Losing Jack

Chapter 8

Andy Stevens was sitting at his desk, toying with a matchbox car. One that his twin boys left behind when they had come to visit with Melanie earlier. Usually would be home now, enjoying lunch time shenanigans with them all.

Mel had to make a trip to Albany instead. She passed through on her way to drop the boys off with her mother and dropped him off some lunch - which still sat untouched on his desk, hidden beside his computer. It just wasn't the same without them.

Alice, one of the banks employees knocked gently, then poked her head around the corner of his open door. Smiling apologetically she whispered “Sorry to bother you Andy. I know it's your lunchbreak, but there is a lady on the phone named Sandy, from Whispering Vines. She asked if she could talk to you, it's quite urgent.”
“Oh, yes, please patch her through Alice, thanks.”
Andy waited for the familiar beep and red flashing light on his desktop phone before picking up, “Hi Sandy.”
“Hi, just looking at a letter from you guys, and I just wanted to touch bases with you Andy. Maybe we can arrange an appointment or something?”
“Absolutely, how does tomorrow after lunch sound, I will come out to you?
“Thanks that sounds good,” said Sandy.

Andy hung up the phone thoughtfully, it was a sad state of affairs about Whispering Vines. It couldn't be easy for Sandy right now. He imagined that everything must feel as though it were falling apart on her. He had only ever seen Whispering Vines in this much trouble once before.

Andy was the same age as Jack and at the graduation party the same night Jack had his accident. Jude and Daniel were inconsolable afterward. Over the coming months Andy had thought the Harpers would have given up the vineyard. It would have been the easiest thing to do -but they didn't.

Months later when they had brought Jack home from the hospital, things at the vineyard never stopped.  Somehow they just seemed to manage enough to pay the bills. He didn't know how they had done it, but they did.

It stayed that way for a long time. Daniel and Jude seemed deflated as though they had nothing to look forward to, that was until Sandy come to stay with them. Sandy changed the dynamics of everything.

Apparently Sandy had quite the reputation around town.  Nobody really knew her well, except for Michael. She hadn't attended school in town, she didn't mix socially with any of the locals, but she was well known for having a very short fuse. Word was Sandy wasn't afraid to tell anyone what she thought of them.

Andy heard plenty of stories from Whispering Vines employees about what a hard ass Sandy was. Legend had it that she worked like a man and put plenty of blokes twice her size in their place. She commanded respect and lead by example. That sounded to Andy like someone who was perfect for running a vineyard.

With a smile Andy recalled the most recent gossip to have hit the town about Sandy.  How she had attacked poor Mrs Gribble and her dear old friends after Jude’s funeral. Andy had listened as Mrs Gribble, fanning herself in a panic with her favourite handkerchief.  She and a few of her friends had gone over to console the girl and Sandy had turned on them. Attacked them. Then she had used the “P” word to tell the whole lot of them to get off her property before stomping off, and dragging that poor retarded boy with her…

Andy didn't believe a single word of how it had happened, but he would have given anything to have been a fly on the wall that day. He couldn't have imagined anything better than someone sticking it to those horrible old battle-axes.

If only he could be more like Sandy...

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Melanie Stevens pulled up at her parents’ house. She had just come from delivering lunch to Andy at work. Looking in the rear-view mirror at her twin boys Matty and Luke, who were happily watching a cartoon on their portable DVD players, she felt a small pang of guilt. She pushed it away into the back of her mind and swallowed hard.

She had told Andy that she wouldn't be home for lunch because she had to do a trip to Albany for a dentist appointment. And would as have her mum look after the boys. Poor Andy had looked disappointed, which had made her feel even worse. He always come home at lunch time to be with her and the boys.  It was one of those little extra things he did to make up for the times he had to stay late at work.

Mel’s mother come out of the house to greet them waving excitedly and at once began fussing with the two boys helping them out of their seats and giving them nanna kisses on the cheek.

“I'm so glad that you are here. Pop told me this morning that he wanted some choc chip cookies for his afternoon tea, but I don't think I remember how to make them. I can't cook and hold the recipe book all by myself either.  Then I was just thinking what a pity it was that I didn't know two clever boys who could help me.”
“We can, we can,” said Matty and Luke excitedly bounding out of the car and into the house.

Mel looked over at her mum.
“How are you getting on?” she asked hugging her daugther.
“Me, oh I'm great, how about you and Dad. How's his blood pressure?”
“Just fine, the doctor said he is going to cut down the medication he is doing so well.”
“That’s great Mum. I will stop in for a coffee and see you and Dad once I get back.”

“Well you better get going then before they realise you're not staying,” said her mother pointing to the house where the two boys had disappeared.
Mel nodded guessing  by now the pair of them would be jumping all over the lounges terrorising her Dad.

“Thanks Mum, see you in a bit.”
As she took off down the road, her guilt began to escalate along with her nerves.

She wasn't proud about what she was doing, she didn't even know why she was doing it. Most people would have killed for the life that she had. A beautiful home, two gorgeous children, loving devoted husband, anything she could possibly want, so you would have thought.  It hadn't been enough, obviously.

Here she was lying, cheating and on her way to Albany to meet up with the man she was having an affair with.

Arriving at the hotel parking lot, she contemplated her reasons, as if to justify to herself what she was doing wasn't so bad. Deep down she knew having an affair was the wrong on so many levels. When she was with him it just felt so right, as though she shouldn't have been anywhere else but right there in his arms.

It wasn't that Andy didn't care for her, or that he wasn't the best provider and father she could have ever wished for, he was all of those things and more. Her dilemma ran deeper than that, she loved Andy, there was no denying it, but this was something else. She had fallen in love with this other man, he was everything that Andy wasn't. Fierce, protective but kind hearted and deep all at the same time and she couldn't get enough of him.

It had started out a year ago as old school friends  who happened to meet up at the shopping centre. He had been away for a long time and had come back to town. They talked - connected like old times. She couldn't  get him  out of her mind.

It had been her idea, she had suggested that they meet again, just to catch up over lunch in Albany one day for old time’s sakes. A year later it had become much more than that. She ached to feel his touch, hear his voice, look into his eyes and have him confirm that he felt the same way about her too.
The first time it happened, laying in his arms she looked into his eyes, “this can never work…us, being together.”

She knew their relationship was a dead end street. There was no way she would break up her family and ruin everything that her and Andy had built together. They had talked about it, she had even tried to end it, but she couldn't do it.

In the end as they had lay together in each other’s arms, in a few fleeting hours they had stolen away. He had told her that he would always love her, he didn't mind playing second fiddle. It was better than being no part of the band at all.

So there she was. Faking a dentist appointment, leaving her children behind with her parents, disappointing Andy, to sneak off for a few precious moments alone with him. Then they would regretfully part each other’s company. Going about their normal lives they would pretend that they were nothing more than acquaintances, and avoiding eye contact when they passed each other in the street. Lying to themselves, that what they were doing was somehow ok. Holding out until the next time they secretly met….

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