Page 22 of The Geography of Happiness

“But the kids?—”

“Fifty-fifty custody and every other weekend.”

I gaped. “Christ. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

He huffed dejectedly. “Yep. Imagine howIfelt. I just coughed up for a surprise trip to celebrate our tenth anniversary. I was going to give it to her next week. Fuck knows if I can get a refund. How do you feel about Italy?”

“That’s not funny,” I chided.

“It kind of is,” he shot back, making me smile.

“Well, I’m not sharing a bed with you,” I quipped, as much to give me time to process the shock of the news as anything else. “Although I’ve heard Rome is lovely in April.”

He snorted, then went worryingly quiet. “What am I going to do, Spence? I never even saw it coming. I thought we were good, you know? I thought we were going to bethatcouple, the couple who actually made it all the way. I thought...” His voice broke and his words faded.

I wanted to haul him through the phone and hug him like I’d done when he was a kid and had injured himself. “You’re going to start by coming down here so we can drink way too much and I can tell you a bunch of lies about how I never liked her much anyway.”

Derek chuckled but there was no humour in the sound.

“And then we’re gonna figure out what to do next, okay?”

I caught the sound of a hard swallow and pictured him nodding. “Thanks, Spence. I won’t cramp your style, so you have to promise me you’ll say if I need to make myself scarce so you can... entertain. You know what I mean?”

I huffed in disbelief. Is that what people thought of me? That I’d do an arsehole thing like that. “Well, I’ll have to postpone the mixed ménage à trois I have planned every Saturday, of course,” I teased. “But those guys are flexible.Soflexible.” I knew it would make him laugh and it did. “But seriously, D, there’s nothing more important than this, so get your butt down here. Does Mum know?”

He grunted. “What do you think?”

“I’ll take that as a no.” Our mother was hardly the Dear Abby type. Not to mention she’d been less than discreet in slamming the idea of D marrying his high school girlfriend. Their wedding wasn’t exactly a high point for our family. “What about the others?”

He sighed. “I wanted to tell you first. I’ll call Todd and Graham later.”

A familiar twinge of guilt niggled my belly. Our younger brothers hadn’t exactly been champs at keeping in touch over the years, which was mostly my fault. I thought of my conversation with Terry and winced. He was right. It was hard letting go of those old feelings even when they didn’t serve you anymore.

“I can tell them for you if you’d rather?” I offered reluctantly.

“No, it’s fine,” Derek insisted. “I’ll do it.”

When he finally hung up, I sat there a moment, gathering my thoughts. I might not want a long-term relationship for myself, but that didn’t mean I didn’t value them or respect the people who managed to make them work. Hell, in awe of them came closer to the truth, and the idea of Derek and Kathryn calling it quits was, quite frankly, devastating. Iftheycouldn’t make it work, what hope was there for someone like me? A selfish commitment-phobe. Safer to not even try.

All that sacrifice and compromise. The wasted years. All the scrimping and saving and planning for a future only to see it disappear in the blink of an eye because someone woke up one day and decided they weren’t in love with you anymore.

How did that even happen?

I blinked back the tears, suddenly fifteen again and finding out D had been bullied at school for months and hadn’t said a word because he didn’t want to worry me or face Mum and Dad. In the end, he hadn’t needed to say a word. The bruises on his face had told their own story. True to form, our parents had been epically unconcerned, convinced it would all blow over if Derek just kept his head down.

Well, fuck that. Derek was my brother, and it was my job to protect him, to protect all of them. Suitably pissed off, the next day at school I’d gone on the hunt for Derek’s tormentors, andthe week’s detention and black eye I’d earned for my retribution was more than worth it at the time. The haranguing from my parents about wasting their time was less easily dismissed. My solution might not have been the most grown-up way to handle things, but the grown-ups in our family had made themselves too scarce for me to give a fuck. The bullying stopped and I was happy.

I wasn’t about to go after Kathryn, but my heart once again hurt for my brother. He’d loved her fiercely and I couldn’t imagine how he’d cope with losing her. But he wasn’t thirteen anymore, and I couldn’t just step in and make everything okay, even if I wanted to. Those days had gone. Not helped by me walking away from them the minute I could.

You were angry. And rightly so.Terry’s soft words and shimmering blue eyes came back to me. He’d never know what hearing those words meant to me, especially from a good father like he so obviously was. He’d stared right through my bullshit and got to the heart of what I was feeling. I knew nothing about him and yet I’d spilled my guts in a way I never did. No one in my current life knew about the lonely, troubled kid saddled with a role I was way too young to handle. A lot of kids had it much worse, after all. At least we had two parents and enough money to scrape by.

They should never have been your responsibility.

No, they shouldn’t have, but it had taken me a long time to understand that. To forgive my brothers for doing nothing more than needing me to be there for them. And to forgive my parents for being the clueless narcissists they were, although that was clearly still a work in progress.

But none of that understanding stopped those old insecurities and fears from ripping to the surface. Torn between wanting to solve their problems and fear of being drawn back into the web I’d run from so long ago.Dammit.What was wrongwith me? My brother’s marriage was falling apart and all I could think about was not getting caught up in it.

My gaze landed on the unopened envelope. I ripped it open and tipped the contents onto the blotter.I knew what it was, and the timing was... eerily timely. I pushed the brochures, tourist information, and weighty course programme aside, and reached for the letter bearing the emblem of the Veterinary School of South Australia. The delivery was the follow-up to a phone conversation I’d had with the head of department the week before when he’d offered me a two-year secondment to run their on-site student training clinic. The offer came with an invitation to fly over and view the clinic and discuss the programme in more depth before I gave an answer. There was an excellent salary package and subsidised accommodation was included.

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