Chapter Eleven: The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows
"Good morning, little man" Cleo smiles at her son as he beams from his cot, looking up to his mother.
Although Link has just awoken from his slumber, likely ready for his feed, Cleo's timing is not just a coincidence. No, this morning she found herself once again watching her son for far longer before he woke up.
During the time that Lewis is away and whilst she is still on maternity leave, Cleo has found herself becoming a little lonely in her abundance of spare time with seldom company aside from her baby.
However, although Cleo has quite a lot of time for herself, it does not mean that she is relaxed. No, the two are very, very different concepts.
Time to herself implies that she has few commitments to people, places or priorities. On the other hand, relaxed implies that she has freedom in her life because of her circumstances and attitude. In Cleo's situation, one adjective is applicable, but not the other.
Just as she scoops her son out from his cot, Cleo hears a vibration from her phone which is a room away and charging in the kitchen at the moment.
Once she is holding Link, Cleo walks out of the room, using one hand to grab her phone before she settles on the lounge with her son.
The message is from her dad, but resembles messages that she has received from her mum, step-mum, sister and in-laws recently.
Dad: 'Hi sweetheart, how are you going? Just wanted to see if you'd like us to have Link for a while sometime this week to let you have some downtime on your own? How much longer till Lewis gets home this time? Hope you and Link are well. We have to catch up soon. Love Dad'
Reading the message from her father, Cleo quickly constructs a message, giving her dad a similar reply as she has to every other family member.
'Hey dad, Lewis gets back next Saturday. Link and I are fine, thanks for the offer.'
Deep down, one part of Cleo senses and knows that she should relinquish her control somewhat and allow others to help. However, being with Link has helped her to feel in control and to help her feel like she can keep her son safe from the abundance of worries that have been instilled in her from horror stories and mothers books that she has read.
She just looks down to the baby boy in her arms, pressing a kiss to his small amount of hair that has started to darken to a brunette that is closer to Cleo's. His big, bright blue eyes that sparkle with innocence are just like those of his fathers, much like the rest of Lincoln's appearance.
"We're okay. Aren't we, buddy? We don't need help" Cleo whispers to the baby in her arms, using her words to reassure herself just as much she is posing the question to the baby who is unable and incapacitated to answer.
About two hours pass and by this time it is nearing 10 AM. By now, Cleo is still well and truly in her pyjamas (and likely will be until the late afternoon before she has a chance to get dressed) and her only achievement so far in the day has been feeding and changing Link. So, it is suffice to say that when she hears a knock at the door Cleo is neither ready, nor prepared for a visitor right now.
She quickly puts her son in his bassinette, grabbing a dressing gown to throw over her pyjamas before opening the door.
"Hey Cleo" Bella greets enthusiastically with her hands full of items when Cleo swings the door open.
"Hi Bella..." the other women greets a little hesitantly, preoccupied with trying to determine whether or not the meet up had been pre-arranged and she had just forgotten, or, whether Bella has just dropped in for a spontaneous visit.
Seeing the vague look of her friend who does not look ready for a visit, Bella quickly jumps in to save Cleo.
"You forgot I was coming this morning, didn't you? Don't worry; I totally know what that's like!" Bella warmly mentions, trying to help her friend to feel a little better for forgetting their date that they had planned.
"I'm so sorry Bella... It completely slipped my mind."
Bella gives a wave of her hand to shake it off, showing that no harm is done from her friend's newborn-baby-induced forgetfulness.
"That's all good. I remember what it's like having a newborn. So, I also figured that if you are anything like I was when Allie was that age, you probably haven't even had breakfast yet" Bella guesses as she holds up a large brown paper bag with one hand and a takeaway coffee cup in the other while entering her friend's home.
How her friend had managed to have herself and her daughter dressed, ready, on her doorstep with food, already having dropped off Allie at school made her awe and see her friend in a whole other light. Cleo is slightly envious of her friend who seems to have already accomplished so much before it is even ten o'clock!
"Oh Bella, that is awesome. Thank you" Cleo says, appreciatively thanking her friend who knows exactly what it is like looking after a newborn on your own.
"Not a problem. Where's the little man? Do you want me to keep an eye on him so that you can have a bath? "Bella offers, gesturing to Cleo's dressing gown.
Cleo nods and the two walk to the nursery where Link is lying wide awake in his bassinette.
"That would be great. You can pick him up and have a hold if you like" Cleo smiles to her friend, a little reluctant to be leaving her son even just for a few minutes, but trying to appreciate her friend's efforts to help her.
Bella is two steps ahead as she already picks up and begins to rock Cleo and Lewis's son, awing over the fact that her own five-year-old daughter had ever been that tiny.
Cleo's bath had been as quick as possible, just as she tried to dry herself and her tail off as quickly as she could.
It's not long before she is back out to the lounge room where one of her best friends is playing peek-a-boo with her giggling son.
"That was quick" Bella comments before handing Link back to his mother who seems eager for a cuddle.
"Yeah, I didn't want to abandon you with the baby for too long" Cleo explains as an excuse.
Bella just smiles as the two sit in a comfortable silence before the conversation starts back up again.
"So how have you been? Has the wedding planning coming along well?" Cleo asks conversationally, attempting to reconnect with the outside world somewhat since she has become more of a hermit after the birth of her son.
At first, Bella doesn't reply. However, there is a flicker of a look that floods over Bella before she tries to construct an honest reply that doesn't give away too much; not wanting to unload on her friend.
"Yeah the wedding planning is okay. I've been fine."
Cleo's eyebrow furrows as she frowns just a little, detecting something in her friend. In putting so much effort into her reply, Cleo notices that Bella has lost her bubbly peppiness for a moment.
"Are you sure, Bella? What's wrong? Is something going on with you and Will?"
Bella exhales, briefly considering whether or not to dump her and her fiancés current trial onto her friend who seems to be dealing with enough with her husband working away.
"Well, our relationship is fine, but Will's not so good right now. He was diagnosed with skin cancer about a month ago and he's being treated for that."
Cleo's heart sinks and her stomach falls after hearing the bad news regarding her two friend's.
"Oh Bella... I'm so sorry. How are you both holding up? Does Allie know? Is it bad?" she sympathises supportively, trying to comfort her as she touches Bella's arm with her free hand.
There is an unmistakable look on one of Cleo's best friends face as they sit beside each other. She briefly looks distant and she looks sick to her stomach for a moment. She quickly recovers and returns to the moment, clearly trying to pep herself up with her usual bubbly persona, despite their serious conversation.
"Um, I'm fine and Will's as fine as he can be with the chemo and all that. We've decided not to tell Allie for now. His cancer's still treatable, but apparently it is quite advanced so he's on pretty strong treatment."
Cleo just sits there momentarily, sympathising for her friend on one hand, while simultaneously feeling thankful for the fact that it isn't her family or her lover going through that trial.
"I just don't know what to say..." Cleo adds in response to the details that Bella has provided as the other women just nods in response.
Finally, there is a response that Bella appreciates; silence. She knows that people are only trying to comfort her when they offer their deepest sympathies or state how she and Will don't deserve to be going through this. Yet, try as they might, not quite any words can help her feel better as to what and how she and her fiancé are suffering right now.
With Cleo's silence, she doesn't have to thank her uncomfortably and she doesn't have to fake that the response has made her feel any better.
Instead of saying anything, Cleo just stands and puts her son in his bouncer, before wrapping her friend in a warm, wordless hug.
After the embrace ends, Cleo notices a change in her friend... It's almost as though she becomes a little detached and distant, with Bella proceeding to leave not all that long after telling Cleo.
While everyone has their own issues and dramas and problems in their lives, Cleo makes a mental note to keep an eye on her friend, since beyond the obvious, during the visit she has sensed that something is not quite right with Bella...
Later in the day and long after Bella left, Cleo found herself struggling with her own thoughts that have just been repeating and echoing inside her head.
Hearing about Will's diagnosis and his cancer today has just opened and unleashed a Pandora's Box, filled with worry and anxiety for Cleo. She just can't get her friends and their horrible situation out of her head, therefore making her worry about her own family.
Hearing the seriousness of Will's cancer and seeing how Bella was today, Cleo just hasn't been able to get it out of her head, thinking about how it may go wrong for her friends and what devastating effect that would have on their small family if Bella lost her husband-to-be and if little Allie lost her dad...
Despite having been a bit of a hermit and recluse since Link's birth, Cleo's one-track thoughts after Bella's visit finally urges her to muster up the courage to go for a walk; to get out of the house and out of her own head for at least a little while.
The walk and gentle exercise does good for the young mother and she decides to extend her walk, taking herself and her son whose in his pram that she is pushing along the boulevard path that overlooks the beautiful beaches of the Gold Coast.
Taking a deep breath of the fresh sea air and looking out to the rolling waves and the golden sand, Cleo appreciates that the change of the scenery and the walk is effective, and even enjoyable, until her little bubble is burst along the walk when she is jolted from her distraction-walk.
"Cleo?"
Cleo hears her name in the form of a question at a moment when she least expects she would hear it, coming from somewhere ahead of the same footpath she is on. She is on her own, walking the concrete of the boulevard, overlooking the beach with her son who doesn't speak one word, let alone his mother's name from where he is sleeping in his pram.
However, Cleo's attention is effectively caught from where she is consumed with thinking about Will and Bella after what Bella had spoken about earlier today, while she is just walking on autopilot.
When she snaps out of her trance, Cleo spots familiarity, in the form of a face that she hasn't seen in six or so years.
"Ryan?" Cleo similarly questions, looking to the man ahead of her who she hasn't seen since he mined the Moon Pool with Zane and Sophie around the time that she finished high school.
Perhaps if she and Lewis weren't a long-distance item and if she wasn't with Lewis, maybe, just maybe she and Ryan would have been a thing around that time... He was the only other guy that Cleo could ever even have imagined herself being with beside Lewis.
After the surprise of the unexpected meeting, Cleo slowly begins to note more details. Ryan looks more toned and older than when she had last seen him, which is enhanced when she notices the tribe of children walking with him.
The eldest looks around the same age and height as Allie who's five, with a toddler holding the little boy's hand beside the pram that Ryan is pushing, holding the baby that looks around the same as Link within it.
"Wow, it's good to see you. It has been what, five, six years? How have you been? What have you been up to the last few years?" Ryan asks enthusiastically at the chance meeting.
"Yeah it would be something like that... I've been good, thanks. Well, I'm still working at the Marine Park, just a higher position there, I got married about three years ago and I had my little man. What about you?" she replies, summarising her last six or so years, before politely asking the same in return.
Ryan looks down at his tribe of boys, figuring the answer to my question is reasonably clear before he goes into more detail in his reply.
"Well not long after I last saw you all I met my wife, Archer, and then we got married four years ago. I gave up my job in geology a few years ago and got a more stable, 9-5 job just before my first son was born. My job wasn't as important as being there for my boys is."
Cleo smiles at the proud father in front of her, the man who has clearly grown and changed from the ambitious and focused man she had met six or seven years back.
She doesn't think of her husband as any less of a father and she knows that it was a mutual decision that they had made together for him to pursue the chance of his dream job, but Cleo can't help but feel a tingle of sadness as she thinks of her absent husband in comparison to Ryan who had given up his dream job for his sons.
"That's lovely. What are your boy's names? How old are they? They're so cute."
"Logan's just turned five" Ryan says with a smile as he gestures to the eldest and tallest of the three boys who bears the least resemblance to Ryan with his blond hair and striking blue eyes.
Next, his point of a finger moves to the slightly smaller brown-haired child who is almost a miniature replicate of his father, just as the baby sleeping in the pram does.
"Then there's Flynn who is three and baby Billie has just gone six months. What about your little one?"
Cleo just smiles, before looking down to her content son who is just laying in his pram.
"Link... Lincoln is four months now" she replies as her smile increases a little.
Ryan just nods, before quickly glancing at his mobile phone as his eldest two sons talk to each other.
"It was really good to see you Cleo. I'm sorry I can't stay and chat longer, but my wife just messaged me reminding me that we've got to get home soon because we're going out tonight."
Cleo nods understandingly, before replying to him.
"Oh that's fine. It was good to see you and to meet your boys anyway. I'm glad you're doing well."
Ryan simply smiles, urging his eldest two sons to say goodbye and then walks off with the pram and two children walking along side him.
Thankfully, her walk and seeing Ryan had been just the distraction that Cleo needed today to escape from her negative thinking and her anxieties after Bella's visit when she'd told her the bad news about her fiancé and about Cleo's friend.
As she begins to walk home, she thinks about how she will have to tell Lewis about the chance meeting and how she had seen Ryan again... Before realising that the two had never met each other and that really the only news that would mean anything to him is the fact that Will has cancer.
Suddenly, with a little sigh, Cleo feels that bit negative and she feels that niggle of worry again, deciding that given the fact that she doesn't feel in the right head-space to recount what Bella had told her earlier, she may not call her husband up for a chat tonight.
Cleo thinks that avoiding talking to her husband about the bad news means that she can process it and move on.
Instead, she doesn't realise that it just means that she won't be able to escape her own fears and worries that are building up, with no one to talk to and help her to abolish them, talking some sense into the worrier before its too late...
Finally! Another chapter's up.
I'd love to see what you all thought of this chapter. What your thoughts on Cleo, Clewis, Cleo and Bella's chat and the fact that Ryan's back are.
Next chapter: Tam explains all about her past and her son to Rikki.
I'll post it at around about 165 reviews :)