The Soulmate(63)

‘But what’s done is done,’ he’d said. And so it was. We all just needed to move on.

We walked to a boutique restaurant where we ate mussels and drank pinot grigio. Over dinner, Max told me he’d had a difficult day. Gabe Gerard had showed up at the office in a state, unaware or refusing to acknowledge that he’d been let go. Apparently, he’d had some sort of episode, yelling and screaming and throwing furniture around.

‘What did you do?’

‘I wasn’t there.’ Max sighed. ‘Someone called security. When I heard about it, I drove around and tried to find him, but he was long gone.’

‘You drove around looking for him?’ My tone gave away my surprise.

Max shrugged. ‘He’s clearly unwell.’

‘Clearly,’ I said. ‘But you don’t drive around looking for every person who has an emotional breakdown, do you?’

Max looked at me for a long moment, as if contemplating something. Then he reached out and took my hand. ‘I need to tell you something. But first, there’s something I want to show you.’

I had to admit, I was intrigued as he led me along the river. It was a beautiful clear night, and the stars were out. We walked in silence as Baz maintained a respectful distance. After several minutes we came to a bridge running over the river, and here Max stopped.

‘You see that bridge?’ he said. ‘That’s the bridge my brother jumped from when he was seventeen.’

I knew Max’s brother had taken his own life, of course. I’d heard Max tell the story countless times during fundraising events. But Max had always said that Harry overdosed on pills and their father found him.

‘I know,’ Max said. ‘It’s not the story I tell. But when I started the foundation, I knew I’d have to retell the story of Harry’s death over and over, and I didn’t think I could do that to myself. So I made one up. That way, it feels like I’m talking about another person. I don’t know if I’d get through it otherwise.’

I nodded, reluctant to speak in case I broke the spell. Max so rarely spoke about his brother, and he never did so unprompted. There was something so fragile about it. I was almost afraid to breathe.

‘Harry was a golden boy,’ Max continued. ‘You know the type? The kind of kid that actually glows. He was so good-looking. Whip-smart. Creative. And charming!’ This part, like the information about the bridge, was new and pure – not the broad strokes he normally painted Harry with: ‘a straight-A student’, ‘full of potential’. I knew without asking this was the real story, the real Harry. ‘Everyone loved him. Teachers. Girls. No one had a bad word to say about Harry. I adored him too, of course.’ Max’s eyes were misty now. ‘I must have been around eleven or twelve when I started noticing that something was different about him. I don’t even know how to explain it. It was little things. He’d talk a bit too fast. Or he’d jump from one topic to the next without any discernible connection. It was like his brain worked faster than everyone else’s. He knew what was going on in his head but no one else did.’

Max was gazing out across the water. I squeezed his hand.

‘He felt everything more than other people, you know? Some days he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and he didn’t understand how others weren’t carrying it too. One night I got home and found a letter on the kitchen counter. He said he couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much. He’d decided to jump off this bridge. There was more in the letter, but I didn’t read it until later. Mum and Dad weren’t home, and we didn’t have mobile phones back then. I jumped on my bike and pedalled here as fast as I could. I was at this very spot when I saw him jump.’ He pointed to the ground where we stood. ‘I screamed out to him as he fell.’

‘Max.’ I held him tightly around his waist. ‘Oh, Max. I’m so sorry.’

He wiped at a rogue tear that trickled down his cheek. ‘Gabe reminds me of him. He’s similarly troubled. And similarly gifted. I guess I just got it in my head that if I took him under my wing and gave him . . . I don’t know, a chance to channel his gifts . . . he might be all right. He might not go the way Harry did. But I was wrong.’

Another tear fell. He tried to laugh it off. ‘Shouldn’t have had that muscle relaxant or the second glass of wine.’

‘You’re allowed to be emotional,’ I told him. ‘Muscle relaxant, wine, or not.’

We found a bench and sat there for nearly an hour. And Max told me things he’d planned never to tell anyone. Things that shocked me, things that made me want to weep. Things that made me understand.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I think Harry would have been pleased that his brother married someone so perfect for him.’

The beauty of the moment was not diminished by the fact that he didn’t say the words I love you.

‘Should we go home?’ I suggested, and he nodded.

Then his phone began to ring.





67


PIPPA

NOW



I am putting away the last of the groceries when Kat throws open the back door.

‘Aunty Kat!’ the girls cry in unison.

‘Hello, poppets!’ She smiles at them, but as soon as her eyes find mine, I know something is wrong.