Page 47 of Rectify

“I’ve got options,” she offers vaguely.

“Max, you can stay as long as you want.” It's not entirely true, because this house needs to go back on the market, but I want her to know she is a priority. If I can get her back to the land of the living, hopefully everything else will just follow. I don’t want to kick her when she’s down, I just want to know if she has a plan.

“How come you’re so put together?” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and cradles the small cushion to her chest.

An awkward chuckle leaves my mouth. “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s said to me. Even if it’s completely untrue.”

“You just seem so unaffected.” She shies away from my gaze. “Almost like you don’t care.”

I crack each knuckle on my left hand as I think of the best way to respond. I was already beating myself up about this long before this. Wondering how I can explain why I just switch on and off. Feel sad one day, almost indifferent the next.

Burying him was the hardest part. The finality of seeing a body being lowered to the ground is something I hate to repeat, and hope to never have to again.

As the groundskeepers piled shovel sized lumps of dirt into the human-sized hole that housed his casket, I prayed to whoever it was that listened that my brother died happy. That’s all that feels important right now. Not my grief, not how I look, or react, or feel.

Unlike Max, I don’t measure the loss in my life by how many tears I cry, or how many I don’t. Or care that it looks like I’m unaffected or moving on.

When my mum left, I learned we all deal with pain differently, and none of it mattered. She was still gone, and it’s exactly the same way now.

“Max, you didn’t even know I existed before this happened.”

“So?”

“So,” I say with frustration. “The guy you were in love with and the brother I had were two different people.” I blow out a defeated breath of air when she looks at me blankly. “You and I are mourning two different people. Two different types of love, and two different sets of memories. I’m sorry if that makes you think I’m heartless.”

“I didn’t say heartless,” she argues.

I wave my hands as if I’m weighing up my options. “Same. Same.”

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be in the ground with him,” she acknowledges.

“Maybe you should take the second chance at life for what it is, and work out what’s next, instead of moping on the couch.”

“I loved him.”

“And doing something for yourself doesn’t change any of that.”

* * *

I keep Lily from school for the last day of the week, and we have an uninterrupted three-day daddy-daughter weekend. The removal of hospital visits from my daily routine means there’s no real reason her and I need to be apart. I can take care of her on my own just fine, but because I know she needs to be around other people, I don’t give in to my irrational need to unenroll her just yet.

There’s also the high probability of bumping into Sasha every day, which seems to have a very high stake in my decision making. I haven’t spoken to her all weekend, and she wasn’t there when I dropped Lily off this morning either.

I’ve wanted to call or text her every day, but have no clue on what to say. So, I’m now in some kind of awkward limbo where I want to fuck her for as long as I can, but have no skills when it comes to starting general conversation.

What’s worse is apart from her agreeing to seeing me this week, I have no idea if she’s as twisted up with uncertainty as I am. If she’s losing as much sleep as I am, repeating the night we spent together, the way it felt, and not just the physical part.

Caught up in the afternoon rush, I follow a group of parents inside the centre. As quick as we can, we disperse into the three rooms, thinning out the hallway before it becomes a backlog of bodies.

The woman in front of me steps out of the way, and a blonde ponytail comes into view.

Jackpot.

She bends over to hand out blank pieces of paper to the children sitting around the table, and I inappropriately ogle the curve of her arse. I stop myself from replaying the image of me pounding into her naked body, and look for Lily before I become the creepy guy who gets a hard-on in a public place.

I find her sitting with a red-headed boy putting together a puzzle on the playmat. I kneel beside and smile at the little boy.

“Hey, Lilypad.”

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