One Night She Would Never Forget

Miranda didn’t take her eyes off the table. ‘Well, it’s complicated, right?’

Patrick sighed. ‘It is. It really is.’

Miranda glanced up at the resigned exasperation in his tone. Like he’d known she was going to judge him and there was nothing he could do about it. Except there was.

He could stop sleeping with women other than his wife!

‘And because I was just some … bar pick-up…’ even saying the words made her feel sullied ‘… I wasn’t owed the truth?’

He rubbed his hand along his jaw and Miranda could tell he was choosing his words carefully. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘And no.’

Miranda felt her blood pressure skyrocket. Obviously he wasn’t choosing his words carefully enough. ‘I see,’ she said, looking back at the table again.

Patrick groaned inwardly at the barriers she was building at a rate of knots. So different from the Miranda of six months ago who, although reserved, had been receptive and aware of their vibe.

A vibe that had roared to life again this morning.

Right at this moment she was so shut down he wondered if she’d ever speak to him again. He was trying to be honest but his situation wasn’t typical. ‘It’s not something I talk about much. To anyone. Certainly not…’

Miranda tossed her head and glared at him. ‘Women you pick up in bars?’

‘It wasn’t like that, Miranda.’

‘Of course not,’ she said derisively. ‘So what is it like?’ she demanded, her voice quiet but loaded with don’t-screw-with-me attitude. ‘Is she frigid? A shrew? Sexually unavailable? Or maybe she just can’t love you the way you need?’

Patrick blinked at the rapid-fire choices she’d given him. Her lip had curled at each option, her voice full of derision. If he had to take a guess he’d say Miranda had more than a passing acquaintance with infidelity.

He took a breath. It was understandable that she was angry. He had to accept that.

‘My wife … Kate … Katie … went missing when Ruby was six weeks old. I haven’t seen her since.’

Miranda had prepared herself for the usual platitudes. Even for the not so usual. But nothing had prepared her for this. She frowned as she tried to wrap her head around what he’d said. ‘Missing?’

Patrick nodded. ‘I came home from work one evening to an empty house and a screaming baby.’

Miranda let go of the plates with a clatter and without even thinking about her actions reached out to touch his hand. Her anger and disappointment dissolved. What a truly awful thing to happen. ‘I’m so … sorry. I didn’t realize …’

Patrick shrugged. Her touch felt good and the empathy in her smoky green gaze reached right inside him and squeezed. He’d thought he was over the rawness of that time, a time when his entire life had been turned upside down, but talking to Miranda about it was surprisingly difficult. The worry and the fear and the anger were mixing again in a potent tangible force.

‘It’s fine. Not really bar-conversation material though…’

Miranda nodded. ‘Yes, of course, you’re right.’

The facts may not have changed—she had still slept with a married man. But he was right, it was complicated. And totally understandable not to have confided in her, a stranger, that night in the bar.

Or at any stage really. How did a person work that into a one-night stand—’Oh, by the way, I’m married but it’s okay because she’s been missing for five years’?

Perhaps he wasn’t such a skunk after all.

She became aware that she was still touching him and withdrew her hand. It felt right to proffer some small gesture of comfort but there was a lot more that needed to be said.

‘So … what happened? Is she, Katie … is she…?’

Patrick watched her face as she obviously tried to approach the question with delicacy. ‘Dead?’ he asked.

Miranda baulked at his blunt delivery and the bleakness in his eyes. Was this what made him look so tired all the time? Did he lie awake every night wondering where she was? Worrying? Grieving for his wife?

‘Well … yes.’ It had been the question foremost in her mind but she’d hoped to put it more delicately. Along with the hundreds of other questions that crowded inside her waiting to be asked.

‘No. She’s out there somewhere.’ Patrick raked his fingers through his hair. It was hard to admit—his wife, Ruby’s mother, was choosing to stay away.

That’s probably what hurt most.

Miranda caught a glimpse of the pain and suffering he must have gone through reflected in the agitated rake of his fingers. She could see it was hard for him and she put her hand out again, touching his forearm.

‘You don’t have to talk about this.’

Patrick looked down at her hand and placed his over the top then smiled at her. ‘Yes, I do. Because if I’d slept with you that night and never seen you again, it would have been fine. But here we are. So I need you to know.’

Miranda nodded and withdrew her hand. It felt too intimate and as much as her empathy meter was blinking off the scale, there were still a lot of reasons why getting too close to Patrick was a bad idea.

If anything, he was even more off limits. Getting involved with a man who was hung up on another woman was just plain dumb.

She only needed to look to her mother for a perfect example of that.

‘Okay. So what happened?’ she asked.

‘There was an extensive search for her. It was all over the news …’

Miranda thought back and did vaguely recall something now about a missing mother that she’d obviously absorbed subliminally in her new-mother fog with a colicky baby who rarely slept and while studying for her grade-twelve exams.

‘Weren’t you … implicated in that?’

Patrick grimaced. ‘Initially, yes. Despite the fact I’d been at work all day for twelve hours with dozens of witnesses.’

Miranda supposed she should have been concerned about that startling piece of information but there was nothing about Patrick that raised her highly developed run-away-fast instincts.

She searched her brain for more titbits for a moment then gave up. ‘I don’t remember what happened after that … Lols was brand new and my life officially sank into a black hole for quite a few months.’

‘There was a media storm and some pretty harrowing questioning by the police and then after two weeks Katie contacted her mother. Left a message on her mother’s machine. Said she was okay but she didn’t want to be a mother any more. Had never wanted it. That she was going away and wasn’t coming back.’

Miranda felt the pressure of something hard and hot wedging under her diaphragm. She couldn’t begin to imagine the state she would need to have been in to abandon Lola. To never see her again. She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘Was there…? Were you having problems? Do you think she was suffering from post-natal depression?’

Patrick liked how easy it was to talk to Miranda. Just like in the bar that night. Most people were emotional and animated or listened with ghoulish delight but, once again, Miranda was reserved and thoughtful.

‘She was only twenty-one when we met. She was in her last year of nursing and doing her prac at the same Sydney hospital where I was an intern. She was this bright, sparkly butterfly. The life and soul of the party, and I was hopelessly smitten. But it was all a façade. She was actually desperately insecure and anxious and she … had some problems with substance abuse. After a few months I began to suspect she was a little bipolar and our relationship had become quite rocky.’

‘And then she fell pregnant,’ Miranda supplied. She understood only too well what a life-changing event that was.