Sister's Validation

"I couldn't stop pacing. A body in motion stays in motion—it's physics, not hysteria."

Amelia answered on the second ring.

"Claire? What the hell happened? Are you alright?"

Her voice was sharp with concern, that particular tone she got when she was assessing a situation—the midwife's instinct to triage, to determine the severity of a crisis before deciding how to respond. I could picture her in her Townsville kitchen, phone pressed to her ear, probably wiping down a bench or stacking dishes because Amelia never just sat still during a phone call. Always moving, always doing. We had that in common, at least.

"I'm fine," I said. The words came out automatically, the way they always did. I'm fine. Everything's fine. "He's gone."

"Gone where?"

I opened my mouth to answer and found I didn't have one. Where had Paul gone? I didn't actually know. He hadn't said. He hadn't said anything at all—just grabbed his bag from the rose bushes and driven off into the dark without a single word.

"I don't know," I said. "He just... left."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. I could hear the faint sounds of Amelia's house—a tap running, the clink of crockery, the distant murmur of a television in another room. Normal sounds. The sounds of a life that hadn't just cracked down the middle.

"Start from the beginning," Amelia said. Her voice had shifted, softer now, more measured. The triage was complete; she'd determined this was serious but not emergency-level. "What happened after we got cut off?"

I realised I was still standing in the kitchen doorway. My feet were aching from the cold, that deep bone-ache that came from standing on frozen boards for too long, and the warmth of the kitchen floor was almost painful against my soles. I made myself move, stepping properly into the room, and my body seemed to wake up with the movement—restless energy flooding through my limbs, demanding action.

"I went to the bedroom," I said, pacing towards the sink, then away again. "To find him. To finish the bloody conversation he'd walked out on."

The kitchen wasn't large, but it was enough space to move. Six steps from the doorway to the sink. Four steps from the sink to the table. I traced the perimeter as I talked, unable to stand still, my free hand gesturing at nothing.

"And he was at the window. Climbing out the window, Amelia. Like a—" I stopped, the image surfacing again in my mind. Paul's legs straddling the sill, his body silhouetted against the last of the daylight, the look on his face when he'd realised I was watching. "Like a teenager sneaking out after curfew."

The laugh that escaped me was strange—too sharp, too high, catching in my throat like something with edges. It didn't sound like my laugh. It sounded like someone else entirely, someone standing just behind me, finding humour in things that weren't funny.

"He went out the bloody window," I said again, and this time the words landed differently. Saying them aloud made them real in a way they hadn't been before, gave them weight and shape. My husband, the father of my children, had climbed out a window to avoid talking to me. "Can you believe that? Thirty-six years old and he went out the window."

"Jesus Christ." Amelia's voice carried the disbelief I was feeling, reflected it back at me, amplified it. "That's... Claire, that's insane."

"I know."

"That's actually insane. Who does that?"

"Paul, apparently." I'd reached the sink again. My hand found the kettle without conscious decision, lifting it, feeling the weight of the water still inside from earlier. Not enough. I moved to the tap, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder the way I'd done a thousand times before, and let the water run. "Paul does that. Paul climbs out windows instead of having adult conversations with his wife."

The water thundered against the metal base of the kettle, too loud, and I adjusted the flow. Behind me, Charlie's claws clicked on the floor—she'd followed me from the hallway and was settling onto her bed again, watching me pace with those patient, worried eyes.

"Did he say anything?" Amelia asked. "Before he... I mean, did he explain—"

"Nothing." I set the kettle on its base and flicked the switch. The blue light came on, that small electronic glow, and I stared at it without seeing it. "I asked him what he was doing and he just... he lost his balance and fell into the roses. My roses. The David Austins."

"He fell?"

"Into the garden bed. Then he picked himself up, grabbed his bag—he'd already thrown his bag out the window, Amelia, he'd planned this—and he got in the car and drove off. Didn't look at me. Didn't say a single word."

I was pacing again, the phone hot against my ear. The kettle was starting to hiss, that pre-boil rumble that meant it would be ready in a few minutes. I should get a mug. I should get the tea. But my feet kept moving, carrying me back and forth across the kitchen floor, and the thought of stopping felt impossible.

"That's..." Amelia trailed off, and I heard her exhale—a long, slow breath, the kind you let out when you're trying to find the right words. "That's so typical of him, Claire. I'm sorry, but it is. It's exactly the kind of thing he does."

"I know."

"Running away instead of dealing with things. Making everything into a drama instead of just talking like a normal person."

"I know."

"You deserve better than this. You know that, right?"

The validation settled over me like a warm blanket, soothing something raw and aching in my chest. Amelia understood. Amelia always understood. She'd never liked Paul—had tolerated him for my sake, had been polite at family gatherings and careful never to criticise him directly, but I knew. Sisters always knew. And now, with the distance of two thousand kilometres and the permission that crisis granted, she was finally saying what she'd probably been thinking for years.

"He just left," I said, and my voice sounded strange again—smaller, younger, not quite my own. "He didn't even... he just left."

"I know, love."

The kettle clicked off. I stopped pacing, stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking at the wisp of steam rising from the spout. I should make tea. That's what you did in situations like this. You made tea, you sat down, you processed things like a reasonable adult. That's what Mum would do. That's what Mum would tell me to do.

I didn't move towards the kettle.

"What are you going to do?" Amelia asked.

The question hung in the air, waiting for an answer I didn't have. What was I going to do? What could I do? He'd left. He was gone. The house was empty and the kids were at Mum's and my husband had climbed out a window rather than face me.

"Nothing," I heard myself say. "There's nothing to do. He'll call. He always does."

"Does he?"

"When he's ready. When he's had time to sulk and feel sorry for himself. He'll call and pretend nothing happened, or he'll call and apologise without actually apologising, and then we'll just..." I made a gesture with my free hand, a vague wave that encompassed everything—the house, the marriage, the years of careful pretending. "We'll just carry on. Like we always do."

The words tasted bitter in my mouth, but they were true. This was the pattern. This was what we did. Paul retreated, I held things together, and eventually he came back and we resumed the performance of being a functional couple. It had worked—more or less—for years. There was no reason to think this time would be different.

"You shouldn't have to put up with this," Amelia said. Her voice had that edge again, the one that meant she was holding back what she really wanted to say. "You know that, don't you? This isn't normal. This isn't how marriages are supposed to work."

"I know."

"I'm serious, Claire. The way he treats you—"

"I know, I know." I cut her off, not wanting to go further down that path. Not tonight. "I just... I need to get through tonight. I need to—I don't know. I don't know what I need."

There was a pause. I could hear Amelia breathing, could almost feel her weighing her next words, deciding how hard to push.

"Do you want me to come down?" she asked finally. "I could get a flight tomorrow, be there by—"

"No." The word came out too quickly, too sharp. I softened my voice. "No, that's... thank you. But no. The kids are at Mum's, I've got classes to teach, there's no point disrupting everything just because Paul's having some kind of... whatever this is. Mid-life crisis. Breakdown. I don't know."

"If you change your mind—"

"I'll call you. I promise."

Another pause. The steam from the kettle had stopped now, the water settling into stillness inside its metal shell. The kitchen light hummed faintly overhead, a sound I'd never noticed before but couldn't stop hearing now.

"Try to get some sleep," Amelia said. "Call me tomorrow, yeah? Let me know if you hear from him."

"I will."

"I love you."

"Love you too."

I lowered the phone from my ear. The screen glowed for a moment, showing the call duration—eighteen minutes, longer than I'd realised—and then faded to black. I stood there holding it, this small rectangle of glass and metal that connected me to everyone and no one, that sat silent in my hand while my husband drove further and further away.

The kitchen was very quiet.

The kettle sat on its base, cooling now, the water inside going from hot to warm to lukewarm to cold. I looked at it. I should make tea. I should do something, anything, other than stand here in the middle of my kitchen.

Charlie was watching me from her bed. Her eyes caught the light, gleaming faintly in the brightness of the kitchen.

I set the phone down on the bench. The sound it made—a small tap of glass against granite—seemed very loud.

The silence rushed back in to fill all the spaces where Amelia's voice had been, and I stood in it, letting it settle around me, waiting for something I couldn't name.