The Summer Sisters

by Lilly Mirren

  A knock at the door startled her, and she inhaled a quick breath before spinning to see her sister leaning on the door frame, arms crossed over her chest. Kate wore a chef’s hat on her head, a white jacket buttoned down one side and black and white checked pants. Her green eyes sparkled.

  “Good morning Bindi,” she said.

  Bindi stood up, dusting the back of her pants with one hand. “Morning. How’s breakfast going?”

  Kate shrugged. “Nothing to complain about. There’s someone on the phone for you. A doctor… Ash or something. I couldn’t quite hear, it’s pretty noisy upstairs. Anything you want to tell me?”

  Bindi pressed a smile to her face, her heart thudding. “No, everything’s fine. He’s probably calling to talk about my check up.”

  “You’ll tell me…?” began Kate.

  “Of course, if there’s anything to tell, I’ll let you know.”

  Kate left, and Bindi sagged. If the doctor was on the phone, that meant her tests had come back and he had news for her about the results. She preferred to remain downstairs, sorting through old scrap books, collections, and photographs. If she didn’t know the test results, she could ignore what was going on with her health for a little longer.

  She pressed fingertips to the glands beneath her throat. Still sensitive to the touch. With a sigh she glanced down at her waistline. It’d shrunk so that her shorts sagged a little and she’d had to tug them up into place more than once on the walk downstairs to the basement earlier.

  With a shake of her head she climbed the narrow staircase, emerging beside the office. She shut the door behind her and sat at her desk. The phone earpiece lay on the desk. She picked it up, her stomach twisting into a knot.

  “Hello, this is Bindi Summer.”

  “Bindi, it’s Doctor Ash. How are you?”

  “Fine thank you.” Her stomach clenched.

  “I’ve got the results of your tests here. I’d like to see you as soon as possible.”

  Her heart fell.

  The wind had a nip to it that raised goosebumps up Bindi’s arms and over her back. She tugged the tan cardigan tighter around her thin frame and hunched over bent knees. The rocky ground beneath her pressed into her rear end and she shuffled in place to find a more comfortable position.

  A gull cawed nearby, higher up a hawk sailed on the updraft, wings extended, still. She watched it for a few moments, eyes squinted against the glare of the midday sun. Even through the cool wind she could feel the sun’s burning rays freckling her cheeks and forehead.

  Tenting a hand over her eyes she scanned the length of the beach below. She was seated on a high headland that jutted out at the end of two long, golden beaches. The grassy outcropping rose majestic above the ocean, with a sharp cliff-face tumbling to a narrow and rock-strewn shore below. A surfer duck-dived beneath a wave, and a couple strolled hand in hand along the shoreline. Otherwise, there wasn’t a soul in sight in either direction.

  Bindi sat, arms looped around her bent legs, chin resting on her knees, staring out into the blue expanse of water where it met the sun-bleached sky.

  She’d sought out this place. Needed to be alone after her appointment with Dr Ash. It’d been bad news, as she’d thought it would be.

  Lymphoma.

  Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, he’d said, hands steepled together over his desk. She’d tried to pay attention while he explained the illness, what the treatment would involve. But after the word cancer, her head had buzzed and breathing became more difficult as her thoughts spun out of control.

  She had cancer. Cancer.

  He said they’d caught it early, it was treatable, that in all likelihood she’d be fine.

  But it was cancer. People died from cancer. The thought kept running through her head — she could die.

  She sucked in a deep breath and pressed her hands to her forehead then scrubbed them down over her face. Treatments. She didn’t like the sound of that. She was only twenty-eight years old; she shouldn’t have cancer. She was the manager at the Waratah Inn and didn’t have time for treatments. She felt okay. Not wonderful, but well enough to work. No one else had suspected she was unwell, yet.

  How long had she been sick? That was one of the questions she’d asked Dr Ash when finally she unstuck her dry tongue from the roof of her mouth.

  “Possibly as long as six to twelve months,” he’d said. She had a fever. Might’ve had one for that entire time. She couldn’t believe she’d missed that. How had she overlooked a year-long fever? She supposed she’d gotten used to it. Low grade, still, it surprised her how out of touch with her own body she must’ve been not to notice a thing like that.

  A wind gust pummelled her, it howled around the headland, blowing her hair in every direction, pulling strands free from her ponytail. She smoothed it back out of her eyes, finding her cheeks were moist. Tears pooled in her eyes and were whipped away by the cruel wind.

  She stood with a groan. Dizziness swamped her head, and she staggered away from the cliff face, looking for the winding, narrow sandy trail that would take her back to the parking lot. She found it and navigated between two rocks, then down a steep embankment. Her head spun and thoughts swam.

  Chemotherapy.

  Radiotherapy.

  Words she’d heard, but now that they were part of a treatment plan for her, she wondered what they involved. Why hadn’t she paid more attention to what Dr Ash had said?

  Could she keep working? If not, who would run the inn? What would she tell Kate, Reeda, Mima and Jack? They’d worry, or maybe they wouldn’t need to worry since the doctor seemed to think she’d be okay. Perhaps she shouldn’t tell them. At least not right away. A knot curled in her stomach, tightening with each question that filled her thoughts.

  She tripped on a rock and fell, hands splayed out in front of her. She landed on hands and knees, skidding sideways down the steep trail, grabbed a hold of a tuft of grass with one fisted hand and stopped her descent. Then she struggled to her feet. Blood beaded and dripped down the front of her legs beneath her shorts. She swallowed, letting the tears fall.

  It wasn’t fair. She’d already lost so much. If only Nan were here, or Mum and Dad. She missed them all so much, now more than ever. She needed them. Needed someone to tell her everything would be okay, that she’d get through this. But there was no one.

  She didn’t want to worry her sister — they’d suffered as much loss as she had. If she died, they’d be the ones who would live with it. They’d be the ones hurting. She couldn’t do that to them, not after all they’d been through. And they finally seemed to have grabbed a hold of some happiness in their lives. Kate was getting married, Reeda and Duncan were moving to Cabarita and had reconciled. No, she wouldn’t tell them, not yet.

  So, she was alone in this. No one to talk to, no one to comfort her.

  She tilted her head, pushing out her chin, and limped the rest of the way down the track, tears still spilling over her cheeks.

  At the bottom of the hill, the trail widened, and Bindi stopped and sat on a rock to take a better look at her injured knees. Her hair had fallen free of her ponytail and covered her face. The blood had stopped, only a few trickles down the length of her shins. She dashed away tears with the back of one hand and drew in a deep, calming breath.

  “Are you okay?” The deep voice surprised her.

  She pushed the hair out of her face and eyes, blinked. “Um…yes, fine thanks.” The surfer she’d seen catching waves earlier stood in front of her. Drops of salt water dripped from a half-stripped wetsuit that hung around his waist. His tanned chest glistened and his blue eyes met hers with concern. One muscled arm held a worn surfboard close to his side.

  His gaze flitted to her legs. “You’re bleeding. I’ve got band-aids in the car.”

  Before she could say anything, he set off at a jog in the direction of the parking lot, short, bleached blond hair slicked against his head. When he returned, he had several band-aids in his hand and was wearing a shirt protrudin
g beneath the bottom of a hoodie, and a pair of board shorts.

  He knelt in front of her and dried off her knees with a beach towel, slung casually over one shoulder, then applied the band-aids to her wounds.

  Bindi watched in silence, unsure of what to say. Her voice seemed to stick in her throat. His tenderness surprised her, and she sniffled one last time, wiped her cheeks dry, then stood, wincing at the pain in her ankle.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He shrugged, getting to his feet. His blue eyes fixed on hers. “No worries. I think you’ll live.” He grinned.

  She whimpered. “Yeah.”

  “I’m Josh, by the way.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

  Something inside her mind tweaked. Josh.

  She studied his face. It looked a little different now, sharper angles, some blondish stubble, shorter hair than she remembered. It’d fallen to his shoulders once, but now hugged his head in what was almost a buzz cut. “Josh Owens?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I thought you looked familiar. Bindi, right?”

  She smiled, nodded. “That’s right, Bindi Summers.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, Bindi Summers, the girl from the posh Sydney school. I haven’t seen you in years.”

  She quirked an eyebrow. Is that how they’d seen her? She’d been too mired in grief at the beginning to pay much attention to what was going on in her new high school. “Ten years, to be exact.”

  He smiled. “That’s right.”

  Her cheeks pinked under his gaze. Josh Owens had been the boy in high school that every girl had a crush on. The surfer with the shoulder-length golden curls, blue eyes, and shy smile. He’d been skinny then, with knobby knees and a few pimples on his cheeks. Not anymore.

  She grunted as she stood to her feet. Her legs were already stiffening in the cold. Josh reached out a hand to steady her and his touch on her arm sent an even deeper flush to her cheeks.

  “So, where have you been all this time?” he asked, as he helped her limp towards the parking lot.

  “I’ve been living in Melbourne, working as a journalist.”

  He nodded. “Ah right. I don’t pay much attention to the news, sorry.”

  She shrugged. “And what about you? What have you been doing for the past decade?”

  “I stayed here,” he said with a grunt. “Became a cop. I work at the Tweed Heads Police station.”

  A police officer? Now that he mentioned it, he had the air of someone in charge, someone who knew how to garner respect and was accustomed to carrying authority with him wherever he went.

  “Wow, that must be an interesting job.”

  “That’s not usually the response I get, most people don’t understand.” He issued a wide grin. “But yes, it is interesting. It’s hard, pretty thankless, but I love it.”

  They stopped beside her car and she rested a hand on the hood. “I think it’s great. I’ve reported on crimes and events over the years and have a lot of respect for the work the police do. It’s something most of us take for granted, but we’d be in trouble without you guys.”

  His eyes met hers. He studied her as if trying to figure her out, but there was an intensity of interest in his gaze that was unmistakable. Silence filled the space between them for a moment. It almost crackled.

  He cleared his throat. “And what are you doing back on the coast, Bindi Summers?”

  “My Nan died, and she left me part of the inn… I don’t know if you remember the Waratah, but that’s where we lived when I was a teenager.”

  “Oh yeah,” he nodded. “I remember that place.”

  “Well, now it’s mine…along with my two sisters. I manage it, Kate’s the chef and Reeda decorated it when we did a big refurbishment recently. She’s moving here from Sydney soon to help out.”

  He smiled. “Sounds like a good arrangement.”

  She inhaled a slow breath. It was a good arrangement. More than that, it’d brought her family back together — what was left of it. It was what she’d wanted for years. She’d spoken of her dreams of having her sisters in her life again many times with Nan. In the end, it’d been Nan’s death that brought them back together when she left the inn to the three of them, with the stipulation they couldn’t sell unless all three sisters agreed. And of course, Bindi wouldn’t agree to that, much to her sisters’ initial dismay. They’d come around since then, and now they loved the inn as much as she did. “It works well for us.”

  “It must’ve been hard to give up your job in Melbourne,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I was out of work when Nan died, it made sense to move here.”

  “Well, I’ll have to check out the place sometime, see what you’ve done with it,” he said.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “I’d be happy to show you around.”

  He grinned. “Good. I look forward to it. Hope your knees feel better.”

  He waited until she’d pulled her car out of the lot, hands still deep in his hoodie pockets, until he tugged one out to wave over his head in her rear-vision mirror.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Josh Owens from high school. She’d thought about him every now and then over the years, wondered what’d happened to him. He’d grown up, filled out, become a police officer. That was unexpected. In high school he’d been quiet and hadn’t seemed interested in much other than surfing and food. She’d hoped he would ask her out, no doubt like every other girl in their year, but he hadn’t.

  She tried to recall who he’d taken to the formal, but the memory stubbornly refused to surface. She’d have to see if she could find Nan’s photo album from that year, dig it out. Perhaps he’d been caught in a photograph or two. She’d attended the formal with friends. Jack had driven her in his truck. She’d had to hold her legs to one side, so the gear stick didn’t hit her when he changed gears.

  As she drove back to the inn, memories of high school flooded her thoughts. It wasn’t long before the images were chased away by pictures of Doctor Ash telling her the results of her tests and describing the treatments to come. Josh Owens was handsome, kind and everything she’d always thought she’d want in a man but had never seemed able to find. Still, none of that mattered, since she was sick. She couldn’t get involved with anyone, not even her high school crush. She had to focus all her energy and attention on getting well, and it wouldn’t be fair to him for her to pretend everything was okay, when it wasn’t. Something ached deep inside her heart and she fought back tears.

  3

  October 1996

  Cabarita Beach

  Bindi padded down the stairs with a yawn. Her first treatment was done. She’d been anxious about going to the hospital, but now that it was over the nervous ball of lead in her stomach had dissolved. All she felt was tired, a little light-headed, and relieved that the first procedure was out of the way.

  If the treatments were always like yesterday’s, she could manage it, and maybe she’d be able to keep the illness to herself for a while longer.

  She glanced up at the chandelier hanging over the staircase. She’d have to make sure and remind the cleaner to dust the light fixture, it didn’t look like it’d been done in a while and Bindi liked it to shine.

  The breakfast service was well underway. In the kitchen, Kate buzzed about with the staff, issuing orders, flipping pancakes, and generally handling it all with ease. She was in her element. Bindi grinned to herself and slipped out the back door. She’d learned it was best for her to stay out of the way when it came to meal prep at the inn. She only frustrated her sister if she tried to get involved.

  “You taking a walk?” called Kate, her hand holding tight to the frying pan.

  Bindi dipped her head in assent. “Thought I might get some fresh air.”

  “Good idea. Wish I could come with you.” Kate grinned, then turned a pancake with a spatula so that the golden underside landed smoothly face up.

  “Next time?”

  “Definitely. You feeling okay?” The tone of Kate’s voice
held a touch of concern.

  Bindi swallowed. “Fine.”

  “Make sure you eat some breakfast.”

  “Of course, it smells delicious.”

  Bindi waved goodbye, then tucked Nan’s journal beneath her arm, feeling the hard, cardboard cover press into her side. Reeda had given her Nan’s journals when she returned from her trip to Italy. Bindi had been putting off reading them but had taken one with her to the first chemotherapy treatment the day before and begun to make her way through it. It was as fascinating as her sisters had said it was.

  Learning about Nan through her own words scrawled in that familiar black script, on aged yellow pages, was almost addictive. She missed Nan so much, it’d been a year since Nan’s death and the ache she felt inside had only seemed to grow in that time. Already she was beginning to feel more connected to Nan through the journals.

  Reeda had handed her a box with the journals in it, and there’d been a few letters in there as well, pressed in beneath the books. She’d get to those later, for now she was focused on reading Nan’s first journal from when she was a teenager. The mystery of what’d become of her first love, Charlie Jackson, lingered in Bindi’s mind with every word that she read of their growing love affair. She and her sisters had spoken about it many times, and all three of them wanted to discover what’d happened to the man who’d turned out to be their biological grandfather. Reeda had even travelled to Italy to try to follow the trail Charlie left behind during the second world war when he disappeared, according to the authorities.

  Bindi jogged along the trail towards the beach, glad she’d thought to wear a jumper. The still morning air was crisp, and she seemed to feel the cold more keenly than usual these days. Perhaps it was the weight loss, or maybe it was the lymphoma. She didn’t know, and she didn’t want to. She preferred not thinking about it, which she knew Nan would say was an unhealthy denial, if Nan were there.