Ask Me to Stay Read Online Free PDF Page B

clearly couldn’t see the value of investing any time in him.
    If only the cost of confiding in her wasn’t so high.
    Irritable and nauseated, Ethan straightened and stretched. When he looked again, Sammy was gazing up at the window. She gave a halting wave and rode on.
    He washed up, downed three glasses of water and pulled on some old clothes. If there were jobs to be done he wanted to help. And thinking of his list, he knew many ways to contribute. Ben O’Hara had loaded up Ethan’s ute in silence yesterday, Catherine had wanted to talk until sundown, but between them they’d provided Ethan with everything he’d needed – tools and information.
    Thinking of his ute, full to bursting with materials, tools, wood and paint, brought a smile to Ethan’s face. Were this not a place of mourning, he would have whistled and skipped downstairs.
    He could hear the washing machine groaning and churning. Further down the hall someone was watching TV. Ethan took a bowl of fruit salad from the fridge, tore away the cling wrap and popped a grape into his mouth. Despite the abundance of food he could tell someone had bought groceries. The staples were all there now: milk, butter, apples. There was fresh bread on the kitchen counter, still wrapped, perhaps intended for lunch.
    Fork and bowl in hand, Ethan shuffled down the hall to greet whoever was in the lounge room.
    Rounding the corner, he paused. Standing amid half-a-dozen mountains of clothes, Cal was running an iron over one of Dean’s polo tops. A kid’s cartoon was playing on the TV. A metre in front of the screen, Nina lay in a pile of shirts, arms and legs like a starfish, mouth open, sleeping. She still wore her nightie.
    Cal noticed Ethan and nodded. ‘Morning, buddy.’
    ‘What the hell are you doing?’
    ‘I’m buying a Vespa. What’s it look like I’m doing?’
    ‘You look like you’re ironing all the clothes in the world.’
    ‘It feels like it. I’m not . . .’ He hesitated. Set down the iron. ‘I’m not doing Bree’s. I mean, should I?’
    Ethan winced. He pressed a hand to his stomach and looked to his niece. ‘Why?’ he asked quietly. ‘I reckon pack it away. Box it up or something.’
    ‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I figured Dean would tackle her wardrobe in his own time, but why add to it, you know?’
    ‘Yeah. Why add to it.’ He wasn’t thinking about clothes now, but truths. ‘You pick the short straw or something?’
    ‘Lost a coin toss.’
    ‘So Sammy’s out in the sunshine and you’re —’
    ‘Watching cartoons and pressing trousers. Yeah.’ He pulled a top free from a pile by the couch and shook it open. ‘Check out the size of this thing. She’s so small.’ The tag of the little blue top had a number six on it. Cal stared at it a moment, smiled and folded it into a square.
    Ethan considered him. ‘You don’t have kids, do you Cal? You would have mentioned that, right?’
    Cal grinned. He topped the iron up with water from a drinking bottle, tested the steam. ‘No kids yet. Anna and I are waiting till we’re married.’
    ‘When’s that?’
    ‘I’ll let you know when I ask her.’
    ‘You’re not engaged?’
    ‘We will be before the week’s out. I was going to ask her over dinner on our anniversary. But that was the day Bree . . . you know.’
    ‘Sure. Wow. Good luck, man.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘One year anniversary?’
    ‘Six months.’
    ‘Wow again. I can’t wait to meet her.’
    Cal pushed a hanger through Dean’s freshly ironed shirt and hung it on a nearby rack. ‘How long have I got to set that up?’ When Ethan didn’t answer, he looked over at him. ‘When are you leaving?’
    Ethan shrugged, burying the irrational hurt. ‘Dunno.’
    ‘Give me notice if you can.’
    ‘Sure,’ Ethan said again.
    He left Cal to his domestic duties and followed the light outside. It was mid-morning and shaping up to be a beautiful day. The sky was so big here. Expansive and blue, unrolling every