Chapter 1
One minute we were heading to the airport like we did every year, then I was all alone. Everything was telescoping away, making the moment seem surreal. Looking through the taxi window I saw Connor get into his dark blue convertible and drive away from our house. He was leaving me, leaving us.
Connor wasn’t good at talking about how he felt, or how anyone felt really. He would squirm when anyone asked him how he was feeling. So, to avoid any chance of being asked, he out manoeuvred me. We had what people called a robust relationship. Like any Aries he hated sitting still mentally and physically. Worse still, he hated agreeable people. He wanted opposition and so we debated everything from what TV shows to watch, where to go to dinner, politics, law, religion, whether aviator sunglasses were making a genuine comeback, or if the Lord Mayor of Sydney had committed a fashion crime with a mismatching gown and clutch bag at the last gala dinner. Maybe this was part of the problem.
‘Where’s your suitcase?’ I’d asked him as we walked down the long, timbered hallway of our Paddington terrace.
‘I’m not coming,’ he replied.
His words caught me in the middle of my chest. We both kept walking, along the hallway and out the front door, down the steps, through the front garden and onto the footpath. He had waited until it was impossible for me to argue.
‘It’s over between us,’ he said.
I turned to look him squarely in the face. If he was going to end it, I wanted him to look me in the eye. He didn’t falter.
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