Sadie hung up. Jonah tilted his head back to the sky, exhaling. ‘Thanks, Fi. That was exactly what I needed.’
‘You’re welcome. But – what did she mean?’
‘Hmmm?’
‘That she was going to marry you for real this time.’
I gestured to Jonah’s hand. He’d taken his wedding ring off in preparation for the ceremony, but the tan line from it was plainly evident. ‘It’s always looked pretty real from where I’m sitting.’
‘It is. It’s just…’ He exhaled again. ‘I suppose I was going to have to tell you this eventually, so it might as well be now.’
‘Tell me what?’
He paused. ‘When Sadie and I got married the first time,’ he said eventually, ‘it wasn’t exactly for romantic purposes.’
‘I know. You had to, for work. So even though you hadn’t been together that long, you—’
‘We weren’t.’ Jonah folded his fingers together in his lap. ‘Together, I mean.’
I stared.
‘I don’t understand,’ I managed to choke out at last. ‘It wasfake?’
‘Not exactly. It’s never been fake, not for me. I’ve loved Sadie since the first time I met her. But we weren’t… a couple, when we got married. Not yet.’
The puzzle pieces rearranged themselves in my mind.
Jonah telling me that he’d been shortlisted for a job in Hobart, and me – freshly abandoned, physically and emotionally exhausted, and with no pride left to lose – weeping at the thought of having someone close by I could rely on.
Him calling a few weeks later and apologising profusely for not getting the job, as I wept again.
Then another call, another few weeks later. His arm around Sadie’s shoulders on the Zoom screen, telling me all about the wonderfully convenient coincidence that was his girlfriend getting the job and how they were getting married so she could bring him with her on a partner hire…
‘You got married for me,’ I said numbly.
‘No!’ Jonah said. ‘I got married forme.’
‘That’s why you’re having a second wedding.’ I was having an out-of-body experience. ‘Because the first one was fake.’
‘No, it wasn’t! We are very much married. We had to be, for the university to agree to partner hire.’
‘Legally, sure. But it wasn’t some grand romantic gesture, some realisation that you were both so in love you couldn’t bear to be apart, was it?’
‘Fi—’
‘You did it for me. You – you put your entire future on the linefor me.’
I couldn’t seem to get enough air into my lungs. ‘What if it hadn’t worked out, Jonah?! What if you’d taken this huge step and it’d been a disaster? What if—’
‘Shhh, shhh, Fi. Listen to me.’
Jonah wrapped me up in his arms, one hand cupping the back of my head, the same way I hugged the twins when they were melting down. ‘That didn’t happen, okay?’ he said fiercely. ‘It all turned out all right. Because Sadie and I love each other. Youknowhow much we love each other.’
I did know. Jonah and Sadie loved each other so much and so obviously and so passionately that it sometimes made me sick with jealousy. That they loved each other was something I’d been sure of ever since the first time I’d seen them together – but it had been a lie.
And there was a version of the future where it didn’t turn out all right. Where Jonah and Sadie, yoked together, ended up hating each other. Where Jonah ended up hating me too, simmering in quiet resentment at what his desire to bail me out had forced him into – and where I, clearly so bad at recognising what love looked like, had no idea that I’d ruined my brother’s life.
‘It’s all right, Fi,’ Jonah murmured, stroking my hair.
