Chapter 9

Terry took Dale to the airport.

Dale took his time kissing her goodbye. With a heavy heart, Terry watched him walk away. She couldn’t handle going to work. She had made sure the day was patient free, but she did have paperwork she could do. She went home to her unit.

Her sanctuary as she had called the little unit her dad had built her, now felt alien. It was as if she didn’t belong here anymore. She crawled into her old bed, but it was cold and didn’t feel right. The room smelt musty and uninviting.

The bed didn’t have that little wallow that our body creates over time, so she couldn’t get comfortable. She tossed and turned, but the room just felt off. She swore in frustration and rolled off the bed. Terry grabbed her bag and found herself driving back to Dale’s house.

She felt better once she was back inside. She stripped off and crawled into Dale’s bed. She found her wallow in the mattress and settled down. She hugged Dale’s pillow and sighed when she smelt his scent. At least this room smells right, but something was missing from this room too.

“Fuck!” she screamed into the empty house as she flopped onto her back.

She had never been in this bed without Dale being here. Even the house felt as if it was just waiting for him to get home. She had not realised just how powerful and comforting Dale’s very presence was. She gave up, crawled out of bed and got dressed for work.

She walked out to the kitchen to get a drink and stopped to stare at the fridge. Pinned to the fridge door with Dale’s spaceship magnets was an A3 size page. On it, Dale had drawn a great, big, red heart with the whiteboard marker.

A purple arrow was stuck through it. In the top half were Terry’s initials and Dale’s were in the bottom half. Scrawled across the top of the page in his childish style and in blue ink, were the words, ‘I Love You’.

Terry stood and looked at the page as the tears trickled down her face. It took her a little while to pull herself together. Then she noticed along the bottom written in black ink, ‘Go to Sally’s and get your present’.

She frowned. ‘Why would Dale leave a gift for me at Sally’s?’ she thought.

She cleaned herself up, got a drink of water to calm down and then went next door. She knocked on the door and waited. She could only blame curiosity for even being here.

Sally opened the door, wrapped her arms around her and hugged her tightly. She then escorted Terry inside. “You poor thing. I know how hard the first night is when they go away. For a couple of years, Bob worked FIFO (fly-in-fly-out), and I hated it every time he left.”

“I do hope that you like the present Dale left you, he is such a thoughtful boy. He was so worried about you being by yourself that he was quite fretful. That man loves you to death, dear.”

“He asked us to check on you, as he didn’t want you to feel alone. I told him you were welcome to stay with us if you needed company,” Sally told Terry as she walked her into the lounge room and sat her down.

Sally then knelt down to open a small cage. “This is Jack,” she said and handed Terry the fluffy, black, Persian kitten. She then bent down again and pulled out another bundle of fur that was white.

As she sat next to Terry, she said, “This is Jill. I have no idea why he picked those silly names. He said he had to get two of them because he didn’t want Jack to be lonely while you were at work. He said every bloke has to have a girl. Plus, he said Jill was his and Jack is yours.”

Terry looked at the kittens and broke into sobs. Sally hugged her and tutted as the young woman shook in her arms. After a few minutes, Terry put Jack down in her lap so she could wipe away her tears.

Jack clawed her shorts several times and then circled and curled up into a little ball and started purring. Jill jumped into her lap and snuggled into Jack. She wrapped herself around him. He then laid a paw over her protectively, and they both purred happily.