The Secret Ingredient (16 page)

‘What do you mean?'

Andie swallowed, she could feel tears rising in her throat again. God, there must be some kind of limit to how many tears you can produce in a given period? And she must be getting close to it.

She cleared her throat, but her voice was thin and wavering when she eventually spoke. ‘He collapsed in the garage. It must have happened that day.'

‘Oh, Andie.' He reached over and placed his hand on hers. ‘You couldn't have known.'

She turned to him, tears pooling in her eyes. ‘But if only I'd checked . . .'

Her voice broke, and Ross drew her slowly and tentatively into his arms, but she didn't resist. She leaned her head against his chest while he stroked her hair and shushed her.

‘It's not your fault,' he said quietly. ‘It's just something that happened, you couldn't have changed it. It was his time.'

After a while, Andie drew back. She wiped her face with her hands, and Ross passed her a handkerchief. He liked to carry a pressed white handkerchief. Andie had always thought it was quaintly old-fashioned.

‘Thanks,' she said, taking it from him. She breathed deeply. ‘Anyway, we'll know more after the autopsy.'

‘So they suspect his heart?'

She nodded. ‘Or maybe an aneurism. They can't tell for sure.'

‘How long will the autopsy take?' he asked.

‘I don't know. A few days, maybe . . . I really don't know.'

‘But it will delay the funeral?'

‘I guess.'

He reached over and took her hand, enclosing it in both of his. ‘Andie, we have a lot to talk about, but now is not the time. So I'm not going to make excuses, or promises, or ask for forgiveness, or anything like that.'

She turned her head to look at him.

‘I just want to say this. You said yourself that even just a week ago, my place would have been with you. We can't change what happened, and I completely understand why you don't want to go back to the apartment. But I want to be with you through this. So, I booked us a serviced apartment in the city —'

‘Ross —'

‘Just hear me out,' he said. ‘Can't we put this aside for now – not behind us, I know it's not going away – but just to the side? Let me support you through this. I want to stand with you at the funeral, as your husband. Andie, you've lost so much, you've only got Meredith left, and you two have never been close. I'm your only other family.'

Andie stared straight ahead. The moon was low over the water, casting a shimmering, silver trail before it. Ross was still holding her hand. It was comforting.

‘I don't want to go to a serviced apartment,' she said finally. ‘It would be like staying in a hotel.'

‘I'd be there with you.'

‘Not all the time,' she pointed out.

‘Are you sure you wouldn't feel more comfortable in your own home?'

She drew her hand out of his then. ‘I don't have a home now, Ross. You've taken that away from me.'

‘I wish you didn't feel that way.'

‘Well, I wish you hadn't done what you did,' Andie returned sharply.

‘Okay, okay,' he said. ‘I'll drop it.'

She breathed out. ‘I'm comfortable at Donna and Toby's, I want to stay with them.'

‘All right, whatever you need,' said Ross. ‘But will I be able to see you, a little? Will you let me come with you to the funeral?'

Andie thought about it. ‘I suppose, but I'm not making any promises, Ross. If I change my mind, or I feel differently, for whatever reason . . .'

‘Okay,' he nodded.

‘And you can't harass me.'

‘I won't, of course I wouldn't harass you, Andie.'

‘No demands, is what I'm saying.'

‘I won't make any demands of you,' he vowed. ‘I'm just asking you to keep me in the loop. Call me, anytime, day or night.'

Andie looked at him. In this light he was still the man she'd fallen in love with, her husband of ten years . . .

‘You know I love you, Andie.'

She turned away. ‘I'd like you to take me back to the house now.'

‘I don't understand why you have to go to the funeral with him,' Jess was saying. ‘I would have taken you.'

Andie had already been through this with Toby. ‘It just makes it easier if I go with Ross,' she explained. ‘Meredith doesn't know that I've left the apartment, I don't feel like going into it all with her right now.'

The last thing she needed was more of Meredith's disapproval. Nothing Andie did to help with the arrangements was good enough, nothing she said was the right thing. Even the results of the autopsy had done little to appease her sister. Their father had suffered a massive heart attack – an ‘acute myocardial infarction' as it was described in the report.
Had he actually been in a hospital when it had happened, they might –
might
– have been able to save him. As it was, he didn't stand a chance. It was still horrible to think that he was lying dead in his car while Andie was in the house, even more horrible to think that he had lain there for days afterwards. But she couldn't be held responsible for his death.

Neville had been decent, under the circumstances, though if Andie heard ‘It's the grief talking' one more time, she thought she might scream. They were both grieving, but even though they were burying their father together, they couldn't share that grief, they were too distant from each other, and it broke Andie's heart that she wasn't close to the only surviving member of her family.

So no matter how tenuous the tie that bound them, Ross was still Andie's husband, her next of kin, and she couldn't get through this without him.

‘Well, I'm still coming,' Jess was saying, ‘if that's okay?'

‘Of course it's okay,' said Andie. ‘I really appreciate it, thank you.'

Meredith insisted on the full Requiem Mass, at least they agreed about that. Their father was a card-carrying Catholic of the staunchest variety; Andie was sure he found comfort in the strict adherence to rules. It suited his engineer's logical mind, not that any religion could be considered logical, in Andie's mind. But in Catholicism there were actions and consequences, sin and repentance, a lifetime of guilt in return for an afterlife in heaven, at least after a spell in purgatory to pay for your wrongdoings. Andie had heard they'd dropped the idea of purgatory, clearly even the Almighty had to adapt to modern mores. But as far as Andie knew, her parents never got that memo, and still held firmly to the doctrine. Penance was obligatory. Punishment was essential.

Such a long ceremony in such a voluminous, near-empty church only served to emphasise the pathos of her father's passing. Neville's mother and sister came, which was nice of them, but Andie didn't recognise anyone else; she guessed they were parishioners of the church. She wondered if they really knew her father, or whether it was just their official duty, like a modern version of wailers, only silent.

So Andie couldn't muster up much emotion at the church; the cemetery was a different matter. She hated the place, she hadn't been back since her mother was buried, not even to visit Brendan's grave. It just didn't feel like it had anything to do with him; he didn't belong amongst all these stone monoliths, grim and sombre against the backdrop of the container terminals. It was such an ugly setting, and Andie had argued vehemently about the decision to bury Brendan here. She thought he should be cremated, and they should scatter his ashes somewhere that had particular meaning to him. He was a surfer, and he had a few favourite breaks, Toby would know the best spot. But her mother had thought she was disgraceful even to suggest it. Their own parents had been buried here, and they were adamant that family should be together in their final resting place. Andie watched as her father's coffin was lowered into the ground, in the same plot as his wife, reunited at last. Tears filled her eyes, and she thought of her brother, her beautiful, vital, young brother, sealed in a box beneath a couple of metres of earth, right under where they were standing. He'd be nothing but bones now.

That did it. Andie finally broke down. She felt Ross's arms close around her, holding her up as she sagged against him, and she just let it all out, she didn't care. She was grieving for Brendan, for the life that he never got to live, and she was grieving for her mother, for a life so unfulfilled. And now her father's life was over too. Her family, all dead and buried.

‘People grieve differently, you know, Andrea,' Meredith said, catching up to her as they made their way through the cemetery back to their cars.

‘I know that, Meredith.'

‘I'm just not the type to burst into tears in public . . . that doesn't mean I'm not devastated . . .'

They arrived back at the cars. Meredith had instructed the funeral directors to provide a limousine for the family, but Andie told her that she and Ross would follow in their own car. She was fairly certain Ross was not counted as family anyway. Philippa and Tristan were climbing into the funeral car. Andie barely knew them, and yet they were the closest blood relatives to her after Meredith. She wondered if anything would change or if they would grow even further apart, now that there was nothing, no one, to hold them together.

‘There are things to discuss, to settle,' Meredith was saying. ‘The will, what we're going to do with the house.'

Andie nodded. ‘Of course.'

‘I'll call you next week.' Meredith stooped to give Andie a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, before turning towards the waiting limousine. Neville was holding the door open for her and he lifted his hand in a wave, before climbing in after his wife. There wasn't going to be a wake. Meredith said they were in bad taste, Andie thought it was just as well they wouldn't have to spend another couple of strained hours in each other's company.

Ross had discreetly dropped behind when Meredith caught up with them; now he came up next to Andie, resting a hand on the small of her back. ‘Are you all right?'

She looked at him. ‘I'm glad it's over, to be honest.'

He nodded. Jess and Toby and Donna drew up alongside her.

‘I really appreciate you coming, Ross,' said Andie.

‘That sounds suspiciously like I'm being dismissed,' he said.

‘Well, it's just that I can go home with Toby and Donna,' she explained. ‘There's really no need for you to go out of your way.'

‘I want to go out of my way for you,' he insisted, drawing his arm more firmly around her waist and leading her to his car.

Andie looked over her shoulder at the others. ‘See you at home, then.'

‘I don't know why she couldn't have just come with us,' Toby grumbled as they tailed Ross's car out of the cemetery. ‘We were standing right there, there's room for her in the car. I hate the way he just takes over.'

‘God, you don't think he's going to come in, do you, back at your place?' Jess asked from the back seat.

‘I didn't invite him.'

‘Oh, come on, you two,' Donna said sternly. ‘Don't start. Andie's father died, she needs all the comfort and support she can get.'

‘We're here for her.'

‘And Ross is still her husband,' Donna reminded them.

‘Hm,' Jess grunted, staring out the window. ‘She said a funny thing to me, it's been playing on my mind ever since. She said that she wanted Ross to come to the funeral because Meredith didn't know she'd left the apartment.'

‘Yeah, she told us the same thing,' said Donna.

‘Meredith's a real piece of work,' said Toby. ‘I do totally get why Andie wanted to keep up appearances in front of her.'

‘That's not my point,' said Jess. ‘I mean she's saying “left the apartment” not “left Ross”.' Jess waited for that to sink in. ‘I'm worried that this obsession she has about not going back to the apartment is a smokescreen.'

‘I don't understand,' said Donna.

‘A smokescreen,' Jess repeated, ‘stopping her from seeing things clearly.'

‘Oh,' said Donna, nodding thoughtfully. ‘So you think Ross is never going to agree to having a baby?'

‘What's a baby got to do with it?'

Toby had to pull up at a set of lights after Ross and Andie's car had slipped through on the orange. Both he and Donna turned around in their seats to look directly at Jess.

‘What do you mean?' Toby asked.

Jess saw the bewilderment on their faces. Andie still hadn't told them? She was staying with them for fuck's sake! Now Jess was even more worried. Andie had created such an effective smokescreen it was keeping everyone in the dark.

‘Jess?' Donna prompted. ‘What do you know?'

‘Nothing,' she said lamely.

‘Bullshit, Jess,' said Toby. ‘There's something more to this . . . I knew it,' he said, turning back around in his seat and giving the steering wheel a thump, just as a car beeped them from behind. The lights had turned green.

Toby took off through the intersection. ‘Spill, Jess. We have a right to know.'

‘Not if she didn't tell us herself,' said Donna.

‘She has a point,' said Jess.

‘He's fooling around on her, isn't he?' said Toby.

‘Thank God you guessed,' Jess sighed with relief. ‘I didn't tell you, right, guys?'

‘Why didn't she tell us?' said Donna.

‘Bastard!' Toby clenched the steering wheel. ‘If I get my hands on him . . .'

‘There's your answer, Donna,' said Jess. ‘She was protecting Ross – not just from Toby, but from either of you thinking badly of him.'

‘Too late for that,' Toby muttered.

Donna was frowning. ‘He's cheating on her? Poor Andie, how did she find out?'

‘The worst possible way,' said Jess.

‘What do you mean?' Toby glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

‘Oh . . . I really don't think I should tell you this part.'

‘God, she didn't find them together, did she?' he grimaced.

‘You're good,' said Jess.

‘Oh no!' Donna exclaimed. ‘Poor Andie, how awful.'