‘It’s going slow, but I think it's finding its feet,’ Norah told her.
‘So I’ll get to see the end of the story, then,’ Poppy said, pleased.
They smiled at each other for a second. And then Poppy felt like her aura was showing. ‘Anyway, finish your shading. I want coffee,’ she said quickly.
Norah chuckled and did as she was told. Poppy went back to her strumming. And soon enough, some words came for her music. Just like that, it became a real song.
Seven
Now
Norah was finding her rhythm. The shock of Poppy’s reappearance was passing with the weeks, and she was left with the situation as it truly was. A niggle, nothing more. She couldn’t carry on worrying about it. She had bigger fish to fry. She was sitting in a waiting room, preparing herself to go into her first couples’ counselling session.
‘You ready?’ she asked Max.
‘What do you mean?’ he replied, confused.
‘Just what I said. Are you ready?’
‘Ready how, though?’
Norah rolled his eyes. ‘Forget it.’
A woman in a jaunty scarf popped her head through the door. ‘Norah and Max?’
***
They came out fifty minutes later, and Norah was exhausted. She had just found out that everything was her fault, and Max was a blameless angel. She’d been quite surprised to learn that.
‘Should we go for a drink?’ Max asked. ‘Talk about the session.’
‘No, we need to get back,’ Norah said flatly. ‘Jane’s expecting us.’
‘I could text her?’ Max asked.
‘What for?’ Norah asked as they headed down the dark city street towards the car.
‘What’s wrong?’ Max asked, finally twigging the bad vibe.
‘What’s wrong?’ Norah spat back, a rage building in her that had been aired in the session. There wasn’t the time. Max had sucked up the whole session with his many, many grievances. ‘What’s wrong was the whole last hour.’
‘I thought that was good,’ Max said, shocked and hurt. ‘We really talked, for the first time in a long time.’
Norah could only laugh.
‘What is it?’ Max asked.
‘You’d like to know what’s wrong with me?’ Norah asked.
‘Yes?’ he said nervously.
‘Funny, you didn’t seem to give a shit in there,’ she said, thumbing in the direction of the counselling office.
Max was confounded. ‘I thought we did great. Really opened things up.’
‘The counsellor made a point of saying that one person couldn’t be solely responsible for every problem in this relationship. Did you even hear that?’ Norah checked.
‘Of course. I know I’m not perfect.’
‘What are your imperfections?’ Norah asked.
Max paused. ‘I don’t always remember to take the rubbish out on time.’
Norah stared at him agog. ‘You said I was emotionally cold. And you think that’s equal to missing the odd rubbish collection?’
‘If you had stuff to say, you should have said it,’ Max said, irate.
‘When? You barely drew breath!’
‘I’ve been holding on to a lot of stuff. I needed to vent. I thought that’s what we were there for.’
‘I thought we were there to talk to each other. Not just vomit grievances,’ Norah fired back.
Max looked wobbly. For a second, Norah thought she’d gotten through to him. But then he shook his head. ‘That’s exactly what I did.’
No, nothing. He couldn’t see past his nose. He never could. Why had Norah overlooked that? She had to be honest with herself. She’d always known this about him. Hadn’t she just thought it was who he was and decided to be OK with it?
Well, the question had now become, could she keep doing that? And for how long?
