Me Without You by Kelly Rimmer

Author:Kelly Rimmer
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781909490376
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2014-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

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After the weeding was done and we’d eaten the fresh salad Lilah had picked, we retired for a lazy nap on the deck. Lilah suggested it, which nearly floored me. She barely slept at night at home, let alone during the day.

It occurred to me that during our visit to Gosford I’d actually found a few ways to make her slow down and rest. I was pleased with myself, thinking forward to the positive impacts the downtime would have on her.

I worried about Lilah sometimes. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I had a feeling she was headed towards some kind of burnout. The only concession I saw in her towards her own physical health, other than the borderline-obsessive diet, was the way she always squeezed in at least a powerwalk every day. Some days she worked from sunrise to sunset, long after I’d fallen asleep myself. And she slept fitfully, jumping around her in sleep as if even in her dreams she couldn’t be still.

If I could have frozen in time a single instant in our relationship, it would have been that half-doze on the cane chairs over the ocean. Our conversation became ever slower, and she snuggled into me as her eyelids grew heavy, and then her breathing slowed into a deep and steady rhythm. I half-slept, not really giving into slumber as she did, but mainly because I was so transfixed by the moment. The softness of her red hair against my arm, the scent of her perfume in the air, and the sound of her breath in time with the waves below—it was intoxicating, and as drunk on her presence as I was, I was also in love.

The realisation wasn’t a shock, although it did slip into my consciousness for the first time that day. I’d loved my parents, I loved my brothers, maybe I loved my work. But this—this was different. The love that had blossomed between Lilah and I, even in the space of just a few months, started from the very centre of my being and it was as solid and real as the earth itself.

When I was in my twenties, Dad would sometimes talk to me about settling down. He worried about me, and sometimes his well-intentioned chats would diverge into long-winded sermons about how much finding Mum had changed his life. I think—hope—I was respectful, but I was so frustrated with his fairy-tale view of the world. By then, I’d known enough girlfriends to know how the system worked and what the emotions involved were.

Until Lilah, I had never understood Dad’s insistence that the right partner could really kick-start my life. After decades of dismissing his thoughts on the matter, I suddenly realised that I was a lot like my dad after all. We were men who fell hard and fast into love, even though it had taken me half a lifetime to meet someone suitable and discover that about myself.

I wondered if—when—I could tell her. Maybe

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