The Soulmate(77)

I glance to my right just as Gabe leaps the low fence into the playground and jogs towards the girls with his arms outstretched. This is how he always greets them after a few days apart – at a running pace. As if he can’t stand one more second away from them. The girls leap off their swings in unison; the feeling is clearly mutual.

He’s even more tanned than the last time I saw him. He must have spent the past few days surfing around the clock. He seems to have come straight from the beach now, as his hair is wet and pushed back and he’s dressed in board shorts and a white T-shirt and sandals. I notice several women ogling him as the girls leap into his arms and he props them on either hip. They wrap their arms around his neck, their legs around his waist.

‘Hey,’ Gabe says to me.

‘Hey,’ I reply.

It’s strange greeting him like this, even a year on. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel sad about it sometimes. There are many things I miss about being married to him – watching him be a dad to our girls most acutely of all. But I can breathe without him. This is something that has surprised me.

The other surprise is that there are so many things I don’t miss about being married to Gabe. The constant worry. A feeling that the ground could shift under me at any moment. The heightened state of awareness I lived in for years, thinking it was excitement rather than recognising it as anxiety. I still don’t know if Amanda’s death truly was an accident, nor do I know what was on the USB that was so threatening to Gabe. Nor do I have to know. Because Gabe’s problems are no longer mine. Gabe is Gabe. And I am me.

What I do know is that the bipolar disorder wasn’t responsible for his actions. In the past, I’d always found it hard to visualise the line where his illness ended and his free will began. Now I see it. His illness hadn’t lied to me. His illness hadn’t covered up his mistakes and said that it was for my sake. That was all Gabe. Which meant we were done.

The police discovered the connection between Gabe and Amanda, of course, and Gabe was re-questioned about it. Initially, it seemed as if they suspected Gabe of playing a role in Max’s death too, but the walkers had put that idea to rest; they had seen Max step over the edge while Gabe was several paces away.

In the end, it was Max’s own statement to the police before his death, asserting that Amanda had been suicidal, that exonerated Gabe.

Gabe and I were both baffled by this, until a few days after Max’s death, when Gabe received a message from Max’s lawyer explaining their familial connection. The letter included the DNA test Gabe had done when he was fifteen years old.

It explained a lot. The way Gabe had got his job with Max. The fact that he managed to keep his job despite his ups and downs. It also made me realise what Max had been going to say when he told us that Baz was never going to hurt the girls. Of course he wasn’t. They were Max’s flesh and blood.

Asha and Freya were named sole beneficiaries of Max’s estate, with the money to be held in trust until they turn twenty-one, at which time they will become wealthier than any person has a right to be. They don’t know this yet, and I have no intention of divulging it anytime soon. I plan to give them the most normal childhood I can. After the turbulence of their first four years, it feels like the least I can do. If Gabe is upset to have been denied an inheritance, he’s shown no sign of it – and I do know that Gabe had never been particularly motivated by money. And, after what Max sacrificed for him on the cliff, he only speaks about his uncle with gratitude. Which adds to my belief that, in dying, Max took the fall for something else that wasn’t entirely his fault.

‘Ah, here’s Nana,’ I say, as I spot Mum walking towards us.

Gabe and I haven’t formalised our custody arrangement, but I’ve made it clear he is not to spend time with the girls unsupervised. I want Gabe to be part of their lives, but that doesn’t mean I trust him. Sometimes it is Mum or Dad who accompanies the girls. Sometimes it is a playdate with a friend and their parent in the park. Sometimes it is me. So far, Gabe hasn’t objected. He understands he’s got off lightly. Besides, for all of his troubles, he loves his daughters. He’ll take any access to them that he can get.

‘Nana!’ Asha cries, launching herself at Mum.

‘I’ll have them back to yours by five,’ Gabe says to me.

I wave until they disappear around the corner (once, apparently, Asha turned around to give me one last wave and I’d already left, and I won’t ever hear the end of that).

Once they are gone, I leave too, wrestling with that strange, untethered feeling I always get when I walk away from my girls. It’s temporary, I know this, usually lasting only until I walk through my front door and become my alter ego, the person I get to be when I’m without them now.

Sometimes, I hang out at The Pantry with Dev, drinking coffee and chatting. We’ve been spending more and more time together, and while it’s nothing romantic yet, I’ve come to enjoy his company in a way I hadn’t expected to. A few weeks ago, he made me a three-course meal at The Pantry after it closed, and it was one of the nicest evenings I can remember in a long time.

Occasionally I will FaceTime Kat and Mei to see my gorgeous nephew, Ollie. Kat and Mei moved back to the city just before Ollie was born. Mei had more work opportunities in Melbourne, and Kat wanted to support her. Before they left, Kat told me that it felt strange to be moving away from me, but for the first time she knew I would be okay. Perhaps for the first time, I knew that too.