Between Before and After Read online

  The grass was cold and wet with dew and she crossed her arms over her chest again, shivering slightly. Gavin turned as she approached, smiling.

  “Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty – complete with ball gown.”

  She pushed the lingering sadness away and settled herself on his lap. He groaned under her weight and she swatted the top of his head.

  “Quit it,” she warned. “That’s not funny.”

  Kate pulled the blanket she was wrapped in firmly around her shoulders.

  “Sorry,” Gavin wrapped his arms around Lacey and pulled her closer. “But I don’t think you’re gonna get that call from New Zealand’s Next Top Model unless you do something with this wardrobe of yours.”

  She leaned back and grabbed his nose, squeezing with just enough force to hurt him momentarily before smiling at Kate at the yelp she elicited.

  “Stop it! You’re just getting me all turned on!” He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively as he massaged his nose, ducking as she made to slap him.

  Kate giggled.

  “Breakfast’s nearly ready.” Lacey settled into Gavin’s lap as he pulled her closer.

  They lapsed into silence. The birdsong was more noticeable now, and they listened to the world waking up around them. There was a slight fog over the water as the sun peeked up over the horizon, casting a warm glow over everything.

  “Did you hear Max last night?” Kate asked quietly.

  “No, I was exhausted though. Did you?”

  “Yeah. I had to get Finn to help me – I couldn’t wake him. He has more staying power than me, though. Despite all the coffee, I fell asleep on the sofa sometime around three, I think.”

  She peered over Gavin’s shoulder at Max, still sitting alone on the step. He always seemed like such a loner these days, in more ways than one.

  As if reading her mind, Kate stood up, pulling the blanket around her. “I’m gonna go and see if Max is okay.”

  They watched her make her way slowly across the lawn, her chin tucked into her chest to block out the cold.

  Lacey shivered and cuddled into Gavin. They sat in silence for several moments. Sometimes it was just too hard to put things into words. Breaking the mood, Gavin stood up suddenly, lifting her with him. She yelped in surprise, then giggled.

  “Put me down! Gav!”

  He ignored her, walking towards the house with her in his arms. As her pleas and fidgeting got too much, he finally set her down gently on the grass, chuckling as he reached for her hand instead.

  “That’s what I get for trying to be romantic.”

  “You don’t have to try so hard.” She pulled him closer and leaned into his shoulder, smiling.

  She looked up to see Kate take Max’s hand and pull him through the front door and into the house. Her smile of moments ago faded as she felt that familiar sense of dread – an emptiness that was different to the emptiness in her womb. Today was the sixteenth. One more day – twenty-four short hours – and they would be marking another anniversary. Another year had passed and Danny was still gone, questions still remained unanswered and the pain of his loss was still raw. She saw it all around her, in the eyes of the people she loved most in this world.

  Lately, she had toyed with the idea that maybe she wouldn’t come to the beach house next year. Maybe next year, she would go to work, do normal things, act like it was just another day. Maybe next year, things would be different. Maybe, by coming here each year to mark the occasion, they were merely prolonging the agony. As always, the idea was followed by a flash of guilt. Who was she kidding?

  She wished she could have just one more day with Danny. One more day to talk to him, to hug him, to tell him he was loved and needed and wanted. One more day to relive the good times, to laugh with him. One more day to hold him in her arms and beg him not to do it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After breakfast, Max grabbed another cup of coffee and headed out onto the deck. Seizing her moment, Kate followed him, grabbing her favourite blanket from the edge of the sofa as she did so. She wrapped it around her shoulders to keep out the chill and settled into one of the deck chairs beside Max, taking in the view.

  “What time is it?” she asked, sipping at her coffee.

  “Just after eight.”

  “I wonder if they still come around the bay?”

  “What?”

  “The stingrays. Remember? Lace and I saw them last year, around the same time both days – in the morning, and in the evening.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right. I’d forgotten about that,” he said. “They give me the bloody creeps. Imagine swimming with those things underneath you?”

  “I think they’re beautiful.”

  “You think everything’s beautiful,” he huffed, throwing her a wry smile.

  “Not true. I hate sharks. And I’m not overly fond of snakes, unless they’re in the form of snake-skin handbags. Ditto crocodiles and aligators.”

  He gave a low chuckle.

  “Anyway, how are things with you? We haven’t really talked since you stopped returning my calls.” She tried to keep her tone light.

  “Lace’s already had a go at me about that, complete with ear-pulling,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee as he surveyed the view.

  “Quite bloody right, too. If she hadn’t, I would’ve.”

  “I know, I know – and I’m sorry. Just got really busy and stuff.”

  “And stuff? Like what? What’s been keeping you so busy then? Where’ve you been?”

  “All over. I was working around the East Cape over Christmas. The money was too good to pass up, so I stayed until the end of January. Cellphone reception was shitty, though.”

  “I suppose that explains why you didn’t call and let me know you weren’t coming up at New Years. What about since then?” she prompted.

  “I was in Taranaki, fruit picking.”

  “No reception in the ‘Naki either?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, yeah, point taken. Sorry – believe it or not, phone reception is not one of the things I investigate before I take a job.”

  “Fair enough,” she conceded. “What do you look at then, before you take a job?”

  He gazed out over the bay. “I don’t know. The money, I suppose. And how long the job’ll go for.”

  “The longer the better, or the shorter the better?”

  “I don’t know. Depends. Why all the questions?”

  “Well, we haven’t talked for a while, and I just want to find out where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to.”

  “I’m not hiding anything, Kate. Honest.”

  “I wasn’t insinuating –“

  “Yeah, you were,” he said quietly, eyeballing her. “But it’s okay – you can ask. I just don’t have much to tell you. I’ve been busy working and keeping my head down. End of story.”

  “Okay, fair enough.”

  She felt uncomfortable pushing him any harder. Hadn’t she told Finn the same thing last night? She knew what she was hiding from Finn, but what was Max hiding from her? She contemplated this as she sipped her coffee.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened last night?” she asked instead, trying a different tack.

  The direct route, that’s what she needed to take. No more beating around the bush. He refused to look at her, instead taking a slow sip of his coffee, his eyes firmly fixed on the water.

  “Like I said, nothing to talk about.”

  “Come on, Max,” she murmured. “Nightmares – still? Don’t you want to –“

  “There!” Max interrupted, standing up suddenly. “See it? Stingray.”

  He pointed to the jetty on the left hand side of the bay and reluctantly, she followed his finger. Sure enough, a large black shape loomed near the base of the jetty, moving slowly towards the beach.

  “Come on!” he called, putting his coffee mug down and racing off down the wooden steps to the lawn.

  “Guys!” Kate called, poking her head in through the F
rench doors behind them. “Stingray in the bay!”

  “Really?” Lacey squealed. “Awesome!”

  Kate left the blanket behind and headed out over the lawn, following Max, who was jogging over the sand towards the jetty. They flew over the beach and Max jumped up onto the jetty and ran down to the end, peering down into the water beside him.

  “Here!” he pointed, as she hurried to catch up.

  “Where?” She searched the water, quick-marching along the jetty towards him.

  “Right there – see it? It’s cruising along the pylons.”

  Suddenly, she spotted it. Like Max said, it was cruising slowly, keeping to the edge of the jetty so it was almost hidden. The water was clear and she peered down into it, marking its path easily.

  “It’s huge,” Max said, following it slowly as it made its way along the jetty towards the beach.

  “Do you think it could be the same one we saw last year?”

  She followed along behind him as they watched the enormous stingray glide gracefully towards the beach. Daring to take her eyes off it for a moment, she glanced up to see Lacey climbing up onto the jetty to join them.

  “Where is it?” Lacey asked as she caught up.

  “There.” Max pointed, following it with his finger. “See it?”

  “I see it.” Lacey leaned over, watching it closely. “Do you think it’s the same one we saw last year?”

  “I don’t know – maybe? They kind of all look the same,” Kate said, looking up for a moment. “Be kinda cool if it was though, wouldn’t it?”

  Lacey grinned in reply.

  They followed the stingray in silence as it glided along towards the beach, then turned and swam parallel to the shore. They ran along the beach with it, mirroring it as they passed the boat shed and climbed up onto the rocky pathway that led out to the jetty on the other side of the bay.

  “Where’s Finn and Gav?” Max asked, glancing up. “They’re missing it.”

  “They went for a walk,” Lacey said. “Their loss.”

  “Wish I had my camera,” Kate said wistfully, following the stingray as it glided over the edge of the rocks and towards the second jetty, on the other side of the bay. For a few minutes, it stopped, and they stopped with it, watching to see what it would do next. It seemed to settle itself in amongst the rocks and they could finally see the true size and beauty of it. It looked to be at least a metre across, and rather than the black they had thought it was, it was actually a dark brown. It settled on a rock and Max let out a long, low whistle.

  “That’s pretty fucking awesome,” Max said. “I wonder where it came from – and where it’s going?”

  “I thought you said they freaked you out?” Kate smiled over at him.

  “That was before. Up close… wow. Totally different. They don’t swim – they glide.”

  “I don’t think I’d want to swim with it, but yeah – it’s pretty amazing alright,” Lacey said.

  They watched it for a few moments longer, before it finally slid off the rocks, beneath the jetty and out into the open water of the Sounds.

  Gavin and Finn headed up the driveway and out onto the road, walking in comfortable silence for several minutes. At this time of the morning, Queen Charlotte Drive was getting busier, and they walked on the grass verge at the edge of the road, keeping an eye and ear out for traffic. The sun had been up for a while and it was warming up the air nicely, the morning chill finally disappearing and giving way to another hot day. Before long, it would be too warm to be out in the open like this. Walks like this were best taken first thing in the morning or in the late evening, just before the sun went down and it was cooler.

  “You stayed up with Max last night,” Gavin said eventually, more a statement than a question.

  “Yeah.”

  Gavin quickened his pace to walk level with him, casting him a furtive glance. “What happened?”

  What the hell do you think happened?

  Finn bit his tongue. Every word of his discussion with Max had replayed over and over in his head all morning. What could Max possibly be hiding from him? And what was it going to take to get him to tell him? One thing was for sure, he couldn’t keep it inside for much longer. These things had a habit of magnifying the longer they stayed inside you. He should know.

  “Nothing,” he said finally. “That’s the problem. He was having a nightmare, I woke him up. He wouldn’t talk about it – usual bloody story.”

  Silence hung over them as they continued to walk for several more minutes.

  “You okay?”

  “Me?” Finn asked, surprised. “I’m fine. A bit tired, but I’ll live.”

  “Is that all it is? You just seem a bit rattled this morning.”

  “Rattled?”

  “Yeah. Y’know, like there’s something on your mind.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You want to get it off your chest?” Gavin raised his eyebrows and turned to look at Finn pointedly.

  Finn gave it careful consideration, albeit only for a few moments. Where would he start? It wasn’t as if they hadn’t discussed this before. None of those conversations had ever ended up offering any solutions either. Swings and roundabouts.

  “It’s nothing,” he said finally. “I’m fine.”

  Gavin didn’t push the issue and he was grateful. Gavin had enough on his plate at the moment. Even so, frustration ate away at him. They walked on for several long minutes in silence, crossing to the other side of the road so they could see the oncoming cars more easily. Finn picked up the pace in an effort to clear his head, and the conversation died away.

  They turned at the next bay, retracing their steps back along the roadside. On a whim, Finn turned off the road a hundred metres before the driveway. They followed a dirt track woven between the mature native trees, down to the water’s edge. Standing on the beach, they watched the surface of the water shimmering in the morning sunshine. Finn could feel the sun beginning to burn the back of his neck and he rolled his shoulders. Worry grated on him, wearing him down.

  “Last night, Max pretty much admitted that the reason he was drinking so much was because of these nightmares.” He knew this wasn’t news, to either of them. “I always thought that he just didn’t want to talk about what happened that day, what he saw – but it’s more than that. He thinks he’s protecting us, by not telling us. He said we should be thanking him.”

  Gavin raised his eyebrows and took a ragged breath, exhaling loudly. “Wow. Well I guess, from his point of view, that might make some kind of sense. He thinks he’s doing the right thing.”

  ”Obviously – which is even more fucked up,” Finn huffed. “I mean, if he hasn’t spoken to anyone about this, then the drinking, the nightmares, they’re probably a result of that. Shouldn’t he be talking to someone? If it’s not us, then he should be talking to a shrink or a counsellor or someone – someone qualified in all this. I’m wondering if deep down, he knows that, and this fruit-picking and forestry stuff and the whole ‘gotta keep moving’ deal, is him just running away from everything – literally running away from it.”

  “Yeah. You could be right.”

  Hearing Gavin agree with him didn’t help as much as he hoped it would. They still needed an action plan – some way to help Max.

  “He can’t just hang onto it like this,” he said. “Jesus – it’s killing him.”

  “I agree, but I don’t know what else we can do. If you have any suggestions as to how we can get him to open up to someone about this then, by all means, jump on in. Lace and I have tried, believe me we’ve tried. She has this friend who’s a counsellor, but the last time we tried to talk to him about it, he shut us down. Point blank refused. What the hell are we supposed to do?”

  Finn threw his hands up in frustration, turning his back on him.

  “I don’t know. He’s near breaking point, I can feel it. When you think about how far he’s slid over the past three years, he’s getting closer and closer to the edge. How far away
is rock bottom for him – and what happens when he gets there?” He shook his head, trying to swallow down the feeling of dread that washed over him, driving an icy spike right through his soul. “I just have this God-awful feeling that he’s running out of time. And you know the worst part? I think he feels it, too.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gavin and Finn took their time walking along the waterfront towards the house. Finn was right, things were getting out of control. Gavin slowly began to put the pieces together. The distance Max had put between them over the past couple of months, the black smudges beneath his eyes, the drinking, the ongoing nightmares, it all pointed to a downhill slide into something much more serious than just a temporary funk. The more he thought about it, the more concerned he became. It was too familiar – too similar to what they had seen Danny go through. If they couldn’t get him to talk to them, what hope did they have of getting him to talk to a professional, someone trained in this kind of thing? One thing was for sure – something had to change.

  The sense of helplessness grew as they approached the house and saw Max sitting on the wooden bench at the edge of the lawn. The coffee cup was gone and in its place, he held the familiar can of beer.

  “See what I mean?” Finn gritted his teeth, shooting a sidelong glance at Gavin. “It’s barely nine o’clock and he’s at it already.”

  Finn picked up the pace and Gavin hurried to keep up with him. His heart sank as he squinted at Max in the morning sun.

  “Just calm down,” he said, trying to keep his head. “No point in attacking him about it, that’s not going to help things.”

  “Really? Well the touchy-feely shit hasn’t worked – maybe he just needs to be told straight.”

  “Just take it easy.”

  Finn didn’t answer and a sense of impending doom crawled its way up into Gavin’s stomach and sat there, heavy and cold.

  “Since when did you crack open a beer at nine o’clock in the morning?” Finn gestured towards the beer in Max’s hand as they finally came within earshot.