Melanie pushed the washcloth in her mouth, tasting it, chewing on it while she tried to make sense of the shower gel cap. He knew he only had a minute to show Anna what to do before the baby tired of the toys and yelled the place down. ‘So you have to juggle,’ he said, rushing the words as he tried to remember what he hadn’t done since he’d been about fourteen. ‘Pour some of the shampoo in one hand, and keep the bottle out of reach.’ He put it on the sink. ‘Then use your free hand to hold her by one shoulder or her back. You have to leave her hands free to play or she won’t be happy.’ He massaged the baby’s scalp. ‘Try not to rub too hard because the baby’s head isn’t closed yet.’
Smothered laughter made him turn his head to mock-glare at her. ‘What?’ he demanded, in faked indignation. It was working, she was laughing again, that crazy, infectious giggle that lit up his world.
Her eyes were bright with mirth. ‘Her head’s closed, Jared—her skull isn’t.’
He rolled his eyes, keeping his hands on the baby. ‘Semantics, shemantics.’
She grinned at him. ‘Just keep teaching, O Yoda of babies.’
Satisfied that he’d injected more medicine into their sick—not dead—relationship, he turned his attention back to the task at hand, putting up with the baby’s yells of protest as he laid her back and rinsed her hair so he didn’t get soap in her eyes. He sat her back up with her makeshift toys as soon as he could. The rain was hissing down outside, making drumming thunder on the tin roof, but he couldn’t risk the noise for long. The rain at the start of the Wet could be spasmodic, coming and going at will—and if the Buttons heard Melanie, all Anna’s dreams could become toast. ‘You can use the shampoo as baby soap for the rest of her, if Rosie didn’t pack any.’
Anna frowned, and ran into the bedroom to check the bag. ‘Here. Non-soap baby cleanser, but how you clean without soap in it I don’t know.’
‘Soap dries out babies’ skin,’ he explained without thinking.
‘Fine.’ She waved an irritable hand, closing the subject. ‘What else?’
Melanie had worked out the gel bottle mechanism, and was gurgling in delight as she sprayed out the last of the purple gel into the water, and over her plump little legs, kicking and squealing at her achievement. They both laughed, and he knew Anna was caught between sweetness and regret, just as he was. No matter how she wanted to believe they were opposites, in their grief they were one. They were both thinking, This could have been Adam.
They could have been laughing together over their son’s baby pride.
‘We won’t be fed until midnight at this rate,’ he said gruffly. He squeezed the non-soap cleanser into his palm, and rubbed it all over the baby’s soft skin, rinsing her with a cupped hand over and over. Then he lifted her wriggling, slippery form into the air, dripping water. ‘Hand me a towel.’
Anna wrapped the fluffy soft towel around the baby, taking her into her arms as if she couldn’t wait to claim her rights. ‘Thanks, Jared. I can take it from here.’
Hating being locked out, he tried to think of a new way to be useful. ‘How many nappies do you have left? How much cereal?’
The sudden panic in her eyes made him rush to reassure her. ‘I can fly up to a petrol station, or go to Geraldton or Kununurra tomorrow if you’re almost out.’
Given reprieve yet again, Anna tried to think as she carried Melanie through to the bedroom she’d used for seven months, since moving out of Jared’s bed until she’d left. ‘I think I have about a quarter left—it was a pack of fifty—but the cereal’s almost gone. I don’t think the service station will have everything—and you know old Ernie, he’s Stop One on the Bush Telegraph Gossip connection.’
‘Good point … and too many people know us in Geraldton. Kununurra it is, then. I probably won’t be back in time to give her the cereal, but you can mush up the arrowroot in the morning with the formula. I’ll take off early. I’ll steam an apple for you before I go.’
‘Thanks, Jared.’ Again she felt relief. She didn’t know what she’d have done without him today. They’d worked together as a team. If that was the point he was trying to make, he’d done it magnificently. ‘I’ll have lunch ready when you’re back,’ she offered as she dried the baby, tickling her between to hear that silvery laugh, like sweet, tinkling bells.
‘Speaking of food, I’ll go start the barbecue.’
His voice was husky again, and she realised he’d been watching the curve of her butt as she’d worked. She flushed again, feeling tension replace the accord: the tension he’d probably misconstrue as sexual, because he still didn’t seem to have any idea why she’d left. ‘Good idea.’
He left the room. She didn’t watch him go or look at the long, clean lines of him, a strong working man of the land. The ache of feminine yearning was strong whenever she was near him, and when he smiled at her like that—but walking right alongside the physical, sexual desire was the sense of utter uselessness. Why bother with an act that might bring temporary joy, but could only reinforce what she no longer was, what she’d never be again? He couldn’t even truly want her now, surely—this was about keeping Jarndirri, keeping his word. She wasn’t a real woman any more; she was an empty shell, a hulk of a car without its engine.
A woman is far more than her womb, Anna, she’s a man’s other half, the gentleness, the empathy. A man needs a woman for far more than babies alone. The counsellor Jared had paid an exorbitant amount to fly up here every week to let her talk had sprouted those and many other glib words, but they’d brought no comfort or healing, only more unspoken resentment. How could any woman who hadn’t lost both her only child and her last chance of having children at the same time understand the word empty, and how much it encompassed?
She had to make Jared give up on her, and find someone who could give him what he needed. So she didn’t watch him move; she fought the desire with everything in her.
Motherhood by proxy she could do. But how could she be a wife again, a woman, when she felt like a blank slate, almost androgynous? No, she wasn’t that good an actress. She knew what Jared wanted—far more than sex alone, he wanted what he’d had, a wife and partner in Jarndirri—but it was impossible. He was the man who reminded her of everything she’d once been … and never could be again. Desire and endless grief in one taut, man-of-the-land body.
When she entered the kitchen she found a fresh, warm bottle waiting. She fed Melanie one last time, and the baby was fast asleep within a minute. Anna rocked her, softly crooning long after she knew Melanie couldn’t hear her. Ah, motherhood was so sweet, even by proxy.
She laid Melanie in the bassinette she’d just about outgrown, and placed it on the middle of the queen spare bed, surrounding her once again with all the pillows she could find, making a safe zone with every chair in the house. It meant they’d have to eat on the verandah, but that was a good thing: she knew Ellie and John Button would be watching. It also meant some touching, even some kissing to prove their reconciliation was real.
Her fingers curled hard over one of the chair backs. You can handle this. Do it for Rosie, and for Melanie.
The wafting smell of steak and onions came to her, and her stomach reminded her how long it had been since she’d had more than coffee. She walked out the door to the back verandah, where Jared, shirt plastered to his chest from Melanie’s kick-ups of water, was flipping the meat onto a platter already laden with onions. ‘I hope you’re hungry.’
‘Starving, actually,’ she confessed, with an uneven laugh. He looked so—so like every dream she’d had since she’d been fifteen—and he knew how to bring her every desire to life.
To divert herself from her fast-growing obsession, she reached