I took both her shaking hands in mine. ‘You will always be the first best thing that ever happened to me,’ I told her. ‘I will always love you to the end of the universe and back again. And yes, I’m an adult now, with a job and a husband and a whole full life, but that doesn’t mean I have no place for you in it. I’m an adult who knows what she wants – and what I want is my sister back.’
There was a long pause before Chess spoke. ‘Did you…’ She swallowed. ‘Did you really believe that I’d cut you out of my life? Just like that?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Turns out all that therapy you helped pay for is yet to fix my abandonment issues. We should really lodge a complaint.’
The sound she let out was short and sharp, but it was recognisably a laugh, and the knot inside my belly loosened, just a little.
‘I think I need to spend some serious time of my own in therapy now,’ she said. ‘I just… I can’t describe what happened to me, Sadie. It’s like I’ve been frozen. I got it stuck in my head that I had to stay away from you, that I needed to let you go, to give you space, that it was for your own good. I knew after that day at the airport you’d keep calling and texting, and I knew eventually I’d give in, and this panicked voice in my head was shrieking that that would be bad for you, because then I’d just smother you again – so I told work I was taking leave, got all my mail redirected, and I just… left.’
She folded a knee up, resting her chin on it. ‘I meant it when I said I was trying to figure out what my life looks like when it doesn’t revolve around you,’ she said. ‘But I haven’t been making much progress. The fact that I had to have someone else hold onto my phone so I didn’t obsessively check on you…’
‘Who was that, by the way?’ I asked. ‘He sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t place him.’
She shook her head. ‘Just a friend. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that you know you’ll never, ever lose me. That I love you too much for that, even if you don’t want me to.’
‘I’m so sorry I said that to you, Chessie,’ I said. ‘I do want you to love me. As much as you want. To the ends of all the universes.’
‘I couldn’t stop if I tried,’ she said, voice cracking.
I swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat. ‘Drink your coffee before we both start crying again. I’m sure you have to get back to Sydney sooner rather than later and I don’t want to waste all our precious time together on tears.’
Chess obeyed, picking up her cup, taking a deep breath, a long sip of coffee, and then another deep breath. ‘So you mentioned something about legal advice,’ she said. ‘What do you need?’
‘How do you feel,’ I asked, ‘about helping mastermind a big, public, messy unfair-dismissal case?’
Chapter Twenty-ThreeJonah
Just like on our wedding night, Sadie spent the evening crying, but this time it was with happy tears. ‘She’s back,’ she wept into my chest. ‘I’ve got her back.’
I had a few deeply uncharitable thoughts about how long it had taken and how thin Chess’s reasoning seemed to me,53but I wasn’t about to articulate them. I still had a long way to go before I became an authority on being a good sibling – and in any case, this was not a situation that needed a devil’s advocate.
Instead, I just held my wife close and stroked her hair and let her have this. No matter how angry I was about how Chess had made Sadie feel these last few months, I would not be poisoning this particular well.
‘How are you feeling?’ Sadie asked me, turning her face into my skin and pressing her lips to my collarbone. ‘I’ve been so wrapped up in my own shit that I haven’t been giving you the attention you deserve, even though you’re literally on the brink of sacrificing your career. Are you doing all right?’
I thought about it for a second, fingers drifting over her skin. ‘I’d be lying if I said yes,’ I replied, ‘but I’m doing better than I thought I’d be.’
It had helped, spending the morning with Fiona while Sadie was with Chess. We’d sat at her kitchen table with a pot of ginger tea after the kids had gone to school and we’d talked it out.No matter what Dad’s drilled into you, there is life for Fishers outside academia, Fi had said to me.If we need to, we’ll find yours, Jonah. I promise.
Then she’d smiled and said,I’ll help,and something in my heart had swelled so much it was almost painful, because I believed her.
‘You’re not going to lose your job, though,’ Sadie said, kissing my jawline. ‘We’re not going to let it happen. I don’t know if I’ve really properly communicated how good Chess is at being a lawyer, but if you think I’m a good scholar…’
‘Brilliantis the word I believe I like to use.’
‘Sorry for paraphrasing when I should have quoted, you pedant.’ She nipped at my earlobe. ‘Anyway, however brilliant you think I am as a scholar, she’s a million times more brilliant as a lawyer.’
Then she sighed. ‘I can’t believe I misread her letter like that.’
I repressed a snort. I absolutely could believe it.
There was a narratological phenomenon called overreading, where people read things into a text that weren’t really there.54When Sadie had shown me Chess’s letter yesterday, it had been reasonably clear to me that she – caught in her months-long spiral of grief and guilt – had overread it.
It hadn’t beentotallyclear, though. The blame did not sit entirely on Sadie’s shapely shoulders. I didn’t know if Chess had intendedher letter to be ambiguous or not, but she had certainly left a lot of room for interpretation.
Not that I would be saying any of this to Sadie.Wife not actively crying, Jonah doesn’t feel like he’s dying.55
‘For someone with a PhD in reading things, you’d think I’d be better at it.’ Sadie traced circles over my heart. ‘Look at how egregiously I misread you, for years and years and years.’
