Within Reach

“Letting some sunshine in, little monkey.”

She lay Charlie on his change table and tugged off his jeans. She pulled off the soiled diaper and dropped it in the bin.

“Here.” Eva passed a fresh diaper to her, along with the box of baby wipes for the mop-up operation. Angie hadn’t realized she’d followed her.

“Hey, thanks.” Angie gave the little girl a grateful smile.

“It smells.” Eva waved a hand in front of her face.

“Yes, indeed, it does. Your little brother has a gift.”

She cleaned him up while Charlie stared at her with a beatific smile and Eva hovered behind her.

“Can I ask a favor, Auntie Angie?” Eva asked after a few seconds.

“Of course you can. You can ask me anything.”

“Will you remind Daddy about the party?”

Angie dusted powder over Charlie’s nether regions, glancing at Eva. “Sure. But I’m pretty sure your dad will remember all on his own.”

“No, he won’t. He said he’d take me to see the new Miley Cyrus movie and he didn’t. And he promised he’d take me roller skating and we didn’t do that, either.”

Michael had always been a great father. Attentive, playful, protective. He was indulgent when he needed to be, firm when it counted—and he always did whatever was necessary to make his children feel happy and safe. Hearing that he’d let Eva down on more than one occasion recently brought the tight feeling back to Angie’s chest.

“I’ll make a note in my phone and I’ll call him before the party, okay?”

“Thank you, Auntie Angie.” Eva hugged her again. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

They returned to the kitchen with Charlie walking between them. Michael was scraping vegetables into a saucepan before adding a store-bought jar of pasta sauce.

“Can I play with the iPad, Dad?” Eva asked, already sidling toward the couch.

“Half an hour, max.”

“Okay,” Eva said, rolling over the back of the couch and down to the seat.

It was such a classic Billie move that for a moment Angie was stunned. Grief stung the back of her eyes, and for long seconds she could do nothing but stare at the floor. When she dared glance at Michael, his face was utterly expressionless, but somehow she knew that he had been equally affected by the small moment. Suddenly he looked much older than his thirty-five years—old and weary and defeated.

The impulse to go to him and simply wrap her arms around him was overwhelming, but they had never had that kind of friendship. They were comfortable and familiar with one another, yes, but they both sat toward the shy end of the personality spectrum, especially where physical stuff was concerned. Billie had been the hugger, and she’d trained Angie to first accept and then reciprocate her ready affection, but it was not a skill that had transferred easily to the other relationships in Angie’s life.

She started setting the table and after a few minutes Michael spoke up.

“Dinner’s about ten minutes away. Would you mind watching the kids for five while I grab a quick shower?”

“Of course not. Go for it.” She shooed him away.

He gave her a half smile as he left. She finished setting the table, then started on the kitchen. By the time Michael returned wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt, she’d stowed the various foodstuffs in the pantry, emptied the dishwasher and whittled the debris covering the counters down to a stack of paperwork.

Michael’s gaze flicked around the room before finding her. She tensed, worried she’d overstepped, but he simply gave her a small acknowledging nod.

“Thanks, Angie.”

Between the two of them they wrangled Charlie into his high chair. Michael cut his pasta into small pieces and let it cool before offering the bowl to his son. Charlie stabbed at the plate with his Winnie-the-Pooh cutlery, sending food flying. Michael asked Eva about her day at school and her afternoon at her friend’s, saying all the right things in response to her questions, keeping up a semblance of normality.

It was all so subdued and colorless and joyless Angie wanted to weep.

Afterward, she gave Eva the I Love NY T-shirt and lip gloss she’d picked up for her, as well as a funky pair of high-top sneakers.

“Fresh off the streets. No one else will have these for months,” she assured Eva.

“They’re so sparkly.” Eva twisted the shoes so their sequined details reflected the light.

Angie handed a plush toy hot dog to Charlie, along with a miniature version of Eva’s T-shirt. Lastly, she slid a T-shirt Michael’s way. He raised an eyebrow, obviously surprised he’d been included on the gift list.

“I saw this and thought of you,” she said by way of explanation.

He unfolded the T-shirt and read the inscription: Trust Me, I’m an Architect. He smiled his first genuine smile of the day. “Very cool.”

By eight o’clock the kids were down for the night, despite much pleading on Eva’s behalf to “stay up late because Auntie Angie is home.” A stern look and a few words in her father’s deepest tones sent Eva scurrying off to bed, leaving Angie alone with Michael.

“Sorry, my hosting skills are a little rusty. I forgot to offer you wine with dinner. There’s a bottle in the pantry if you want a glass…?” Michael asked.

“I’m good, thanks. I’m kind of detoxing after New York.”

“Lots of partying, huh?”

Again, he was saying the right things, but he wasn’t truly engaged. Rather than answer, she studied him for a long beat before starting the conversation that she owed it to Billie—and Michael and Eva and Charlie—to have. Even if it made her uncomfortable to force her way into sensitive territory.

“How are you, Michael? I mean, how are you really?”

“I’m fine. We’re all good.” He said it so automatically she knew she was getting his canned response to well-wishers and relatives.

“You don’t look good to me. You’ve lost weight, you’re living in this house like it’s a cave, you’re shuffling around like a zombie.”

His chin jerked as though she’d hit him and it took him a long time to respond. “We’re fine.”

She glanced at her hands, wondering how hard and how far to push him.

“Have you thought about going back to work early? I know you took twelve months off, but they would take you if you wanted to return early, wouldn’t they?”

The thought had occurred to her as she’d watched him prepare dinner. Most men preferred to be doing something rather than sitting around contemplating their navels.

Michael’s already stony expression became even more remote. “I took the time off for the kids. They need me to be around.”

“They need you to be a fully functioning human being first and foremost, Michael. Did it ever cross your mind that having all this time to think isn’t good for you? God knows, it would drive me crazy. If you went to work, you’d get some of your life back. Some of who you are.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Angie, but we’re all doing fine.” He stood, clearly wanting to end the discussion.

Angie hated confrontation—usually went to great lengths to avoid it—but she hated what she saw happening to Michael even more.

“You think this half life is doing any of you any good? When was the last time you left the house to do anything other than drop Eva at school or go to the supermarket? When was the last time you did something because you wanted to rather than because you had to?”

For a moment there was so much blazing anger in his eyes that she almost shrank into her seat. She understood his anger—his wife of six years had died suddenly and brutally from an undiagnosed congenital heart defect, leaving him to raise their two children alone. He’d lost his dreams, his future, the shape of his world in the space of half an hour.

But the fact remained that life went on. Michael was alive, and Billie was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Certainly living in some sort of shadow world wasn’t going to fix things or make them better.

So she stood her ground and eyed him steadily. “I know it’s hard. I think about her every day. I miss her like crazy. But you stopping living isn’t going to bring her back.”

Michael swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet space. He stared at the floor and closed his eyes, one hand lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose. She didn’t know him well enough to understand his signals—she’d only known him when he was happy, not when he was deeply grieving, and she had no map to help her navigate this difficult territory.

“If you want to talk, if you want to rage, if you need help around the house, if you want to burn it all to the ground and start again… Tell me,” Angie said. “Tell me what you need, Michael, and I will do whatever I can to make it happen.”

She held her breath, hoping she’d gotten through to him. After a moment he lifted his head.

“I need my wife back.”

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Angie’s knees were shaking. She couldn’t even remember standing, but she must have in those last few, fraught minutes.

Moving slowly, she gathered her purse and let herself out of the house. Her sandals slapped hollowly on the driveway as she walked to her car. She threw her bag onto the backseat but didn’t immediately drive away. Instead, she crossed her arms over the steering wheel and rested her forehead against them. The sadness and emptiness that never really left her welled up and her shoulders started to shake.

I miss you so much, Billie. In so many ways. I’m sorry I couldn’t help him. I’ll keep trying, but I’m not like you. I don’t have your touch with people. But I’ll keep trying, I promise.

Angie breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, fighting for control. She’d had these moments off and on for the past ten months; she knew how to weather them. After a few minutes the shaky, lost feeling subsided, she straightened and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A few minutes after that, she started her car and drove home.

* * *

MICHAEL STOOD ON THE DECK, breathing in the cool night air. Trying to calm himself.

Angie was so far out of line it wasn’t funny. While she’d been off drinking mojitos or cosmos or whatever the cool drink was these days in New York, he’d been staring his new reality in the face. She had no idea how he felt, no clue what he went through every frickin’ day.

The moment the thought crossed his mind his innate sense of fairness kicked in. She may have been in New York for six weeks, but before that Angie had been a rock, standing by his side and doing anything and everything she could to make things bearable after Billie’s death. More important, Angie understood more than anyone what losing Billie had meant to him, to his life. She and Billie had been more like sisters than friends. They had finished each other’s sentences, said the honest thing when it needed to be said and been each other’s best cheerleaders. Angie was trying to piece her life together, too. Trying to work out how to live in a post-Billie world.

That still didn’t give her the right to critique his life. It definitely didn’t give her the right to tell him he was a zombie or that he was living a half life or to tell him what his kids needed.

When was the last time you did something because you wanted to rather than because you had to?

He ground his teeth together, wishing he could expunge her words from his mind. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to lift his head and look around and see that life was going on around him. He wanted…

He wanted the impossible. Billie, with her huge smile and her even huger heart. He wanted her laughter echoing in the house again. He wanted to wake up in the morning and turn his head and find her lying next to him instead of an empty pillow. He wanted to kiss her lips and smell her perfume. He wanted to lie in bed and have her press her cold feet against his calves to warm them.

He wanted. And his want was never going to be satisfied because his wife’s aorta had dissected as a result of high blood pressure, a catastrophic cardiac incident that had meant she was dead before they reached the hospital. Billie was dead and gone, turned to dust. All he had left were the children they had made together and his memories and the house she’d turned into a home for them all.

Not nearly enough.

He sank to the deck, pulling his knees loosely toward his chest. It was cold, but he wasn’t ready to go in yet. Angie had stirred him up too much.

He stared into the darkness, aware, as always, of the silence within the walls behind him. Billie had been the noisiest person he knew. She’d hummed when she washed the dishes, sung in the shower, galloped around the house. Getting used to the new quiet had been but one of many small, painful adjustments he’d had to make over the past ten months.

He exhaled, watching his breath turn to mist in the air.

“Daddy?”

He glanced over his shoulder. Eva stood in the sliding doorway to his bedroom wearing nothing but her nightie, her arms wrapped around her body.

“You shouldn’t be out here. It’s too cold.” He pushed himself to his feet.

“What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same question. You’ve got school tomorrow.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, turning her around and guiding her to her bedroom.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

They entered her bedroom and she walked dutifully to her bed and slipped beneath the duvet. “Can you tell me a story?”

“You need to sleep, Eva.”

His daughter was a night owl and a master of distraction and procrastination. If he let her, she’d be up half the night, demanding stories and anything else to delay putting her head on her pillow.

“Oh, all right.” Her tone was hard done by and world-weary and he couldn’t help but smile.

He kissed her forehead. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

He pulled the quilt up so that it covered her shoulders. He started to straighten, but Eva’s hand shot out and caught a hold of his sweatshirt.

“You won’t forget about Imogen’s party, will you, like you forgot about the movies and roller skating?” she asked, her eyes fixed on his face.

He frowned. “What movie?”

“You said you’d take me to see Miley Cyrus’s new movie. Just like you said you’d take me skating with my class.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he didn’t know what she was talking about—then suddenly the memory was there, clear as day. Eva, cajoling and pleading, her hands pressed together as though in prayer, promising to do all her chores on time without him having to ask if he would please, please, please take her to the movies. He’d said yes, unable to deny her anything that might give her pleasure.

Then he’d forgotten to follow through on his commitment.

They need you to be a fully functioning human being first and foremost, Michael.

Guilty heat rose up his neck and into his face as Angie’s words echoed in his mind. He’d been too busy being defensive and pissy to actually listen to what she’d said, but it was impossible to ignore the anxiety in his daughter’s big brown eyes now.

“I’m sorry I forgot, sweetheart. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“I know, Daddy. You miss Mummy, don’t you?”

“I do. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to let you down. I promise I won’t forget Imogen’s party, all right? We’ll put it on the calendar.”

“I asked Auntie Angie to remind you, too.”

Michael winced inwardly. No wonder Angie had felt compelled to say something.

“Good idea. And maybe we could catch that movie this weekend.”

“It’s not on anymore.”

“Then we’ll watch it when it comes out on DVD. Make a night of it with popcorn and everything. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

He kissed her forehead again and waited till she’d snuggled beneath the quilt before leaving the room.

He made his way to his bedroom and sat on the end of his bed. He scrubbed his face with his hands, exhausted. A perpetual state since Billie’s death. He thought about what Angie had said and Eva’s anxiety.

He needed to get his shit together.

It had been ten months since Billie had died and he needed to stop simply surviving and start living again—if not for his own sake, then for the kids. Because forgetting the Miley Cyrus movie hadn’t been his first screwup.

Only last week, he’d woken up, pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then made Eva’s lunch and set her backpack by the front door, ready for the school run. He’d gotten her out of bed and into her uniform, strapped Charlie into the car. All part of their morning routine, a routine he did without thinking about it, day in, day out. It was only when he’d been backing out of the drive and the news had come on the radio that he’d realized it was a Saturday.

No doubt if he cared to sift through the past few months, he’d be able to find dozens of similar examples. What had Angie called it? A half life.

Highly appropriate, since he felt like half a person. As though he’d lost some essential part of himself when he’d lost Billie. He’d always been too quiet, too introverted, too inclined to get lost in his own head and his work, but Billie had dragged him into the world and made him engage and taught him to live as though he meant it. As though every moment counted.

But Billie was gone. And he was not, and the kids were not.

Life went on.

He pushed himself off the bed and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

He needed to make some changes, to do something to shift things. He thought about Angie’s suggestion—that he go back to work early—and forced himself to really consider it as an option, even though his first response had been to reject it, as he’d rejected everything else she’d said.

He’d taken the year off because he’d wanted the kids to have some kind of continuity of care after Billie’s death. She’d been a full-time mom and therefore their primary caregiver, and neither she nor Michael had family who’d been able to step in and help thanks to the tyranny of distance—Billie’s family were all in England, his own in Perth, a thousand miles and a time zone away. At the time, twelve months had felt woefully inadequate to patch over the gaping hole left by Billie’s absence, but the truth was that the kids had been far more resilient than he’d ever imagined.

Not that they weren’t affected by their mother’s loss—they were, in hundreds of small ways, all the time—but they were far better at living in the now than he was.

He’d needed the time-out more than they had. He’d been

so shattered in those early days, like a shell-shocked soldier, and there had been something undeniably comforting and numbing about the routine of their very limited domestic life—it had become its own form of suspended animation, a holding pattern that they had existed in to get by.

But getting by wasn’t enough, not when he was letting his kids down. They deserved better from him. He needed to move beyond merely surviving.

As impossible as that seemed from where he sat right now.

He looked himself in the eye in the mirror, taking in his shaggy hair and gaunt features and bristly cheeks.

Time did not stand still, and neither could he. Tomorrow, he’d call his partners in the firm and talk to them about returning early. Then he’d start setting his house to rights, both figuratively and literally.

The thought alone was enough to make him feel heavy and overwhelmed.

Damn you, Angie. Why couldn’t you have left me alone?

He already knew the answer—because she was a friend, and because she cared enough to make the tough call, even when she knew her point of view probably wouldn’t be appreciated.

He needed to add apologizing to her to his list of things to do tomorrow.

He finished up then shed his clothes and climbed into bed. Turning onto his side, he closed his eyes. As always as he drifted toward sleep, there was a small, forgetful moment where he slid his hand over to touch Billie’s back, instinctively seeking reassurance as he hovered on the brink.

As always, he found nothing but cold sheets.

A few minutes after that, he fell asleep.

CHAPTER TWO

THE NEXT MORNING FOUND Angie wrestling with the ancient lock on the door to her studio. She pulled the key out, then slid it back in and jiggled it around. After a few tense seconds she felt the latch give and rolled her eyes.

Typical. Like everything else in the Stradbroke building, the mechanism worked just enough to make it difficult to make a case to the landlord to replace it. She locked the door behind her and dropped her bag on the small table and chairs she kept for client meetings, then crossed to the window to let in some fresh air. Next, she pulled on the well-worn leather apron she wore to protect her clothes and hunkered down in front of her safe to open it. Inside were the flat strips of gold, silver and other metals that she used to create the alloys for her pieces, as well as a box containing dozens of small boxes, each of which boasted a selection of diamonds and other gems. She preferred to work with white, champagne and pink diamonds, but she had a small collection of rubies and emeralds and sapphires, as well. This morning she ignored the stones and pulled the gold and silver from the safe. Both the rings for the Merton commission—her first priority this week—were to be made from 18-karat white gold. She checked the design brief she’d created in consultation with Judy and John and did some math to calculate how much she’d need of both palladium and gold to accommodate their ring sizes—an L and S respectively—then turned toward the scales to measure.

Perhaps inevitably, her thoughts turned to Michael and the kids as she worked.

She’d really pissed him off last night with her unsolicited advice.

It was so hard to know what to do. Michael may have been married to Billie for six years, and Angie may have seen him once a week on average during that time, but their friendship had always been grounded in their mutual connection with Billie. Not that Angie didn’t like him in his own right—she did, a lot—but in her mind he was Billie’s husband first and foremost, and then Michael. Just as she suspected she was Billie’s friend first to him, and then herself.

Although maybe that assessment wasn’t strictly true anymore. It had been an intense ten months, after all.

The phone rang, cutting through her thoughts. She leaned to grab the handset.

“Angela speaking.”

“Angie, it’s Michael.”

“Oh. Hi.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to bite your head off again. I rang to apologize for last night.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“Yeah, I do. I was an ass, and I’m sorry.”

One of the things she’d always liked about Michael was that he didn’t beat around the bush. He was a man of few words, but those he did speak were always worth hearing.

“Apology accepted. Even if it is unnecessary.”

“I thought about what you said, and I spoke to my partners today. They’re keen for me to come back whenever I’m ready.”

“Hey, that’s great. Are you going to take them up on it?”

“I don’t know. I need to sort out child care. But you were right. Sitting around here on my own all day isn’t helping anything.”

She pictured the darkened kitchen and living room and his shaggy hair and too-thin frame.

“It’s hard to get into things again. But life goes on whether we want it to or not. Wrong as it seems.” She hated how trite she sounded.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Have you thought about going back part-time to start with? Maybe three days a week, or something like that? That way both you and the kids would have a chance to get used to you not being around as much.”

“Part-time. I hadn’t thought of that. But there’s no reason why I couldn’t do it, even if it meant I worked from home on the other days.”

“Let’s face it, you’re probably going to do that anyway,” she said drily.

“True. And that would mean I’d only have to find day care for Charlie three days. And work out something for Eva after school.”