Christmas Where They Belong. Marion Lennox

It’d still be here...for ever. But that was a dumb thought. They’d have to sell eventually.

      That’d mean contacting Rob.

       Don’t go there.

      Go in, she told herself. Hunker down. This house is fire-safe. In the morning you can walk away but just for tonight... Just for tonight you can let yourself remember.

      Even if it hurt so much it nearly killed her.

      * * *

      Eleven o’clock. The plane had been delayed, because of smoke haze surrounding Sydney. ‘There’s quite a fire down there, ladies and gentlemen,’ the pilot had said as they skirted the Blue Mountains. ‘Just be thankful you’re up here and not down there.’

      But he’d wanted to be down there. By the time he’d landed the fire warnings for Mount Bundoon had been upgraded. Leave if safe to do so. Still, the weather forecast was saying the winds weren’t likely to pick up until early morning. Right now there was little wind. The house would be safe.

      So he’d hired a car and driven into the mountains, along roads where most of the traffic was going in the other direction. When he’d reached the outskirts of Mount Bundoon he’d hit a road block.

      ‘Your business, sir?’ he was asked.

      ‘I live here.’ How true was that? He didn’t live anywhere, he conceded, but maybe here was still...home. ‘I just need to check all my fire prevention measures are in place and operational.’

      ‘You’re aware of the warnings?’

      ‘I am, but my house is pretty much fire-safe and I’ll be out first thing in the morning.’

      ‘You’re not planning on defending?’

      ‘Not my style.’

      ‘Not mine either,’ the cop said. ‘They’re saying the wind’ll be up by nine, turning to the north-west, bringing the fire straight down here. The smoke’s already making the road hazardous. We’re about to close it now, allowing no one else in. I shouldn’t let you pass.’

      ‘I’ll be safe. I’m on my own and I’ll be in and out in no time.’

      ‘Be out by the time the wind changes, if not before,’ he said grudgingly.

      ‘I will be.’

      ‘Goodnight, then, sir,’ the cop said. ‘Stay safe.’

      ‘Same to you, in spades.’

      He drove on. The smoke wasn’t thick, just a haze like a winter fog. The house was on the other side of town, tucked into a valley overlooking the Bundoon Creek. The ridges would be the most dangerous places, Rob thought, not the valley. He and Julie had thought about bush fire when they’d built. If you were planning to build in the Australian bush, you were stupid if you didn’t.

      Maybe they’d been stupid anyway. Building so far out of town. Maybe that was why...

      No. Don’t think why. That was the way of madness.

      Nearly home. That was a dumb thing to think, too, but he turned the last bend and thought of all the times he’d come home, with kids, noise, chaos, all the stuff associated with twins. Sometimes he and Julie would manage the trip back together and that was the best. ‘Mummy, Daddy—you’re both here...’

      Cut it out, he told himself fiercely. You were dumb to come. Don’t make it any worse by thinking of the past.

      But the past was all around him, even if it was shrouded in smoke.

      ‘I’ll take their toys and get out of here,’ he told himself, and then he pulled into the driveway... and the lights were on.

      * * *

      She’d turned on all the lights to scare the ghosts.

      No. If there were any ghosts here she’d welcome them with open arms—it wasn’t ghosts she was scared of. It was the dark. It was trying to sleep in this house, and remembering.

      She lay on the king-sized bed she and Rob had bought the week before their wedding and she knew sleep was out of the question. She should leave.

      But leaving seemed wrong, too. Not when the kids were here.

      The kids weren’t here. Only memories of them.

      This was crazy. She was a legal financier, a good one, specialising in international monetary negotiations. No one messed with her. No one questioned her sanity.

      So why was she lying in bed hoping for ghosts?

      She lay completely still, listening to the small sounds of the night. The scratching of a possum in the tree outside the window. A night owl calling.

      This house had never been quiet. She found herself aching for noise, for voices, for...something.

      She got something. She heard a car pull into the driveway. She saw the glimmer of headlights through the window.

      The front door opened, and she knew part of her past had just returned. The ghost she was most afraid of.

      * * *

      ‘Julie?’ He’d guessed it must be her before he even opened the door. Firstly the car. It was a single woman’s car, expensive, a display of status.

      Rob normally drove a Land Rover. Okay, maybe that was a status thing as well, he conceded. He liked the idea that he might spend a lot of time on rural properties but in truth most of his clients were city based. But still, he couldn’t drive a car like the one in the driveway. No one here could. No one who commuted from here to the city. No one who taxied kids.

      Every light was on in the house. Warning off ghosts?

      It had to be Julie.

      If she was here the last thing he wanted was to scare her, so the moment he opened the door he called, ‘Julie, are you here? It’s Rob.’

      And she emerged from their bedroom.

       Julie.

      The sight of her made him feel... No. He couldn’t begin to define how he felt seeing her.

      It had been nearly four years. She’d refused to see him since.

       ‘I slept while they died and I can’t forgive myself. Ever. I can’t even think about what I’ve lost. If I hadn’t slept...’

      She’d thrown it at him the day he’d brought her home from hospital. He’d spent weeks sick with self-blame, sick with emptiness, not knowing how to cope with his own grief, much less hers. The thought that she blamed herself hadn’t even occurred to him. It should have, but in those crucial seconds after she’d said it he hadn’t had a response. He’d stared at her, numb with shock and grief, as she’d limped into the bedroom on her crutches, thrown things into a suitcase and demanded he take her to a hotel.

      And that had pretty much been that. One marriage, one family, finished.

      He’d written to her. Of course he had, and he’d tried to phone. ‘Jules, it was no one’s fault. That you were asleep didn’t make any difference. I was awake and alert. The landslip came from nowhere. There’s nothing anyone can do when the road gives way.’ Did he believe it himself? He tried to. Sometimes he had flashes when he almost did.

      And apparently, Julie had shared his doubts. She’d written back, brief and harsh.

      

       I was asleep when my babies died. I wasn’t there for them, or for you. I can barely live with myself, much less face you every day for the rest of my life. I’m sorry, Rob, but however we manage to face the future, we need to do it alone.

      

      And he couldn’t help her to forgive herself. He was too busy