Exiles (Aaron Falk #3)(98)

The next few hours had been focused on helping Gemma simply get through the ordeal, and Kim hadn’t come face-to-face with Rohan again until people were leaving. She’d been collecting empty glasses on a tray, and she’d looked up to see him and his charcoal suit making their way across the room. Rohan had stopped every few paces, gathering up any used glasses in his path until both hands were full by the time he reached her. He’d held them out like an offering.

“Thank you.” She’d smiled for what felt like the first time all afternoon.

“How are you?” he’d asked.

Kim was, she realized, happy to see him.

They’d chatted as Rohan had helped her clear the rest of the tables. He’d been working for an engineering firm in Sydney for a few years but was now heading up their operations in Adelaide. Next time she was in the city, she should let him know. They should catch up. It would be great to see her. And Charlie.

Of course, they both readily agreed. And Charlie.

Kim had been in Adelaide a few times after that. She had never called Rohan. She had never mentioned the conversation to Charlie, either.



* * *



Kim and Charlie had tried to work it out. Or maybe they hadn’t, she sometimes thought later. They knew each other well enough to realize they’d reached the end, whatever was said or done. The separation had been sad and subdued. Charlie had dutifully asked her not to go, to give them another chance, but Kim had been able to detect the faint echo of relief beneath his words. She had been right at fifteen. It had been love. But they weren’t teenagers anymore, and he was worn out, too.

He didn’t argue too hard against Kim’s suggestion that she and Zara make a fresh start in Adelaide. It wasn’t far away, and they both knew they would slip back to each other if they stayed too close. Habit and loneliness weren’t good enough reasons to be together. It was one thing when it was just the two of them, but they wouldn’t do it to Zara, this uncertain back-and-forth.

And things were good in Adelaide. Kim found a job she enjoyed, at a firm run by a woman she’d collaborated with on a design brief a few years earlier. She took up Pilates, discovered a great farmers’ market. She was definitely happier, all things considered. If this breakup with Charlie felt worse than the ones that had come before, Kim thought, it was only because this time they both knew it was for good.

Zara, for her part, seemed to be simply waiting for her mother to change her mind and take them home. She completed one full week at her new school in near silence before looking at Kim over her untouched Friday-night takeout and asking if she could please go back to Marralee.

“Give it a chance,” Kim had said.

“How long?”

“At least a year.”

“And then I can go back?”

Kim wasn’t about to make the rookie error of committing to that, but in a response that even she could tell reeked of desperation, she threw herself into showing Zara the best side of their new life. Months of movies and outings and restaurants and activities followed, until they were both exhausted and Zara still no happier. It had been with a growing sense of despair that they’d found themselves yet again at Glenelg Beach one Sunday afternoon, Kim half-heartedly splashing around in the water and encouraging her sad-eyed daughter to swim. She had been right on the cusp of flinging their damp, sandy towels in a bag and calling it a day when a jogger had unexpectedly slowed, then stopped. He’d shielded his eyes, squinting against the glare of the water.

“Kim? That you?”

And she discovered she was, once again, happy to see Rohan.

At first, it had been friendly coffees and platonic day trips. He’d actually managed to suggest a few things that even Zara had begrudgingly enjoyed. They’d taken it slow and steady, but Kim and Rohan had been something more than friends for six months before she finally told Charlie.

“Great. Good to hear you’re happy,” Charlie had said. He was really trying to sound like he meant it, she could tell, which made her feel worse than anything else he could have done. But then he’d taken another breath.

“So. Rohan, eh?” There had been an odd note in his voice followed by a very long pause. “You sure about that, Kim?”

She had hung up.

She was annoyed with herself later for not pushing back, because yes, thank you very much, Charlie, she was sure. Rohan had a reliable steadiness about him that Charlie had never had. Their relationship didn’t have the same highs and lows that Kim was used to, but there was something about that that she found intensely comforting. Rohan was thoughtful in a holistic way. He was considerate, and not only to her. He conducted daily life in a considered way. Before Rohan did anything, he thought it through.

Kim and Charlie had had the argument, anyway—of course they had—but later, after she was engaged. When it had all suddenly seemed real. Charlie had driven down to pick up Zara for handover and a passing comment about the house Kim now shared with Rohan had been clumsily delivered and badly received, and the two of them had found themselves throwing furious whispered words at each other in the walk-in pantry while Zara packed in her bedroom.

“—made yourself very clear, Kim, don’t you worry about that. But Rohan, for God’s sake. He’s not the right—”

“What, and you are?”

“No. God, no. Not me. I am done. Okay? I’m so tired of this. Be with Rohan, if that’s what you want. But don’t you come crying to me about him, Kim. Understand? Please. I can’t do it.” Charlie had had tears in his eyes. “I don’t want to hear it. Ever.”