But mostly furious at myself, for my inability to make her feel even a little bit better – and deeply, deeply guilty.
Sadie could insist that the rift between her and Chess was her own fault as much as she wanted, but that argument was as thin and specious as one Rory Worland might make. There was no way she would be this miserable if she hadn’t married me.
And now here she was, insisting on looking after my sister when her relationship with her own was in tatters, and all I could do was fantasise about burying my face in her hair and my fingers in the lush curves of her skin and removing my heart from my chest and laying it at her feet.
She was still quiet by the time we arrived, and I had to resist the urge to take her hand or loop my arm over her shoulders as wewalked into the giant garden and hardware store. Wedged between anger and guilt was protectiveness, and sometimes I could get away with using the ruse of our marriage to offer her physical comfort. She’d usually accept it, if it could plausibly be read aslook at us, everyone, observe how we’re definitely a completely real couple, even though what I was actually saying wasyou mean everything to me and I don’t want you to fall apart.
I had to settle for pushing the trolley instead, and doing some performatively masculine, ‘Wife, step aside, what did you marry me for if not to lift heavy things for you?’ bits when she tried to pick up a gigantic bag of fertiliser, in an extremely cheap effort to make her laugh.47
‘So, run me through all these garden ideas of yours,’ I said, as we made our way to the outdoor section. ‘Give me your dot points. Let’s narrow it down.’
She exhaled. I’d written enough lectures with her now to recognise that she was trying to re-focus her attention on the task at hand. ‘It really boils down to a dilemma between planting and sowing. Do I want to plant alliums or do I want to sow a crop of root vegetables?’
‘Tell me more. What kinds of alliums? What kinds of root vegetables?’
‘Alliums, I was thinking especially about leeks. I love leeks. Root vegetables – heirloom carrots, parsnip, maybe beetroot.’
‘And you can’t do both?’
‘Not enough space.’
‘All right.’ I steered our trolley around to the relevant aisle and started to load it up with leek plants. ‘Seedlings are best, right? Or should we be looking for more established plants?’
‘We didn’t even make a decision!’ she protested, trailing after me.
‘Yes, we did.’ I put another leek plant on the trolley. ‘You saidI love leeks.I didn’t hear you sayI love parsnipsorI love beetroot.’
‘I do like both those things!’
‘But do you love them?’
We had a semi-combative stare-off for a few seconds before she broke. ‘Not like I love leeks,’ she grumbled. ‘Not that plant, Jonah, it looks a bit iffy. This one instead.’
‘You should have told me you loved them,’ I said, swapping out the plants. ‘I’d have cooked with them more often.’
‘You already do all the cooking. I don’t want to start treating you like a restaurant, where I can just wave my hand and order whatever I want.’
‘Shaw,pleaseorder whatever you want. I really do love cooking. You’ve given me a gift here. This’ll be a fun little project for me, experimenting with exciting new leek dishes.’
She regarded me for a few moments. ‘Where did it come from?’ she asked. ‘The cooking thing?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but having been to your parents’ house, it doesn’t seem likelet’s teach our son to cookwould be a big priority.’
I snorted. ‘You’re not wrong.’ At Sadie’s gesture, I swapped out a couple more of the leek seedlings. ‘I moved out of home after graduation. Our first graduation, I mean. The one with all the…’
‘Shouting,’ she filled in. ‘I remember.’
I thought I’d committed a fatal error by reminding her of Chess again, but she still seemed engaged. ‘I moved into a place with this girl I was seeing at the time – I’m not sure if you ever met her, but she—’
‘Oh yes, the woman whoseheart you broke?’ Sadie clutched dramatically at her chest. ‘I can’t possibly let you have this sharehouse, Shaw, for I am simply too much of a heartbreaker to find another!’
‘Are you finished?’
She smirked. ‘Probably not, but continue.’
‘Anyway, when I moved in with her, I was useless,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t cook, couldn’t clean, couldn’t do anything. I realised quickly that I needed those skills if I was ever going to function as an adult, so I studied.’
