Seven Days: The Complete Story (47 page)

“How old is she?”

Joel thinks for a moment. “Ah, she’d be
twenty this birthday. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

I don’t know whether to ask any more details
or not. Joel’s always been cagey about his life before me and I
know he suffers from insecurity around losing me because of things
that happened in his past, but he’s never told me why. I decide to
save the deep and meaningful for another night. I can’t cope with
any more drama. Besides, I’m bone tired.

“I think I might go to bed,” I say. “It’s
been a long week and I need to keep my energy up. Nicky needs
feeding every two hours.”

“I can help if you like, change his nappy or
whatever. I’m having a bit of time away from the office so it’s not
like I have to get up to go to work.”

It’s sweet of him to offer but I’m not sure
I’m ready to share Nicholas’ baby just yet. “I’ll be okay. I need
to get myself into a routine and having you there will only
distract me.”

Totally true. Joel could distract me in my
sleep.

His eyebrow tilts upward just a little.
“I’ve still got it, then?”

“You’ve got it. You just need to keep it
under wraps for the moment.”

“I hear you.”

I hop off the stool and wrap my arms around
his waist. His body is warm and firm. His chest muscles flex
against my cheek. He hugs me back and it feels nice, like I’m
coming home. Despite my hesitance about the state of our
relationship, I’m glad Joel’s here, I’m not sure I can do this
alone.

And that makes me feel all types of guilty.
I know I shouldn’t; that Nicholas wouldn’t mind but, I mean, he’s
barely cold in the grave. Or should I say, the urn.

God, I hate this situation. I hate the
confusion, the contradictions. I hate the knots of repulsion that
have been in my stomach since the moment Joel reappeared. I am
repulsed at the attraction I still feel for him when I should be
grieving.

Joel drops a kiss on my head. “You holding
up okay, Ariel?”

“Just. You?”

“As long as I don’t think about him.”

“I want to think about him. I want to
remember every minute. I’m scared if I stop thinking about him,
I’ll forget him.”

Joel adjusts his hold and tilts my chin so
I’m looking into his eyes. He stays this way for the longest time
before he bends his head and his lips press softly against mine.
Even though it’s more a kiss of comfort, I quiver with guilty
desire. “Can we forget for just one night?” he asks.

Then his lips are parting mine, the pressure
of his mouth increasing, heating my blood. His tongue is in my
mouth, mingling with mine. I am returning his kiss. I am wanting
his kiss, wanting him to touch me. Joel’s hands slide to my breasts
and his hips lean seductively into mine. His erection grows between
us and he presses it into my belly. My insides clench with longing
because his kisses are hot and urgent. Yet I know he’s only doing
this because he thinks sex will ease the pain. For the moment at
least.

I push him away. “What are you doing?”

And more to the point, why the hell am I
letting you?

I’ve just had a baby, I think. I can’t have
sex until I’ve seen my doctor and even then I don’t know if I’ll be
ready. I can’t have sex because I’ve just lost Nicholas. I’m not
going to replace him with Joel simply because I can. This is not
sex on tap.

“I thought you wanted to.”

“No sex, Joel. No.”

“But—”

“I just had a baby.”

He steps away, his face a mixture of hurt
and confusion. “Jesus, sorry. I didn’t think.”

“It’s not like I don’t want to but I can’t.
Nicholas is dead. It’s wrong. And anyway, I’m not allowed to have
sex until after my doctor visit next month.”

“A whole month? I haven’t gone without sex
for a month since I was fifteen. What am I supposed to do?”

“Wank?”

He snorts. “Wanking is not something I’ve
ever needed to do for myself.”

“You are such a manwhore.”

“That’s me.” He steps closer again. His
mouth is only millimetres from mine. There’s a glint of the old
Joel in his eyes. “Hey look, I’m sorry about the sex thing. It was
insensitive of me, I won’t pressure you again.”

“I appreciate that.”

“It’s gonna be damn hard though.”

In more ways than one, I guess.

“You’ll live.” I twine my arms around him. I
kiss his neck, his chin. I nestle into the crook of his shoulder.
“Give it time, Joel. Just give it time.”

“It feels like I’ve wasted too much time
already.”

*****

Later in the night, I am woken to the sound
of crying. It’s not the baby. I fed him an hour ago. I pad out of
the bedroom and stand in front of Joel’s closed door. His weeping
is soft, as if he’s trying to avoid waking me, whether out of
compassion for my feelings or embarrassment at his own fragility,
I’m not sure. I listen for a while. The crying continues. I can’t
let him go through this alone. I know I said we can’t be together
but that doesn’t mean I can’t comfort him. We are friends, lovers.
What sort of heinous bitch would I be if I heard him crying and
didn’t comfort him?

Quietly, I turn the knob on the door and
tiptoe through the darkness to the empty side of his bed. I’ve been
here a million times before. I know which side he likes to sleep
on. I lift the covers and crawl in beside him. I snuggle against
the warmth of his back and press my lips to his shoulder. He’s
naked beneath the covers. Joel likes to sleep naked unless it’s
super cold and even then he only puts on loose pyjama bottoms and
sometimes an old t-shirt.

“I’m here,” I whisper into his skin. “You’re
not alone.”

Joel rolls over. Without opening his eyes,
his mouth finds mine and he kisses me softly. I graze my fingers
over his cheek. I caress the soft skin at the base of his ears. I
feel the saltiness of the tears on his lips and cheeks. He’s so
sad, so very sad.

“Talk to me,” I say. “Tell me about
Nicholas.”

“We’ve been friends since we were eight.
Nick’s my best mate. He’s my business partner. Until Rome, we’d
never been separated for more than a day. I think some people
thought our friendship was a bit gay but it worked for us. We’re
yin and yang. He’s the glue and I’m the bricks. We aren’t meant to
not be friends. We’re like twins that were separated at birth.”

“How did you become friends?”

I know the boys went to school together but
even I could see the differences in personality and upbringing
between them. Nicholas had that upper class thing about him. Joel
is more self-made cool.

“We met in Grade Four. I was the gangly
scholarship kid with no friends. The bigger kids used to tease me
and pick on me. They used to ask me to play then run away, or
invite me to go places and not show up. Nick befriended me. He saw
them picking on me at the bus stop one day and he kicked the crap
out of them. The fact that his family were wealthy and he was a
good bloke helped a lot.”

The picture of Nicholas the protector of the
underdog is so totally him. But Joel as the kid getting sand in his
face? Never. He’s my rugged surfer dude.

“You were a runty nerd?”

“I was short and skinny and my family was
poor. I got into Trinity College on one of those charity
scholarships that people with shitloads of cash dole out to help
the less fortunate. I didn’t know that at the time but the rest of
the school did, so I was a target from the day I got there until
the day Nick stood up for me. Nick was the cool guy that everyone
loved. He was head boy material. He was a shoe in to be Dux of the
school and captain of the cricket and sailing teams when we reached
high school. Nick let me hang with his crew and after a while I got
known for being the class clown, the short kid with the big mouth.
Even when I got tall enough to stand up for myself and popular
enough with chicks for the other guys to leave me be, he was there.
I don’t know how to exist without him.”

“Me either. Guess we’re about to learn.”

Our lips meet. Our tongues meld. It feels
right, yet so wrong, that we are clinging to each other in our
grief, that we are effectively using each other to get through
this. But nobody else understands. Nobody can.

After a while, I doze in Joel’s arms. I hear
him whisper that he loves me and he’s glad he’s home despite the
circumstances. He’s telling me he’ll look after me, that he’ll love
the baby as if it were his own. But I don’t want him to love me out
of duty. I want him to love me because he has no choice, the way I
always loved him.

The following morning is bright and sunny.
After the intenseness of last night a cloud has lifted and I feel
like my life is beginning a new phase, despite the fact that I’ve
had broken sleep again and would probably feel better if I’d been
run over by a steam roller. I sit up on the side of the bed and,
taking an elastic band from the bedside table, I twist my hair into
a topknot. Then I pull on a pair of leggings and a t-shirt and head
to Nicky’s room to see if he’s awake. There’s been no sound from
the baby monitor yet, so my guess is he’s still napping. With luck
I might be able to get a coffee and shower in before he wakes.

When I reach Nicky’s door, I hear the sound
of, well, nothing. At which I do an internal dance of joy at having
five minutes to myself. Don’t get me wrong. I love being a mother.
I’m just not used to sharing my time with an infant.

Then I hear the sound of quiet talking. It’s
coming from the bathroom.

Okay, I know my child is a genius but
clearly Nicky can’t talk, he’s only two weeks old. And the voice is
deep like Joel’s.

“Come on, little fella,” he’s whispering.
“Let’s get you into a bath.”

There’s a snuffle like Nicky is answering
him back.

What on earth are my two boys doing having a
bath at six in the morning? And why is Joel even awake? He’s been
sleeping in a lot since I came home. I think he’s decided if he
sleeps more he won’t have to face the fact that Nicholas is
gone.

I open the bathroom door slowly, unsure of
what is about to greet me on the other side. Knowing Joel, it could
be anything.

Understatement of the century.

As I open the door, the sight of a naked
Joel— who’s smoking hot FYI — and a naked baby Nicky, shocks me.
The baby’s lower half is covered in a greenish-yellowish poop. It’s
smeared down his legs and all over his little tummy. He doesn’t
appear to be worried, however. His eyes are focussed intently on
Joel’s face, which has a huge smear of poo down the side. There’s
another on his chest and one on his shoulder.

This is so freaking cute.

“Morning,” I say. I feel very cheery though
I have no idea how this situation has come about and what my role
in rectifying it will be.

“Morning,” Joel replies. “Look Nicky, Mama’s
awake just in time for the show.” Joel steps into the bath filled
with something sudsy. He faces me full frontal and I get a complete
eyeful.

It’s a good eyeful though. A very good
eyeful.

“May I ask what on earth has been going
on?”

“I heard Nicky crying so I went into him. I
think he must have kicked his nappy off or you didn’t do the tabs
up properly. There’s shit all over the bed. So I got him up with
the intention of cleaning him up and bringing him into you for his
early feed but when I got him on the change table he decided to
spray me with it. Then he kicked his legs about and voila! Did a
nice fountain of piss as well, little bugger. Got me right on the
stomach.”

I begin to laugh. They look so funny
standing there naked in the tub. “I suppose I should have warned
you about the projectile pooing and weeing, he’s pretty adept.”

“A heads up would have been nice.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to step up and take
a turn with him. But now you have, I’ll show you the ropes and you
can have him all the time. I’ll express some milk for feeding
times.”

“Geez, thanks.”

I take a fresh washcloth from out of the
bathroom cupboard and turn back to the bath. “Sit down.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to wash you both. It’s the least
I can do after you’ve navigated the poo explosion.”

Joel sinks into the water. Carefully, he
turns the baby on his back and cradles him so he can float and
splash in the water. I dip the cloth into the suds and begin to
skim it over Joel’s shoulders. His muscles feel nice. It’s been so
long, I’d almost forgotten how nice.

He closes his eyes but he’s smiling.

“I wish I had a camera,” I say.

“You just wanna take dirty naked pics of me,
I know.”

“I was actually thinking that you look quite
at home with the baby and you’re smiling. I’d like to capture
that.”

“I feel happier. The last couple of weeks
have been hard. I know we can’t go back but I still love you Ariel,
and if there’s a way to make this work, I want to do it.”

Oh Joel.

I lean across the bath and kiss the side of
his cheek that’s not smothered in poo. Then I continue to wash him
clean. I like the feeling of the washcloth sliding over his soapy
body. I like that he’s holding my baby and caring for him. I never
would have seen Joel as daddy material. This changes everything.
But then, Joel is always full of surprises.

*****

After I get the baby out of the bath and
dress him in another of his new outfits sent over by the ancient
aunts — they seem to have taken a shine to baby Nicky — I settle
myself in the chair and pull my bra aside to feed him. Joel,
looking fresh and clean from his bath, is leaning against the
doorjamb.

“I’m going to make some breakfast, want
some?”

“I’m starving. Breast feeding makes me super
hungry.”

“Scrambled eggs?”

“Yum. Yes, please. And a coffee?”

“Don’t push your luck.”