Blue Saturn (36 page)

I slide my arm out from under Lyndsay and move off the bed. I wrap the blankets around her as best I can and kiss her softly before I head out. I leave the bedroom door open.

“Is she okay?” Gavin asks when I walk into the living area.

“She’s sleeping,” I answer.

Mikey has fallen asleep on the couch.

“He didn’t want to go to bed without saying goodnight to you,” Gavin says. “He was upset that Lyndsay was crying.”

“Did you tell him what happened?”

“I told him that Lyndsay was upset because someone she knows died.” Gavin knows as well as I do that Mikey knows what death is. He’s experienced firsthand how it feels when someone close to you dies.

“Cool,” I say and lift Mikey into my arms.

He stirs against me and opens his eyes briefly. “Is Lyndsay happy now?” he asks.

“She’s asleep. But I think she’ll feel better when she wakes up.”

“Hmm,” Mikey moans and his eyes close again.

Gavin ordered enough dinner for me and as I heat it up in the microwave I ask him another favour. “Could you stay the night, just in case? I don’t know how Lyndsay’s gonna be when she wakes up?”

“No worries, I’ll sleep in with Lyndsay.”

“Pigs arse you will.” I pull my chicken parmagiana from the microwave. It looks disgusting and I reckon it won’t taste much better. But I’m so hungry right now, I’ll eat just about anything. I cut a piece of chicken and put it into my mouth. Yeah, this is disgusting.

Kyle filled me in on what he could. Garry had been found by a guard in the showers early in the morning. He’d been beaten with a piece of metal pipe, most likely plumbing from the bathroom. There was going to be a full investigation and he’d know more details in the following days. I asked him to call or text me with any updates; I didn’t want Lyndsay to have to go through the same trauma every time Kyle phoned in.

Now I’m lying awake next to Lyndsay, listening to her soft breathing. She’s still curled up in a ball, just how she was when I left her. I’ve taken the spare blanket from the cupboard and put that over me. Things between us might be a little less tense now but the last thing I need to do is to make her feel pressured by sleeping under the covers with her.

My eyes are beginning to feel heavy. It’s been a busy day and there is no way I’m going to be able to fight this fatigue. I roll onto my side, so I’m facing Lyndsay and let my body relax completely.

“Mike.” I hear a quiet whisper. I’m on the cusp of sleep and I’m not sure if I’m hearing things or if someone is trying to wake me up.

“Mike, are you there?”

Lyndsay is talking to me.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I whisper back to her.

“Are you going to stay with me all night?”

“Yes.” My answer is immediate and without any hint of hesitation.

“Okay.” She sits up and gets out of bed. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She goes to her suitcase and pulls out a change of clothes and then she goes into the en-suite bathroom.

I use the time to straighten out the bed. I pull the covers flat and lie down on top of them. She may have asked me to stay with her all night, but that doesn’t mean she wants to share such an intimate sleeping space.

I pull the spare blanket up over me and wait for Lyndsay to come out of the bathroom.

She appears minutes later, wearing a pair of pyjamas. She climbs back into the bed and when she realises that there’s a barrier between us, she laughs. “You’re such a prude,” she says.

“I didn’t want to be presumptuous,” I say by way of explanation.

“That’s very thoughtful.” She lies down next to me but doesn’t invite me to sleep under the covers with her. She rolls onto her side to face me. I can make out her features from the city lights which are coming in around the edge of the curtains. “I always wished him dead,” she says quietly and I’m glad that she’s choosing to open up to me rather than me having to prompt her. “And now it’s happened, I feel kinda guilty.”

“You have nothing to feel guilty about. You didn’t kill him, Lyndsay.”

“I know, but it’s because of me that he went to jail. If he hadn’t gone to jail he’d still be alive.”

“Yeah, and he’d still be sexually abusing teenagers. And if I remember correctly, it was me who instigated the investigation that led to his arrest. So it’s my fault he went to prison and it’s my fault he’s dead.”

“You wouldn’t have…”

“Lyndsay,” I stop her. “It is not your fault,” I say slowly. “He got what he deserved.”

She nods her head and moves a little closer to me. “I feel bad for Kyle, you know. Garry was still his dad.”

“And fathers are supposed to protect their children from predators, not destroy their lives.”

“Did you speak to Kyle tonight?” she asks.

“Yes, he seemed fine to me. He didn’t sound upset.”

“He’s not upset. He hates his dad.”

“Didn’t you hate him too?”

“Yes, but I can’t help but think that he was sick, you know, like you and I were, only…”

“Lyndsay. He was sick. You’re right. But he didn’t seek help for his illness like you and I did. He let it fester until it killed him. So if you’re going to blame anyone for his death, you can blame him.”

She nods slowly as she absorbs my words. She moves closer to me again. Her eyes close and open and she moves toward me again. “Thank you for being here for me, Mike.”

It’s my turn to edge closer to her. If I could, I’d remove all and any space between us. But for now, lying next to her will have to do. “Lyndsay, I will always be here for you.”

30.

Adelaide. Adelaide gets a pretty bad rap but I really like Adelaide. It’s late autumn, but today the sun was shining and it was 24 degrees. We’ve had another day of promoting our record; a live performance, three radio interviews and I’ve spent a good part of the afternoon and evening answering questions for various magazines via e-mail. We also did a photo shoot for more publicity photos. I hate photo shoots.

Lyndsay went to bed about twenty minutes ago, but I have something I want to do for her. Hopefully, I can pull it off at short notice.

Things are definitely on the turnaround for Lyndsay and I. I’m not saying that she’s ready to jump into bed with me, but we seem to be easier with each other since we spent the night sleeping together after her step-father’s death. Although we had the barrier of blankets between us, she somehow managed to get close enough to me during the night that we woke up wrapped in each other’s arms. And when she woke up and realised, she didn’t pull away from me the way I thought she would. She lay in my arms in silence until we had to get up. Today, she didn’t hesitate to touch me when we were talking and her guard is most definitely down. For example, she told me all about her surgery to have her ovary removed. She told me that the ovary was removed along with the tumours. But she was able to keep her other ovary and the fallopian tubes and her uterus and cervix and lymph glands. Then she said that’s good because it means she can still have children.

Now, I have no idea how a fallopian tube and a uterus and a cervix are involved in making a baby - I only have to worry about the bits of the reproductive system that are visible from the outside - but the fact that she still has them and she can have babies is awesome. And the fact that she told me she can still have children makes me hope that she might, one day, want to have babies with me. Why else would she tell me she can have babies, right?

Then she showed me her scar. I tried to tell her that I’d already seen it, when she showed Jasmine, but she shrugged and lifted her shirt and pulled her pants down enough to let me look at her. Not just a quick glance but she let me really look at it. She even let me run my finger across it. She said that even still, it feels a bit numb, but I couldn’t help notice the way her tummy contracted and she let go of a laughing breath of air at my touch.

Now, why would she let me look at that scar unless she was thinking that one day I was going to see it in other circumstances? Because the scar is low enough on her tummy that unless she were naked, I’d never have reason to see it. So she must be thinking that one day we’ll be naked together and she didn’t want her scar to be a shock to me then, right? That’s what she’s thinking, isn’t she?

Or am I over thinking things?

Or am I overly hopeful?

Either way, things between Lyndsay and I are definitely on the up and up. I just have to play it cool and let her set the pace.

The news of her step-father’s death was plastered all over the news today. (I’ve been receiving consistent updates from Kyle via text, but haven’t told Lyndsay). I was with her this morning, eating breakfast, when the morning news came on. I moved quickly to grab the remote, but she held out her hand and told me to leave it on. She watched the report and then nodded. Then she said in a very quiet voice, “Okay.”

She had her closure.

In the meantime, I’m going to take her out for a day. She’s been using every scrap of energy she has taking care of Mikey while I’ve been working. The fatigue shows on her face and as soon as Mikey is in bed, she seems to follow suit not long afterwards. It means we haven’t had a lot of time to talk together in the evenings, like I’d hoped we would. So tomorrow, I’m handballing my telephone interviews to Gavin. I’m going to take Lyndsay and Mikey out for the day and get back in time to do our prime time television interview and performance. It’s going to be a busy day for me, but I hope Lyndsay finds it relaxing.

She’s going to hate me. I know that. It’s 4 A.M. and I’m about to walk into Lyndsay’s room and gently wake her up. I’m giving her half an hour to get showered and dressed before we leave. While she’s getting ready, I’ll get Mikey dressed.

I thought she might stir when I entered her bedroom, but she’s out to it. I feel a bit bad waking her up; I know how tired she gets, but today is going to be an awesome day. And she can have a nap a bit later if she needs to.

I reach down and gently hold onto her upper arm, “Lyndsay, wake up,” I say quietly.

She moans and pushes my hand off her arm. “Go away, not now,” she says. “I’m tired.”

What on earth is she talking about?

“Lyndsay, wake up. I have a surprise for you.”

“I don’t want it now. We can do it later.”

A smile comes to my face as I begin to realise what she thinks is happening. “Lyndsay,” I whisper. “I can’t do it later. We need to do it now.”

“I’m not in the mood.” She pulls the blankets up over her head and curls up into a ball.

I have to play hardball. I go to the light switch and flick it on and then I pull the covers off the bed.

“Mike,” she moans, feeling around at her feet for the blankets. “What are you doing?”

I stand next to the bed looking down at her. She’s wearing knickers and a singlet. Her eyes open and close.

“Lyndsay, you have thirty minutes to be up out of bed and ready to go.”

Her eyes open again and she squints against the intruding light. “Where are we going? What time is it?” Then she looks around the room, to me and then to her semi-clad body. She sits up and looks at the bed or more precisely the end of the bed where the sheets and covers are pulled off onto the floor. “I think I was having a dream,” she says. She frowns as she looks up at me. “You were…” she points at me and then shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

I laugh because she was totally dreaming about me trying to wake her up for sex, something I did a lot when we were together. She always put up a bit of a fight, but never for very long.

She rubs her eyes and then glares at me. “What are you laughing at?” she says, trying to put on her very crankiest face but I can see the edge of her lips curling up.

“I’m laughing at you.” I sit down on the bed next to her. “I’ve got something planned for us today. But we need to leave in twenty-nine minutes, so you have to get up and moving.”

“Where are we going?”

“No time for questions, Lynd’s. Go get showered and dressed. Wear layers. It’ll be cold before it gets warm.”

I stand up and head toward the door.

“Mike,” she says. “Do I...do I need to wear my wig or can I get by with just a scarf?”

I shrug. “Whatever you’re more comfortable with. You have twenty eight minutes to be ready.”

I’ve decided to keep Mikey in his pyjamas until we get to our destination. That way he might stay asleep for the car trip because I know that once we get to where we’re going, he’ll be too excited to sleep. Lyndsay comes out from her bedroom wearing jeans and a jumper. She’s carrying a jacket in her arms. Around her head she’s wrapped a red scarf. I love that she doesn’t feel she needs to wear her wig around me.

“Ready to go?” I ask, handing her a mug of tea.

“Thank you, I’m ready to go. I wish I knew where we were going.”

“It’s a surprise. You’ll find out in about half an hour.”

“Okay,” she says and takes a sip of her tea. “I guess I’ll have to trust you.”

“Do you trust me?” It’s a loaded question and she picks up on it straight away.

She looks up at me and I see her thinking. She slowly nods her head. “Yes, I trust you Mike.”

“Good,” I say. I go to Mikey’s room and wrap a blanket around him. Then I grab my backpack with Mikey’s change of clothes and a few other essential items from the couch and head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Lyndsay isn’t chatty in the car. I’m hoping that’s because she’s quietly excited about her mystery day out. I’m hoping it’s not because she’s tired and hating me for waking her up so early.

She has her head turned away from me, looking out the window.

“Mike, do you believe in god?” she asks.

Do I believe in god? No way! “No Lyndsay, I don’t,” I say calmly.

“I used to,” she says. “Mum used to talk about god a lot. She said that as long as we are good to people and honest, then god would be kind to us.” She turns and looks at me. “I was a good and honest person, Mike, but I’ve still had some terrible things happen to me.” She breathes in and out loudly. “I watched my mum die a slow painful death, I was drugged and abused by my step-father, and I got cancer.” She pauses for a moment. “I met you,” she says quietly.

She met me? She counts that as one of the terrible things to have happened to her. I’m about to defend myself when she continues.

“But I’ve also had some really awesome things happen to me. I’m surrounded by family who love me, I experienced the sweeter side of sex, I’ve been in love, I kicked cancer’s butt.” She laughs a quiet chuckle. “And I met you.”

I turn and look at her and she smiles at me.

“How is it that meeting you can be one of the worse and one of the best things that has ever happened to me?”

I look back to the road before turning back to her. “I don’t know Lyndsay.”

“You know, when I first met you, I hated you. And then I liked you. And then I loved you. And then you hurt me. You hurt me so badly. So I hated you again. I hated you for a very long time. But finding out you have cancer and thinking that you might die makes you re-evaluate everything. You betrayed me in the greatest way possible, but I found myself thinking that none of that mattered because the bigger picture was a whole lot worse. I remember one night, crying and crying because I thought I would die without seeing you again, and that thought actually hurt more than the pain I felt when I found you and Liane together.” She shifts in her seat and looks back out the side window. “Then something really strange happened.” She looks back at me. “It stopped hurting when I thought about you. I’d go for days on end, especially after a chemo treatment, when I’d think about you and feel nothing at all. I figured the chemo was not only killing my cancer but it was numbing my heart and I was thankful for that.”

I am hanging onto every word she’s saying but dreading what her next words will be. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel to remind myself that I’m in control of this vehicle, and that I can’t grab her and pull her to me and kiss her like a crazy man and force her to admit that she loves me. I can’t do that because I’m terrified that she’s about to tell me that she doesn’t love me and she never will.

“But when you walked into that room in the hospital that day, all the numbness went away and I was made to have feelings toward you again.”

“What sort of feelings?” I ask dreading the answer.

“I was angry,” she says honestly.

“And now?” I ask.

“Now? Right now Mike, I am angry at you. I’m just not sure why I’m angry at you.” She looks back out the window. “You’re making it very hard for me to be angry with you, Mike.”

I smile because I can’t help it. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“The other night when you told me that you’d lied to me, I was hurt. It made me feel stupid because all that time I couldn’t even tell my boyfriend wasn’t sober.” She takes another deep breath. “I guess it feels less vulnerable to say I’m angry rather than admitting that I’m still hurt by what you did. Because to be hurt by someone, it means that you have to care for them first. And I do not want you to know that I care for you, Mike.”

She cares for me? She cares for me! I try to remain calm as I let those words slowly morph into a big fat ‘she loves me!!’

“I want to ask you something. After you wrote the record and we were fighting and you were moody as all hell, what was that all about? You told me that Liane was putting pressure on you to use again. But you were already using.”

I nod my head. “I was lying to you Lyndsay. I was moody for a lot of reasons. I was bursting with guilt for lying to you about everything. I was full of self doubt. I was using but everyone still thought the songs sucked. I was scared that you’d catch me out and you’d leave me.”

“If we’d stayed together were you ever going to tell me, Mike?”

“I wanted to tell you every single day. At first, I told myself I’d just get through writing the album and then I’d give it all up for good. And then, that first night we slept together, I stayed awake all night watching you sleep. I finally had you, you loved me and I told myself that it had to end because I knew if you found out, I’d never be able to watch you sleep again. After that, I just...I was...” I can’t find the right word.
Pathetic, weak, dismal...take your pick.

“You were sick,” Lyndsay says. “It was a sickness and you didn’t have the cure.”

“Lyndsay, I was more than sick. I was dying. That guilt I felt every day would’ve eventually eaten me up.”

She sighs and looks back at me. “I want you to know that I’ve forgiven you, Mike, for not being able to stay sober and doing what you did with Liane. It all makes sense because I always knew I was never going to be enough for you.”

Her words shock me because they are the furthest thing from the truth. “Lyndsay, you were all I wanted.”