A second post! More editing done...

Edit: A few notes from my editing tonight:

(as he was leaving)
‘I will always find a place in my heart for you, Jenny,’ he whispered, reaching his hand up to her face for the last time, feeling her warm, soft skin now soaked in tears. Her eyes reached his as she turned toward him. His bags were set beside him now after he took them from her car. She thought how much he looked like a traveller rather than a settler. She wanted to say so much to him, but the lump in her throat prevented her from speaking. Jenny slammed the boot of the empty car, and turned to face him one last time. It was so hard, saying goodbye again. There were no colourful streamers this time, no crowd, just the two of them on a lonely country road surrounded by tall gum trees.

She wanted to say so much. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was that he was going back to England. How sorry she was that he had come here and was leaving disappointed. How sorry she was that she had been like an empty vessel, drained of the spirit he had expected to see. But she could not change anything. Her grief was a shock to her too, and she had not realized it would happen to her. He might have thought he could change her feelings by being close to her, but nobody could control how others feel. She had loved him for such a long time, had believed herself capable of opening her heart to him at any time but once he came into their family, she had found that she craved to be alone and had no energy left to endure his edginess and keenness for their relationship to grow. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was that her energy was depleted, drained but he was wrong to think she did not continue to love him. She wanted to say to him that she wanted him right here but she knew he had made up his mind to go.

‘You say that, but I don’t believe you,’ she managed to say to him, feeling the pressure in her throat. Jenny stepped around to the driver’s door and opened it slowly. She glanced up at Andrew. The gullies deepened in his forehead as eye-brows sunk into a dull expression. He was unhappy too – she could see it. He had given up on them. He was tired of waiting for something that may never happen.

She sat momentarily in her car, watching him through the rear vision mirror. She’d been so attached to Andrew all these years and she felt an intolerable ache now. She wanted to run back to him, throw her arms around him and beg him to stay, but why did her legs and arms feel like lead, why did her hand turn the key to start the motor?

They had collided into each other’s worlds and they had learned so much about each other but there was still so much more that would never be known. One cannot hurry these things, cannot push or pull the other into embracing new roles. Jenny knew it would be easier for her to create a sense of stability for her family when she did not have to use what depleted energy she had left, to include a new man in her life right now. Even Andrew. For Andrew had tried his best, she knew that. She could not explain what had led to him to feel unwanted but she realized he was unhappy in Australia and, as much as it pained her to acknowledge this, she felt his homesickness had prevented him from giving them the time needed to continue their lives together.

That magnetic glow of connection, that spark of belief that things between them could only get better given sufficient time, had gone out. They would never have imagined either of them would have to struggle to stay together but they had not only come from different cultures, they had come from different worlds. For him, the struggle to blend into the world of happy families had become too hard. He had been pulled toward England again, to the safety net of his old job, friends and maybe even to his ex-wife. It was not ideal but it was where he’d felt that life was more predictable. Jenny watched his hand move through his hair as he gazed in sorrow at her car moving away from him. She had not said anything he had wanted her to say to him and she hoped with all her heart that one day in the future she might be able to do so.