Sarah's Journey Read online

  Emily raised one brow at me. “His clothes? Now why, if I can’t guess, would you have his clothes? Hmm, Sarah my dear, you obviously haven’t told me everything. So apparently you had a really good time on this holiday, at least for a while, I think”, she said just before she took a bite of her sandwich.

  I blushed and nodded, then as I couldn’t help myself said “Yes, I did have a good time. Several good times in fact”, and took a bite of my lunch, then had to get up to thump Emily on the back, as she started to choke on her food.

  “Remind me to ask you about it sometime”, she said after she had a long drink of water. “Maybe when we aren’t eating however”.

  I took Emily home, and then went home to my empty unit to start packing. I wanted to move some clutter out before the agent started bringing prospective tenants through. I could put my things in the storage unit where I had my parent’s belongings stowed. As I walked through my bedroom, I caught sight of myself in the full length mirror that was affixed to the wardrobe door. I stood sideways and put my hand on my abdomen. Could I be? I started counting on my fingers. No, not late yet. I would have to wait a bit longer before I started considering that possibility seriously. Although a baby would be a complication in my life, the idea still gave me some pleasure. This wasn’t something that I would have been ready for a few years ago, but I thought I was emotionally and financially stable enough now. Although a two parent family was the ideal, I was sure that I would be up to the challenge if I needed to be. Maybe I might need to call Adam, even if he had hurt me, he still had a right to know our child if there was one. Plus, he could accept some of the emotional and financial responsibility too. Lisa or no Lisa, he had been a willing participant, so if there were to be repercussions, it would not be fair if I had to deal with them all alone.

  22.

  The following day, although I had felt that I was feeling less sad about Adam I had a really bad day. I finally got around to downloading my camera onto my computer. At first everything was fine, I checked all the photographs that I had taken in Sydney and in the early part of the cruise, deleting the awful ones, and cropping some that were ‘almost’ right, and then I found the ones from that day in Port Denarau. The spare bedroom of my unit was set up as a study, and I was sitting at the computer desk scrolling through photographs, when suddenly one of Adam’s smiling face appeared onto the screen. My finger stilled on the arrow key, and I just stared at that face for I don’t know how long. Although he looked wonderful on the screen, I knew that the photographic medium did not do him justice. However, the camera had caught a little twinkle in his eye as he stared into the lens, and I wondered what he had been thinking as I pressed the shutter button. Was he thinking about the previous night? Was he enjoying his day with me? Or was he just marking time with me, all the while missing Lisa?

  I sat at the computer, silent tears cascading down my cheeks, while I hit the arrow key slowly, each different photo revealing a different facet of Adam. Then I came to the ones he had taken of me, and I gasped in shock. Was that really me? I found myself staring at a happy, carefree, and dare I say it – beautiful woman who looked as if she was in love. Of course she was – I was – she just hadn’t known it at that time. Even though I looked a bit red and wilted in the photographs, I was also undeniably beautiful, but mostly because of the look of love in my eyes as I stared into the lens of the camera.

  I braced myself as I hit the arrow key, knowing that there was a photo of Adam and I together. Please let it be clear and sharp, I thought. When I had checked it in the viewing window of the camera, it had seemed fine, but sometimes when viewed on the bigger screen of the computer, faults became apparent in a photograph. However, this was a good photograph of two people who appeared happy together, and were unaware of the drama that would be happening the next day. Anyone looking at this photo would be fooled into thinking that the man with his arm around the woman was happy to be there, but I was pretty sure it was only a temporary happiness, and that Adam had only been living in the moment. If I had meant more to him, why had he stayed ashore with Lisa? Although he had tried to get in touch with me since, it was possible that he was just concerned that I might be pregnant, and wanted to know what I intended to do. I wasn’t yet ready to call him and find out for myself why he was trying to contact me, and I wasn’t sure that I would be ready anytime soon.

  I scrolled through the rest of the photographs, I had taken some candid ones of Adam at other times that day. We were allowed to take photographs of the Kava ceremony, so I had quite a lot of the back of Adam as he sat on the matting. Even from the back he looked good. I had a couple more to look at, but it was difficult through the tears. I went back to the one of the two of us. Was any of it real? My finger hovered over the delete key, but instead I shut down the photo program and walked away.

  23.

  On Saturday, I picked Emily up, and she guided us to Judy and Tom’s address via the satellite navigator function of her phone. Even though Judy had said not to bring anything, neither Emily nor I were comfortable with that, but not knowing how many people Judy was catering for, I decided on the “safe” option of chocolates but Emily brought a cake that she had made and decorated herself. We also brought some wine, although Emily would be doing most of the drinking, as I would be driving us home, and I was worried about our previous drinking session anyway – what if I was pregnant? I hadn’t thought of that at the time.

  Judy and Tom’s house was a relatively modern one in a suburban estate, and we could hear music coming from the back, so walked through the open gate into the backyard, I walked ahead to make sure the ground was level for Emily, who was still on crutches. I spotted Tom, standing by the barbeque and we walked towards him. Judy must have spotted us from the kitchen as she came out straight away and enfolded me in a bear hug, while Tom got a chair for Emily. A few people were already there, and after we arrived, a few more people drifted in after us. Judy and Tom’s friends, their children and their friend’s children were all very welcoming, and on hearing I had been on the cruise too, some of them had lots of questions. I spoke carefully at first, and quickly worked out that Judy and Tom had thankfully said nothing of my drama. So I spoke in general terms of the food, the theatre, pool and other facilities on the ship, and of how beautiful the islands had been. Tom laughingly joked about how smelly the market at Suva had been, and I conceded that it was, but said that any large city is never as beautiful as a remote beach, and that the cruise as a whole was certainly worth the effort.

  At this point, a man who had been introduced to me as James, Tom’s younger brother, piped up:

  “That’s interesting to hear, I’m going on a trip to the States later this year with some friends, and we were tossing up whether to start with a short cruise to Mexico. There is one leaving on the day we arrive, but I don’t know whether we can spare the time from our trip – I will tell my friends what you’ve said though”.

  Judy brought out some photos that she had printed, and asked if I had brought mine. I hedged and said that I had downloaded them, but had been too busy packing to do anything else with them. This disclosure caused a barrage of questions as to why I was packing, so I explained about my impending move. My tenant would be moving out next week, so I was going to organize a removalist for the following week, to give me time to arrange the transfer of all my services. When I explained about the renovations, and Emily piped up with her impression of my “kitchen ignorance” as she called it, Emily and Judy then entered into a discussion on kitchen essentials. I rolled my eyes and took a sip of my drink. While I certainly loved food, I wasn’t much of a cook, so everything I made was very basic. Emily however, was always experimenting, and luckily for me, she often brought the results in to work to share, or sometimes sent me home with a ready made dinner from a new recipe that she had found in some magazine or another. Recently Emily had been experimenting with cakes and cake decorating, and I knew she spent serious screen time watching all those baking shows on
cable television. The cake she had brought to the barbeque was one of her recent attempts, and our hosts’ children had been very interested in the little butterflies and sunflowers that Emily had formed out of icing.

  After a wonderful evening, we said our goodbyes, and James helped Emily out to the car, she had drunk a few glasses of wine, and was having a bit of difficulty co-ordinating her crutches. When we arrived at Emily’s flat, I had to help her into the elevator and into her flat as her door was heavy and she had difficulty managing it and her crutches in her present state. I then drove home and climbed into bed, feeling the small depression that was Snowball on the other side of the bed. At first I thought about the events of the evening, but soon thoughts of Adam crept in to my mind, and I had another restless night. Unable to sleep, I got up, as I had begun to do every night, and went to the computer, where I opened the folder with the photographs of my cruise, and scrolled through the photos featuring Adam, looking at him and remembering the circumstances of each photograph. This was becoming an unhealthy habit. I stayed up late, then slept in. I decided that I would have to implement my Sydney strategy and exhaust myself with physical exercise each day so that I could sleep at night.

  Following that theory, by the end of the week, my unit shone like it was brand new, as did my car. I had been to almost every supplier that Mary had mentioned, and had made lots of choices for my appliances, even finding that I enjoyed planning how my kitchen would look. As I had decided on colours, I spent a lot of time wandering around the shopping centres deciding on homewares, and took notes on what I wanted, and where I could find it, reasoning that there was no point in buying things now, as they would just clutter up my unit and the first ‘open for inspection’ was happening next Saturday. For that, I again had to pack Snowball in his cat carrier, but this time we weren’t going anywhere, I just had to drive around for a half an hour, as the agent had assured me that my unit was the type of property that leased very quickly, and he expected it to be leased after the first weekend.

  When returning home, with a cranky cat, the agent was waiting for me with a big smile on his face.

  “ I have another open to go to, but I had a lot of applications today and there were a few that I am sure you will be happy with. It certainly helped that you presented the unit so well, it looks almost brand new! Do you want to come by on Monday afternoon after I have had time to check their references, and you can choose which one you want?”

  A bit stunned by the speed and ease by which my unit was apparently going to be leased, I agreed and took Snowball inside, hoping that a good feed would go some way to pacifying him.

  Emily called that night, and I told her what had happened. We chatted for a while, then she suddenly said:

  “Gotta go, the oven timer just went off”. Do you want to come over tomorrow afternoon for coffee and a cake?”

  I agreed and hung up the phone. Well, it appeared I had plenty to do to keep me occupied for the next few days. With no need to have any more open for inspection viewings, I could start packing the few belongings that remained at my unit, ready for Thursday when the removalists were shifting my things to my old house. Mary had planned the renovations so that I would still be able to live in the house while they were going on, but I needed to keep my clutter to a minimum so that I didn’t get in the way of the tradesmen.

  I packed until late that night, and did some more cleaning in the morning. In the afternoon I headed over to Emily’s and ate a yummy orange and linseed cake she had made. We talked for a while and then I remembered that Judy had called with some information.

  “Judy rang and asked me to pass on James’ phone number to you. Apparently you said your sister might be interested in going with him to the States or something? Really? I didn’t even know she was thinking of that”.

  “She has been talking of it for a while, and remember James said he was going with friends? There were four of them, going to share costs. One of James’ friends has dropped out, so they are looking for someone to make up the numbers. He seemed ok, and there is another woman going. Audrey can talk to him and decide whether she gets a good vibe from them. I spoke to her about it and she is interested enough to talk to James. You know she just finished uni recently and has only been working for a year or so, so doesn’t have a lot of money – this seemed like a good solution for her”.

  I stayed a while longer and then left. I had a bit more to do tomorrow morning and of course the appointment with the real estate agent in the afternoon. I found that I was finally thinking a bit less about Adam, and I was feeling better about that.

  24.

  The next morning started badly. I woke up and realized that my period had started. So I wasn’t pregnant. That made me unbelievably sad. Although ideally I would have preferred to be in a stable relationship, and plan a pregnancy, I was still secretly hoping that my one careless time with Adam had resulted in a baby. I didn’t realize how much I had been hoping that I was pregnant until I found out that I wasn’t, and found myself sobbing almost hysterically again.

  Maybe the problem was that I hadn’t had “closure” on my relationship with Adam. He had just disappeared. I decided that for my peace of mind, I had to contact him and talk to him, telling him how much he had hurt me by disappearing the way he had done. But not now. Not today certainly, and not soon. I would wait until my emotions had stabilized a little more, and then I would deal with the problem of when I should call Adam. I was aware that I was procrastinating more than a little, but that was my way of dealing with my problem for the time being.

  The rest of the week until Thursday passed uneventfully. I attended the appointment with the real estate agent, chose one of the names from the narrowed down selection, and signed the lease. I finished my packing and on Thursday morning, I shut Snowball in the tiny laundry so that he didn’t get out and disappear right as I was ready to leave when the removalists had finished. Finally it was time to put Snowball in the dreaded cat carrier, and leave my unit for the last time. I did so with mixed feelings – I had been comfortable here for a few years, and it was the only home Snowball knew. However I was very excited to be moving back into my childhood home, and to be there while it was modernized and remodeled to my tastes.

  I drove the short distance, with Snowball yowling in complaint again, and ran up the front path of my “new” home so that I could have the door open, Snowball shut in the laundry, and be ready to tell the removalists where to put my scant furnishings. Finally it was done, and after the removalists left, I opened the laundry door and let Snowball out to explore his new home. I had already checked that all the doors and windows were closed, as I didn’t want him to escape. I needed Snowball to settle in and realize that this was where we lived now, before I took the gamble of opening the door and letting him out into the large backyard.

  As I was in the middle of checking boxes and working out what needed to be unpacked tonight, and what could be left for tomorrow, there was a knock at my door. I opened the door, and through the mesh of the security door I could see Emily leaning on her crutches, with a bottle of wine in one hand, and a cake container in the other, a taxi driving off in the street. I opened the door and took the items from Emily, and showed her around my house. We sat there in the midst of my boxes, drinking wine from the glasses from the kitchen as I couldn’t find my wine glasses, and enjoying the cup cakes Emily had thoughtfully baked. She had reasoned that I might not have found all my plates and cutlery yet, so hadn’t brought a big cake that needed cutting and serving. What a clever girl she was – if only she had brought wine glasses!

  For the next week, I juggled keeping Snowball inside in between tradesmen coming and going in and out of the front door. The old kitchen and bathroom were pulled out (thankfully the plumber had the common sense to install the new toilet immediately – even if I had to buy takeaway for dinner, and go a couple of days without a shower, at least I didn’t have to go to the nearest all night fast food place just to go to the toilet!) a
nd new structures started to take shape. The kitchen and bathroom had been designed and cut to shape off site, so that they only needed to be reassembled in my house, which saved a lot of time. My parent’s old room was being turned into a studio, as I had decided against the extensions for the time being, and my existing bedroom, which was very large, was being remodeled as a master – some of the space from the next bedroom was being shaved off to allow for the addition of a small ensuite and walk in robe.

  After a week, I decided it was time to let Snowball explore the back yard. I sat on the back step with a coffee in my hand, tracing the shape of a little hand impressed in the concrete of the step. I vaguely remembered doing that – the old concrete had been crumbling and unsafe, so Dad had boxed out and poured a new step. While the concrete was setting, he had fetched me and told me to push my hand into the concrete. I had been so small – from the date scratched in at the side I must have only been four years old – and he had to push down on my hand to make an impression. He had then called Mum over, and each of them had made an impression of their hand, one on either side of mine. I traced those shapes wistfully.

  If only things had been different I thought. If only I had been pregnant. If only my parents had been alive – they could have met their grandchild. I told myself to snap out of my miserable thoughts. Things had happened the way they had happened, and nothing could be changed now. At least I was fortunate enough to be in a place where I could enjoy the memories of my childhood, which had been a happy one.

  I was brought out of my reverie by the sounds of cats screaming. Snowball! I jumped up and ran towards the commotion, at the rear of the yard, I could see a tumbling ball of white and ginger fur. As I approached, the two fighting cats separated, and the ginger cat scrambled over the back fence. I approached Snowball more slowly, all his fur was standing on end, he appeared to be twice his normal size and he looked very angry and I am not sure that he immediately knew me. After a few seconds, he calmed down a little and I could approach him. I saw straight away that he had a torn ear and a big scratch under his eye, and I bundled him up and took him into the house.