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Joe had felt compelled to offer Ellie a safety net, so he’d been reassured to know that, whatever happened to him, she would be financially secure. But, clearly, getting out of their marriage now was more important to her than the long-term benefits.
Hell, she probably had another bloke lined up in the wings. Please, let it be anyone but that damn potato farmer her mother had hand-picked for her.
But, whatever Ellie’s reasons, the evidence of her impatience sat before Joe on the screen.
Crunch Time.
There was no point in avoiding this any longer. The coffee Joe had recently downed turned sour as he grimly clicked on the message.
* * *
It was a stinking-hot day at Karinya Station in Far North Queensland. The paddocks were parched and the cattle hungry as Ellie Madden delivered molasses to the empty troughs. The anxious beasts pushed and shoved at her, trying to knock the molasses barrel out of her hands, so of course she was as sticky and grimy as a candy bar dropped in dirt by the time she arrived back at the homestead.
Her top priority was to hit the laundry and scrub up to her elbows. That done, she strode through the kitchen, grabbed a jug of chilled water from the fridge, filled a glass and gulped it down. Taking another glassful with her to the study, she remained standing in her molasses-smeared jeans as she fired up her laptop.
Tension vibrated and buzzed inside her as the latest messages downloaded. Surely Joe would send his answer today?
She was so sick with apprehension she closed her eyes and held her breath until she heard the ping of the final message’s arrival. When she forced herself to peek at the screen again, she felt an immediate plunge of disappointment.
Nothing from Joe.
Not a word.
For fraught minutes, she stood staring at the screen, as if somehow she could will another email to appear. She hit ‘send and receive’, just to be sure.
Still nothing.
Why hadn’t he replied? What was the hold-up? Even if he’d been out on a patrol, he was usually back at camp within a day or two.
A ripple of fear trembled through her like chilling wind over water.
Surely he couldn’t have been injured? Not Joe.
The Army would have contacted her.
Don’t think about that.
Ever since her husband had joined the Army, Ellie had schooled herself to stomp on negative thoughts. She knew other Army couples had secret ‘codes’ for when they talked about anything dangerous, but she and Joe had lost that kind of closeness long ago. Now she quickly searched for a more likely explanation.
Joe was probably giving her email careful thought. After all, it would have come as a shock, and no doubt he was weighing up the pros and cons of her surprising proposal.
Wanting to reassure herself, Ellie reread the email she’d sent him, just to make sure that it still sounded reasonable.
She’d tried to put her case concisely and directly, keeping it free of emotion, which was only fitting now they’d agreed to divorce. Even so, as she read, she found herself foolishly trying to imagine how Joe would feel as her message unfolded.
Hi Joe,
I hope all is well with you.
I’m writing on a practical matter. I’ve had another invoice from the fertility clinic, you see, and so I’ve been thinking again about the frozen embryos. (Surprise, surprise.)
Joe, I know we signed that form when we started the programme, agreeing that, in the case of divorce, we would donate any of our remaining embryos to another infertile couple. But I’m sorry—I’m having misgivings about that.
I’ve given it a lot of thought, Joe. Believe me, a LOT of thought.
I’d like to believe I would be generous enough to hand over our embryos to a more deserving couple, but I can’t help thinking of those little frozen guys as MY babies.
I’ve thought around and around this, Joe, and I’ve decided that I really do want to have that one last try at IVF. I know you will probably be horrified. You’ll tell me that I’m setting myself up for another round of disappointment. I know this will come as a shock to you, and possibly a disappointment as well.
However, if by some amazing miracle I did become pregnant, I wouldn’t expect to change our plans re the divorce. I promise I wouldn’t try to use the baby to hold on to you, or anything manipulative like that.
As you know from past experience, success is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY, but I can’t go ahead with IVF without your consent and I wouldn’t want to, so obviously I’m very keen to hear your thoughts.
In the meantime, stay safe, Joe.
All the very best,
Ellie
Joe felt as if a grenade had exploded inches from his face.
I know this will come as a shock to you...
Hell, yeah. Never in a million years could he have imagined this possibility...
He’d assumed that the stressful times when he and Ellie had tried for a family were well and truly behind him.
Since he’d left Karinya Station, he hadn’t allowed himself to give a single thought to those few remaining embryos. How many were there? Two? Three?
A heavy weight pressed against his ribs now as he remembered the painful stretch of years when the IVF clinic had dominated his and Ellie’s lives. All their hopes and dreams had been pinned on the embryos. They’d even had a nickname for them.
Their sproglets.
So far, none of them had survived implantation...
The ordeal had been beyond heartbreaking.
Now... Joe had no doubt that Ellie was setting herself up for another round of bitter disappointment. And yet, for a crazy moment he almost felt hope flare inside him, the same hope that had skyrocketed and plunged and kept them on edge through those bleak years of trying.
Even now, Joe couldn’t help feeling hopeful for Ellie’s sake, although he knew that her chances of a successful pregnancy were slimmer than a hair’s breadth. And it stung him to know that she planned to go ahead this time on her own.
Truth was, he didn’t want to think about this. Not any aspect of it. He’d joined the Army to forget his stuffed-up life. Here, he had a visible, assailable enemy to keep him focused day and night.
Now Ellie was forcing him to once again contemplate fatherhood and all its responsibilities. Except, this time, it would be fatherhood in name only. She’d made it very clear that she still wanted the divorce, and Joe totally understood why. So even if there was an against-all-the-odds miracle and he found himself technically a father, his kid would never grow up under his roof.
They would be more or less strangers.
Almost as an accompaniment to this grim thought, an explosion sounded outside, too close for comfort. Through the hut’s window Joe saw bright flashes and smoke, heard frantic voices calling. Another rocket-propelled grenade had dumped—a timely reminder that danger and death were his regular companions.
There was no escaping that and, if he was honest, there was absolutely no point in going over and over this question of Ellie’s. It was a waste of time weighing up the pros and cons of his wife’s request.
Already Joe knew his answer. It was a clear no-brainer.
CHAPTER ONE (#ue521b2b7-b24b-5976-ad8e-f2de34011e99)
Three years later...
‘ELLIE, IT’S MUM. Do you have the television on?’
‘Television?’ Ellie’s response was incredulous. ‘Mum, I’ve just come in from the paddocks. Our dams are drying out. I’ve been wrestling with a bogged cow all afternoon and I’m covered in mud. Why? What’s on TV?’ The only show that interested Ellie these days was the weather.
‘I just saw Joe,’ her mother said.
Ellie gasped. ‘On TV?’
‘Yes, darling. On the news.’
‘He...he hasn’t been hurt?’
‘No, no, he’s fine.’ There was a dismissive note in her mother’s voice, a familiar reminder that she’d never approved of her daughter’s choice of husband and that, eventually, she’d been proved right. ‘You know he’s home for good this time?’
‘He’s already back in Australia?’
‘Yes, Ellie. His regiment or squadron or whatever it’s called has just landed in Sydney. I caught it on the early news, and there was a glimpse of Joe. Only a few seconds, mind you, but it was definitely him. And the reporter’s saying these troops won’t be going back to Afghanistan. I thought you should know.’
‘OK. Thanks.’ Ellie pressed a hand to her chest, caught out by the unexpected thud of her heart.
‘You might be able to catch the story on one of the other channels.’
‘Yes, I guess.’
Ellie was trembling as she hung up. Of course she’d heard the news reports about a staged withdrawal of Australian troops, but it was still a shock to know that Joe was already home. For good this time.
As a Commando, Joe had been on dozens of short-term missions to Afghanistan, returning each time to his Army base down in New South Wales. But now he wouldn’t be going back.
And yet he hadn’t made any kind of contact.
It showed how very far apart they’d drifted.
Almost fearfully, Ellie glanced at the silent blank TV screen in the corner of the homestead lounge room. She didn’t really have time to turn it on. She was disgustingly muddy after her tussle in the dam with the bogged cow and she needed to get out of these stinking clothes. She wasn’t even sure why she’d rushed inside to answer the phone in this filthy state, but some instinct had sent her running.
She should get changed and showered before she did anything else. She wouldn’t even look for Nina and Jacko until she was clean.
But, even as she told herself what she should do, Ellie picked up the remote. More than one channel would cover the return.
It took a few seconds of scrolling before she found a scene at Mascot Airport and a journalist’s voiceover reporting an emotional welcome for the returning troops.
The screen showed the airport crowded with soldiers in uniform, hugging their wives and lifting their children high, their tanned, lean faces lit by unmistakable excitement and emotion.
Tears and happy smiles abounded. A grinning young man was awkwardly holding a tiny baby. A little girl hugged her daddy’s khaki-clad knee, trying to catch his attention while he kissed her mother.
Ellie’s throat ached. The scene was crammed with images of family joy. Tears pricked her eyes and she wondered where Joe was.
And then she saw him.
The man who would soon be her ex.
At the back of the crowd. Grim-faced. He was skirting the scenes of elated families, as if he was trying to keep out of camera range while he made his way purposefully to the exit.
He looked so alone.
With his green Commando’s beret set rakishly on his short dark hair, Joe looked so tall and soldierly. Handsome, of course. But, compared with his laughing, happy comrades, he also looked very severe. And so very alone.
Ellie’s mouth twisted out of shape. Tears spilled. She didn’t know why—she simply couldn’t help it.
Then the camera shifted to a politician who’d arrived to welcome the troops.
Quickly, she snapped the remote and the images vanished.
She let out her breath in a despairing huff. She felt shaken at seeing Joe again after so long. To her dismay, it had been more like a horse kick to her heart.
She drew a deeper calming breath, knowing she had to set unhelpful sentimentality aside. She’d been braced for Joe’s return and she’d known what was required.
Their divorce would be finalised now and it was time to be sensible and stoic. She knew very well there was no prospect of a happy reunion. She and Joe had made each other too miserable for too long. If she was honest, she wasn’t surprised that Joe hadn’t bothered to tell her his deployment was over. She didn’t mind really.
But she did mind that he hadn’t even asked to see Jacko.
* * *
Joe stood at the motel window on Sydney’s Coogee Beach, looking out at an idyllic moonlit scene of sea cliffs and rolling surf.
So, it was over. He was home—finally, permanently. On the long flight back from Afghanistan he’d been dreaming of this arrival.
For most Australians, December meant the beginning of the long summer holidays and Joe had looked forward to downing a cold beer at sunset in a bar overlooking the beach, and sitting on the sand, eating hot, crunchy fish and chips straight from the paper they were wrapped in, throwing the scraps to the seagulls.
This evening he’d done all of these things, but the expected sense of joy and relaxation hadn’t followed. Everything had felt strangely unreal.
It was unsettling, especially as his Commando training had taught him to adapt quickly to different environments and to respond effectively to any challenges.
Now he was home, in the safest and most welcoming of environments, and yet he felt detached and disconnected, as if he was standing on the outside, watching some stranger trying to enjoy himself.
Of course, he knew that the transition to civilian life would be tricky after years of strict training and dangerous combat. At least he’d been prepared for the Happy Family scenes at the airport today, but once he’d escaped those jubilant reunions he’d expected to be fine.
Instead he felt numb and deflated, as if nothing about this new life was real.
He stared at the crescent of pale sand below, silvery in the moonlight, at the rolling breakers and white foam spraying against the dark, rocky cliffs, and he half-wished he had new orders to obey and a dangerous mission to fulfil.
When his phone buzzed, he didn’t have the heart to answer it but, out of habit, he checked the caller ID.
