She arrived back at Drovers thankful she hadn't told the others about Alex coming home. It meant she wouldn't have to explain why she wasn't with him as she should be right at this moment. She hadn't even known he was coming home. He had surprised her, which was a delight at the time. But now she looked back upon it, it irritated her. He just felt he could come and go as he pleased without even consulting her. That's how their life would be. She didn't want to live like that. She didn't want to live without him though, and begun to regret that harsh words she had said to him. She had missed him so much, and now he was here she had pushed him away. He must think she had lost her mind.
She quietly got to work that morning, pushing everything aside by concentrating on her tasks for the day. No one noticed her presence at Drovers that morning as being odd. She had still spent many days here while Alex was overseas. She had little else to do. She was quiet that morning, and when the others came near her she gave them that look to tell them not to even open their mouth, so they all worked rather silently. She even managed to smile now and then, determined to put Alex, and their marriage, far from her mind and never let it trouble her again. It worked. For about an hour.
She knew that morning, working on the property she loved, that she would have to leave it. It saddened her. But she had been slowly saying goodbye over these last months, preparing to move into Killarney. But that would have been different. She would have still been so close to the place, to her friends. She realised that morning she would have to go far from Drovers Run now. Far away from Alex. And she could never come back. She knew, as much as it sickened her, that it had to be this way. That there was only one person she could turn to now.
As she rode across the fields saying a final goodbye to the first place she had called home, that's when she saw him, kneeling down, tears streaming down his face.
He had intended to leave straight away for Argentina. But knowing he would not see this place again he needed to say some good byes. He stopped first by Harry's grave. It was in quite a mess, no one had visited for weeks, that was obvious. It frightened him, thinking that he too would be soon cold in the ground like his father, and he hoped that he had not left behind the same legacy that Harry had. He wondered who would mourn him? Who would tend to his grave? Would he just lay there, forgotten, as if he never existed? Who would remember him? What had he really achieved in his life? It brought him little comfort sitting by his father's grave. That's when his thoughts turned to Claire.
And as he sat over her grave on Drovers Run, he thought that he would see her again soon, if he believed in any kind of afterlife. He had thought a lot about it over the last months. He wondered where she was, if she missed those she loved as much as they missed her. At least she went quickly, he told himself. Waiting like this for death to take him was a torment he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy. But he tried to be strong. It was so much worse for Claire, he told himself, she left behind her child. Little did he know that he too would be leaving a child behind.
He sat there at the grave of his friend and wept for all the things he would never know or see or do, and most of all for his dream fairy tale life that he would never know with his new bride. For the life he wanted to give to her, the joy and fulfilment he longed to bring to her, and once again he had brought her only heart ache. He finally got it right, finally got his life on track, and now he was powerless to stop it being senselessly snatched away from him. And so he wept.
She watched on as he knelt over Claire's grave, heartbroken and sobbing. It made sense to her in that moment. He still loved Claire. She had never been good enough for him, simply because she was not Claire. And at that moment she realised he would exchange her for Claire if he could. It brought her some consolation, made some sense of his behaviour the last months. Last night she had seen something in his eyes. Even thought he protested that he did not love her or want their marriage, she had seen love and warmth in his eyes. And it conflicted with the message his words gave her. But she realised now that love in his eyes was not for her, but for Claire. And she could not, would not, compete with a ghost for his love and attention. Now it was all clear. Now she could walk away.
She placed her hand gently across her belly thinking of her unborn child. His child. She never thought it would end up this way. She had dreamed the perfect family, and it seemed her dreams had finally come true. She should have known better. She didn't stop in that moment to really think about her child, or the in-justice of taking the child away so that it would never know its father. She thought only that she could not survive with him so close by. And that she did not want him to come back to her out of pity or obligation. So it was decided in that moment or confusion and pain. She would leave this place, and she would not look back. It may have been a thoughtless and hasty decision, but once her mind was made up there was no turning back.