Ry stepped down and shook hands with dozens of people before he made his way back to Lizzie and Julia. Right behind him, Joe slapped a hand on his shoulder.
'Nice speech, Ry,' he said, dropping a shopping bag full of books on the ground by his feet, clad in brand new thongs.
'Thanks, mate.' Ry slipped an arm around Julia's waist, pulled her close, then nodded to the bag. 'Plan on catching up on some reading while you're here?'
Joe's face creased in a smile and he adjusted his straw hat. 'It's called holidays, my friend. You should try it some time.'
Ry laughed. 'Why the hell do you think I moved to Middle Point? It's like being on holiday all the time. I think you've been in Sydney too long. You've forgotten what real life is like.'
'Watch out,' Lizzie said, nodding her head in Ry's direction. 'He's become an evangelist for our hometown, Joe.'
'And why wouldn't I want to spruik the charms of this place? You've been away too long in the rat race, mate. Look around. Isn't this the best place in the world?' For a long moment, Ry didn't take his eyes off Julia.
'And speaking of the best,' he added, 'This is brilliant, Lizzie. I mean it. Congratulations.' Ry leaned over and kissed her cheek.
Lizzie's heart grew a little bigger, so full of love for them all. It was wonderful to have Julia, Ry and Joe there with her. For the first time in so many years, she felt cocooned by care and love.
But. And there was always a but. Someone was missing and they all knew who that was.
'Lizzie,' Ry said and waited until she was looking right at him. 'He wanted to be here.'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'He had things to do, I guess.'
Ry rested a hand on her shoulder. 'He feels as proud of this as you do, you know that.'
'We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. He's very talented.' Lizzie sucked in a deep breath. 'I don't know if I should risk a sausage if you've been cooking them, Ry, but I'm starving.'
'Come with me,' he said. 'I might even be able to organise a staff discount.'
By mid afternoon, The Market was packed up and people had drifted off to the beach or the front bar. Everything was under control and Lizzie needed to get home. She felt as if she'd been living at the pub over the past few weeks, what with finishing the work on The Market, juggling stallholders and managing the ordinary business of the place. There had been one major benefit of being so distracted. She hadn't had time to let herself wallow in thoughts about Dan. They'd engaged in shop-talk until everything was finished on the project, sorted out some minor glitches, and then he'd driven off. He'd already been gone a week and she hadn't heard a word from him. Why would she expect to?
Wearily, she dragged her feet up the street until the pink flamingo house came into view. It felt weird to have a housemate again after so many years living alone but as she walked to the front door, she realised how nice it was to have someone to talk to at night. Even if it was about dinner.
'What's for dinner?' Joe called as Lizzie entered the house. He was sprawled on the modular sofa, a book in one hand and a cold beer in the other. Lizzie noticed with a smile that Joe seemed to be slipping very comfortably into the whole rancho relaxo thing.
'God, you're back home for a couple of weeks and you've turned into the teenage you. Don't I even get a "Hello Mum" first?' She dropped her bag on the kitchen table and kicked off her shoes. She needed a long cool drink and a lie down. For about five weeks.
Something caught her eye.
In the middle of the kitchen table sat an enormous bunch of flowers, artfully arranged in an explosion of colour. Yellow lilies, bright orange roses about to bud, sunshine yellow gerberas and something purple she didn't know the name of, all wrapped in pale green tissue paper, sitting in a squat, square glass vase. They were absolutely beautiful and she gasped.
Joe casually looked up from his book. 'Oh yeah. Those came for you.'
If she'd had the energy, she would have rolled her eyes and perhaps smacked him on the side of his head. Instead, she chose to ignore her brother and carefully rummaged through the folds of tissue for a card. Ry and Julia were so sweet. How thoughtful of them to send flowers to her today. Just thinking of their support, and Ry's words of congratulations earlier, brought fresh tears to her eyes.
When she ripped open the small envelope, she found a small white card. It read simply:
Hope it all went brilliantly today. Dan.
Lizzie looked closer at the card. There was something about the handwriting. She recognised it. She'd seen Dan's written instructions on some invoices for the work on The Market and this was the same hand. Without thinking, she lifted it to her nose to smell it, wondering if it carried his scent. There was no trace of him. It smelled of the blooms. She didn't know what he was doing up in Adelaide, and couldn't think about him being there with Anna, but he'd thought of her on this special day. And just thinking of the two of them sent a wave of sadness crashing down upon her. Yes, it had been a long day and she was feeling tired and emotional, but there was no mistaking the ache deep inside that rumbled to life every time she thought of Dan.
She missed him. She was missing what she'd lost. It was that simple.
The card was ripped from her hands. Joe had snuck up behind her, leaned around her and grabbed it, turning away from her and dramatically opening it. 'Who sent the flowers?'
He read the message out loud, raised his eyebrows at her. 'Isn't that nice. Maybe he's not such a surly bastard after all. Maybe there's a big sook inside him when it comes to you.'
Lizzie gritted her teeth. 'Give it back.'
He lifted his arm, held it high, way out of her reach.
God, he was acting like a ten-year old.
'So where was he today, then? If he did so much work on The Market, like Ry said in his speech, why wasn't he there to bask in all the glory with you?'
Trust her bloody journalist brother to hit the nail on the head with one question.
'I hate you, Joe,' she shouted before stomping off to her bedroom and slamming the door behind her with a satisfying bang.
Now who was acting like a ten-year old.
It had been a long week. Dan was beyond wrung out. He'd been staying at Ry's city apartment, a block away from the Central Markets, and had found a routine of appointments during the day, grabbing some Asian takeaway from Gouger Street and dragging it upstairs to eat. Every night he'd fallen into bed, exhausted but unable to sleep, his mind a maelstrom of memories and words and regrets, all whipping around in a spiral like debris in a cyclone.
When Anna had come down to Middle Point, she'd been pretty blunt with him. She'd told him he needed help and that he wouldn't – and shouldn't – get through this on his own. When he'd told her the truth about what had been going on, she'd burst into tears and drunk most of the bottle of vodka. She'd been too humiliated to show her face in Middle Point ever since.
Back on her own turf, she'd swung into action. Anna had taken him to the hospital where he'd been admitted into Emergency the night of the accident. She'd pulled a favour and he was able to meet the paramedics who'd cared for him and one of the doctors who'd treated him to hear first hand how badly he'd been hurt.
Somehow he'd blocked all that out. He hadn't wanted to think about any of it. The chopper ride to the hospital. The shopping list of injuries: severe internal trauma. A lacerated liver. Damage to his spleen. A fractured clavicle. Broken ribs. A broken nose. A broken leg. He'd been placed into an induced coma.
Jesus, if he heard anyone else had been that badly hurt, he'd think the poor bastard would be lucky to be alive. And when he'd heard it all, everything that had happened, it hit him. That was me. And I'm still alive.
I'm lucky to be alive.
In the months after the accident he'd thought that getting as far away from the truth would be the best thing; that if he didn't know what had actually happened, he'd be better off. But now he felt strangely lighter from knowing all the horrific details. He'd been through hell. No wonder he was still feeling it. Simply knowing what had happened washed away some of the blame he'd felt for his depression, the feeling that he didn't deserve to feel that way, the guilt he carried that someone else had died in that crash.
I'm lucky to be alive.
When other people had said it, it had sounded so pat, like a cruel joke, the sort of thing they pronounce when they don't know what else to say in the face of such hideous circumstances. When they have no understanding of what you're going through. And none of those words from others had helped him. He hadn't honestly started to feel lucky until the past month. Since Elizabeth started showing up on his doorstep. Since they'd started working together, spending time together. Since they'd made love.
What had Elizabeth said that was so profound? You just have to get up every day, brush your teeth and hope for an ordinary day. Not a great day or a spectacular day. Just an ordinary day.