Could this be home? This street perhaps, or this town? It wasn’t hard to imagine making a home here, which she wouldn’t have imagined possible just a few weeks ago.
Or was she just fooling herself that a life spent rooted anywhere was possible after spending so many years always moving on?
Neither of these questions made sense unless she tried to answer them with Peter in mind. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t be thinking of this place as home and wouldn’t be imagining what a life spent here might look like.
Peter lay at the heart of all these questions she was asking.
Was Peter also the answer?
Only time away from here, and from him, would give her the clarity she needed.
Gaby climbed into bed, her mind exhausted after the emotional upheavals of the day. She fell into a deep sleep filled with starlit skies and whispered promises and dreams of a love that stayed just out of reach.
28
It was almostten o’clock when Peter’s doorbell rang. For a fleeting moment he felt a surge of hope that it might be Gaby, coming to tell him that after the shock of hearing what he’d said that afternoon, she’d realised she loved him too and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
He dismissed the delusional idea instantly. Which was just as well, because when he answered the door it was his brother Brad he found on the other side of it.
“What are you doing here?” Peter asked.
“Nice way to greet a visitor,” Brad said.
“It’s late. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Didn’t realise I needed an appointment.” Brad held up a dish covered in tin foil. “We missed you at dinner tonight and the boys made dessert. They wanted me to bring some to you.”
Last week, Peter had accepted an invitation to his brother’s house for dinner, but after everything that had happened last night and today, he’d bailed out, not wanting to subject Brad and his family to his gloomy mood, never mind answer questions about why he was in that mood in the first place. Touched that his nephews had thought of him in his absence, and more than a little curious about whatever lurid concoction they’d puttogether for dessert, Peter opened the door wider for his brother to come in.
“You didn’t need to come all the way over here at this time of night just to bring me dessert,” Peter said. “I could’ve come over tomorrow and got it myself.”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay. You sounded funny on the phone earlier when you called to say you couldn’t make it to the house for dinner.”
“I’m fine, but thanks for checking.”
“The boys missed you tonight. They were excited to get you on the PlayStation and show you how they’ve set up the gaming station we built for them. They were disappointed not to give you a tour of their action figures and tech layout. They spent ages last week getting it all organised.”
“Sorry I let them down. I’ll come over soon and check it out. I just wasn’t feeling too great today.”
“Is this because your girl is leaving tomorrow?”
Brad set the covered bowl on the kitchen counter. To avoid answering the question, Peter pulled back the foil to examine the contents. Inside the bowl there was a serving of trifle that incorporated acid green jelly and bright pink sponge that had gone soggy thanks to the tinned fruit, topped with whipped cream that had been dyed blue and sprinkled with neon-coloured sugar shards.
“This looks, er, delicious,” Peter said.
Brad laughed. “Itisdelicious, actually. Don’t let the Chernobyl vibe put you off.”
With a chuckle he hadn’t thought he was capable of until his brother turned up, Peter replaced the tin foil over the bowl and put it in the fridge.
“So, your girl, Gaby,” Brad said. “You’re upset because she’s leaving.”
He said it like it was a fact, rather than a question. Trust his brother to get straight to the point.
“I’m not upset. I already knew she was leaving.”
“But you wish she wasn’t leaving. And youareupset. You look like a kicked puppy.”
“Thanks for that visual.”
