When I Lost You: A Gripping, Heart Breaking Novel of Lost Love.(10)
‘It’s at home,’ I say. His band is silver and, like mine, plain except for a single etched line around the middle. A line without an end, he’d pointed out to me as we stared at our hands in an exhausted bubble of bliss in the hours after the wedding. But quickly, that memory shatters and is replaced at the forefront of my mind by thoughts of the last time I saw Leo’s ring. I had walked into the bathroom to check the cabinets for make-up I’d missed when I packed. The sight of the ring was a punch to the gut and I completely lost my breath. It was sitting in the little soap-rest in the moulded bathroom counter-top – partially submerged in a tiny but still-sudsy puddle. I spent hours that night trying to convince myself that Leo might have left it there by accident; it seemed impossible that he would have been willing to take it off so quickly.
‘So, I took it off before I went to Libya,’ Leo says. He stops and carefully corrects himself, ‘to Syria – for safekeeping?’
I know I need to tell him the truth and this seems to be the right moment to do it – I’m just not sure how he’s going to react. I hesitate, and while I’m wondering about this, Leo continues without waiting for my response.
‘No,’ he says, and he shakes his head violently. I see the echoes of pain that cross his face as he does so, then he raises his eyes and his glare issues me with a determined challenge. ‘I don’t buy it. It doesn’t make any sense. What’s really going on here?’
I clear my throat and sit gingerly on the bed beside my passport, close to him, but careful to avoid touching him. I try to slow my thoughts down so that I can plot out the best response. Here I am worrying about how to tell him our marriage is all but over, and he still doesn’t believe it ever began.
‘It’s a long story,’ I say. ‘But I promise it will make sense once you remember the missing years. Why would I even lie about this? Why else would I be here? And I can prove the current date to you. I mean––’ I pick up the passport again and show it to him. ‘You think it’s 2011, right? Well, this passport was issued in 2014.’
‘It’s not the date I can’t believe,’ he says, and he’s impatient enough now to snap at me. He waves his hand between us. ‘It’s this. I know I wouldn’t have married you.’
His dismissive tone stings, and although I’m determined not to get into an argument with him, there is no way I’m going to let him speak to me like that. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask him pointedly. Leo winces just a little.
‘Obviously we are just too different. If I was going to marry someone, and I wasn’t – it wouldn’t have been you.’
‘If you can’t remember past 2011, you don’t even know me,’ I raise an eyebrow at him. ‘Besides which, it’s too late to raise these objections now. Whether you remember it or not, we’ve been married for almost three years.’
‘I don’t need to know you to know that we aren’t compatible. You’re a Torrington. That’s all I need to know. I wouldn’t have gone there.’
‘Leo, you’re being an arse,’ I say. The words are strained, not because I’m hurt by his stereotyping me, but because I’m infuriated by his arrogance and fighting hard to hold back my natural inclination to snap at him.
‘I don’t mean to offend you––’ he starts to say, but his tone is so patronising that I finally snap. I slam the passport shut and throw it into my handbag by the bed.
‘If you really don’t want to offend me, stop assuming that you know who I am just because you know my maiden name. That’s about all you remember about me, right? How dare you try to tell me that it would be impossible for someone like you to marry someone like me just because of who my family is. Imagine if our positions were reversed and I said that to you!’
Leo’s mouth is still open. He slowly closes it, and looks back to his meal. I exhale and rub my forehead wearily, and I think the conversation is over until he mutters, ‘I am far too old for you.’
‘Leo!’ I groan. ‘God! It’s only ten years and it has never been an issue.’
‘What would we even have in common? How did we even meet?’ He pushes the empty apple puree cup away and frowns at me again. ‘I don’t even want to get married.’
I laugh a little at that, because I know his concerns were always about how a spouse might fit into the demanding schedule he keeps – and now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that he was absolutely right. He raises his eyebrows at me and I assure him, ‘I know you didn’t. But you obviously changed your mind because you proposed and then went ahead and married me.’
‘But how? Why would I change my mind?’ Leo’s prompts are impatient and my laughter fades. I can see that he’s tiring again already, and I make a mental note to check with Craig Walker just how much I should be shielding him from stress. If I’m supposed to be keeping him completely calm, I’m going to have my work cut out. I take a few deep breaths and slide off the bed, and then take the seat beside him. Leo just has to come to terms with this because I’m all he has here in Rome. There is no one else, and no one else is coming, and I still have no idea when we will be able to leave or even what awaits him back in Sydney.
The first thing I need to do is to make him realise that he can trust me – that he used to trust me – and there is probably only one way to do that. When I do speak again, I manage to do so very gently – conscious of the delicate subject I need to reference.