him, though. It made it even harder when she died.” She looked across the top of her coffee mug, her expression appealing for Jac to understand. “Does that make any sense at all?”
“You mean, if their marriage had been more of a challenge …?”
“Yes. Callan would have been equal to a more challenging marriage. And it might have left him …” She slowed and stopped, stuck for the right words. “Better prepared.” She shook her head impatiently. “It still sounds wrong. I can’t put it right. I can’t say it without it sounding like I’m criticizing him, or her, or their marriage.”
“No, but I understand.”
And I wonder what it is that you’re not saying. I’m not used to this, Kerry. I haven’t had a woman like you in my life before, to talk to. I lost my mother too soon, and I was never close enough to my aunt, so, no, I’m not used to this.
Are you telling me that I could be good for Callan, even if I’m nothing like Liz? Because I’m nothing like Liz? Do you want me to be a part of his awakening from grief, Kerry? Or are you warning me away because I could never truly belong? I’m only here a few more weeks ….
Despite her best hopes, despite the creative act of helping with the bread, despite playing with Carly and Josh, and working in the garden, Jac stayed restless and uncertain and churned up inside all day.
At four, she needed more air and space than the homestead and its garden could provide. “I thought I’d go for a walk down to the creek, Kerry, if that’s all right with you,” she told Callan’s mother. “I’ll take Carly with me.”
“Leave her if you’d rather,” Kerry answered. “She’s quite happy with her drawing, and I’m making them a snack in a minute.”
“Thanks. All right, then. I will leave her.”
Not knowing how long it would take her to walk this restlessness away, Jac was happy that Kerry had suggested leaving Carly behind. She really wanted to stride, breathe, think uninterrupted thoughts. She drank a big glass of water, found her hat and sunglasses and set out, following the fence line down to the wide swathe of dry creek bed, the same way they had gone yesterday on horseback.
When she reached the creek, however, she turned north along it instead of south, wanting to explore some new ground. Keeping to the creek bed itself, she covered the distance slowly because the sand was deep in some places, uneven in others,
