by Kim Petersen
She raised up her palms and gave the little thistles a blow with a warm breath, sending them on their way. Then finally, she picked up Damon’s letter, and opening it as carefully as she could, settled in to reading the message in its folded page.
Dear Millie,
I have only just received your letters, and all three arrived on the same day, causing me to have little faith in the international postage system! But at least they finally found me, and when I saw them and held them in my hands, I was overcome with the most heartbreaking emotion, Millie.
You see, I miss you so very much. I have found our separation unbearable to say the least. Then I see a part of you arriving on my doorstep in your letters. I hold the letters against my heart in some small hope that this will allow me to feel your fingers upon my skin, the beating of your heart next to mine. I bring your handwriting under my nose so that I may better remember the sweet scent that lingers with you. My eyes close so that I may lose myself in the brightest of emeralds, and I smile so that I may better be captive to your charm. I cannot help but recall the last of our moments together under the willow tree. Oh how I had waited so long to make love to you! And oh, how sweet and fleeting were so precious those moments between us!
My eyes can only close for so long, and my heart can only shatter to so many pieces, Millie. So they open reluctantly, and I am no longer holding your beauty under the willow. The pain becomes even more consuming, and I know in the deepest recesses of my aching heart, I cannot continue in this way.
I have discovered the traineeship I have started will continue for a period of six years. I’ll also be studying along with the job. I have also discovered I have quite a knack for this line of work, and I am enjoying it very much. It helps to keep my mind occupied from thinking of you. It doesn’t pay much, but as soon as I can save up enough I plan to come back to visit you. Perhaps I can smuggle you back to New York? I just know you would love this city. It is nothing like I have ever seen! I know also, it would not be fair to ask to you wait for my return. For we are both young, and the future awaits. Although it is hard to imagine a future without you, I am uncertain how it will unfold between us under these circumstances. I have tried to call you, but to no avail. I long to hear your voice, and I shall try again soon.
I will forever be the guy that loves you endlessly; of that, please do not doubt. But Millie, while my flesh is not by yours, we need to live it so.
Find your dreams and relish every moment of the beautiful life that I know is yours for the taking. You are special Amelia Anderson, never forget that.
And I shall never forget you.
Love, Damon
***
The final lines of his letter blurred under the tears that fell from her eyes. She watched in an odd moment of fascination as the salty liquid smudged the ink of his handwriting against the white of the paper. She didn’t mind that the words he had printed were ruined between quivering fingers. Desperate fingers began to twist the paper between them, scrunching and twisting. They began to tear and shred at those damning words until each line resembled the shattered heart he had described upon them, and they lay all around her a torn and crumbled mess. All energy left her, and Millie fell back against the grass, pulling herself into a tight ball as she grieved for the boy that had swept into her heart with a vengeance years before, and had kept it captivated within the sweetest moments she had ever known. Images of his blue lagoon eyes flashed through her, and her body shook with the knowledge that he might be forever lost to her. My beautiful blue lagoon. Oh, how could he let our love go? She fought to understand his reasoning, unwilling to accept that he was prepared to accept a future without her.
She shut her eyes and lay there feeling helpless. The longing she had been feeling for him heightened, and Millie felt the bitter loneliness. Short breaths caught in her throat while she struggled to regain herself. Breathe, she instructed her body. Focusing strictly on her breathing now, she found relief for a few moments. Her contemplation was then drawn to the distinct caress that grazed over her left cheek. A familiar tingle prickled its way through the nape of her neck, running down the ridge of her spine, confirming that she was not as alone as she had felt.
Words filtered into her mind. “Millie, we are here with you. We love you.”
She gasped and opened her eyes to see numerous dandelion thistle seedlings falling down all around her. She watched as they fell about her in an endless stream, like a translucent mantle of softly falling snow.
“Wow!” Her eyes again filled with tears, only now they were tears of joy, because she knew she bore witness to a divine phenomenon, and she felt the presence of God in every little thistle that fell around her.
***
After her doctor’s appointment that day, no sooner had she walked through the door to her house than the phone rang. She threw the black leather bag at her bed as she passed her room, and ran for the phone in the lounge room. She chimed with a “Hello” as she hoped it was Damon.
She sighed when it became apparent that it wasn’t Damon. Instead, it was a stern voice demanding that someone collect Ace from school, as he had been involved in a fight.
“A fight?” She was nonplussed.
“He beat up another boy because the boy refused to share his lunch money. The boy didn’t know how to defend himself against the attack.”
“Oh! That doesn’t sound like something my brother would do.”
“Well he did. Please come and collect him; he has been suspended from school and needs to leave the grounds immediately.”
“Yes, of course,” she stammered.
She retrieved her bag and keys and hurried out to her car. Her mind swirled with confusion as she drove to the school. She had noticed his behaviour had been different over the past few weeks. He was not the happy, joking boy he usually was. She had figured this was due to Damon’s sudden departure, because she knew how much Ace adored Damon. But surely this attack on another boy could not be the result of Damon leaving? Her instincts told her that this was something else and she needed resolve. She steeled herself against the disapproving attitudes she knew awaited her at the school office.
Ace remained silent for most of the drive home as his sister plied him with questions about his behaviour. He glared back at her while she spoke about how wrong it was that he beat that boy up.
“Just leave me alone,” he scowled.
“No way, mister. This is not like you at all. Why did you hurt that kid, Ace?”
Ace glowered at her.
“Ace! Answer me!” Millie shouted as the car pulled up outside their house. “Why would you hurt someone so badly?” Her voice softened, and he caught the plea in her eyes as she searched him for a satisfactory explanation.
Ace gazed around the quiet street. He was surprised to see his father’s car parked in the driveway. “Did they call dad too?” he asked.
Millie’s stare was relentless. “Ace, please …”
He gestured at his father’s Holden. “I just did what he does, that’s all,” he shrugged.
He unbuckled himself and casually strolled away from the car, leaving Millie open-mouthed. She noticed the menacing dark blaze in his eyes and sat for a few moments while watching him bound up the porch steps and disappear through the front door of the house. Her stomach tightened into a knot. Millie felt the weight of dread as she made her way to the house, while a whisper within her sounded off like a siren. One word formed as it pounded her mind like an unstoppable freight train. The bitter taste of bile rose in her throat – Terror!
***
Six Years later…
“And though thy knees were never bent
To heaven thy hourly prayers are sent
And whether formed for good or ill
Are registered and answered still.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Chapter Nineteen
November 17, 1997
D ark brown eyes sparkled as they rested on the familiar features of an old fr
iend. The two men exchanged an awkward embrace. It had been at least seven years since they had last met. He gave a hearty laugh from the depth of his belly and grinned at his old friend.
“Jack, you are a sight for sore eyes.”
With a hand still gripped in a firm handshake, Jack’s grin matched those of Scott’s. “As are you, Scott … as are you.”
They were both standing alongside the pool at the hotel bar where they had arranged to meet. Jack was older than Scott, and feeling every bit of his 63 years as he dumped himself into his chair with a relieved sigh. He gestured at Scott’s hair while Scott slid in a chair beside him under a large umbrella to avoid the burning midday sun.
“Look at you!” Jack chuckled. “You’ve finally lost the battle of the grey! Too many to pluck out now.”
“At least I still have hair, old man,” Scott said, indicating Jack’s receding hairline. “Besides, would you believe I actually don’t mind?”
“Oh yeah?” Jack teased.
“Yeah.”
“So how about all those extra wrinkles I see road mapping your face then, you mind those?”
Scott laughed. “How else would I find my way around?” he said with a shrug.
Two attractive women wearing bikini tops and Balinese sarongs neared their table, catching Jack’s eye as they sauntered past.
“It appears others don’t mind your road maps either,” he said, inclining his head at the passing women.
Jack sigh miserably as he watched the women. He hadn’t managed to score a piece of arse like that since his early forties. Jack had lived on the Gold Coast his whole life, and enjoyed every moment, until he had lost his self-made fortune to an overzealous gambling habit about ten years before, along with his much younger ex-wife. It had been a classic case of “Goodbye money; Sayonara wife”. Since then his life and his health had taken a definite downslide, and he had found himself hustling for a quick dime in any way he could. Only these days the natural magic touch that used to be his when it came to busting a nickel, appeared to evade him.
Scott chuckled at the nostalgic look of longing that etched itself across Jack’s wrinkled features. “You really wouldn’t want to try and keep up with it, Jack” he teased. “Too high maintenance.”
“Oh, I would give it my best shot!” he bellowed.
The two men spent the afternoon catching up and reminiscing about the wild days of old when both owned the two most popular clubs on the Coast. Scott was relieved to be in the company of a familiar trusted friend and confided this much to Jack, along with the last years of his life on the road with Kate. He was tired of the travelling and wanted to settle in some place quiet with her, but Kate would not allow it.
“I think you can stop running now,” he had pleaded.
“I can never stop running!’ she cried through a drunken stupor. Her face was contorted as she attempted to focus her eyes on him. “Why don’t you just leave me if that’s what you want?”
But Scott could not let her slip from his life again. Not his beautiful Lilly Pad. So, he had resigned himself to the constant life on the road. He watched her succumb to the gripping claws of alcohol with an aching heart. He lost himself in a world churning with desolation and havoc, hangovers and hair of the dog mornings, and felt helpless to give her the help that he knew she needed. Years had passed, and throughout them all he remained at her side until finally he could lead her back to the Gold Coast – the town she had avoided since her parents’ deaths some years before. He could no longer endure the burden of the life she had chosen. The decision had not come easily. He had made the critical phone call to the most prestigious rehabilitation clinic on the Gold Coast a few days ago, a clinic that would become Lilly’s new home for some time – at his own cost, of course. He just had to convince her to stay there.
And then I will be free, he thought with regret as he half listened to Jack talking about old times. And then she will be free.
“He was a really big, stocky bloke, and he seemed more interested in Kate.” Jack’s booming voice cut through his thoughts.
“Huh? Who was?” Scott said, puzzled.
“The man that come into your old club about a month or so ago.” Jack shot him a perplexed glance. “Where are you, anyway?”
“Sorry,” Scott mumbled. He was all ears now.
“I had just stopped by the club for a quick drink; you know how it is.” Jack mopped the sweat from his wiry brow with a handkerchief he pulled from his shirt pocket. “I heard him asking about you and Kate. He mentioned he was a friend of Kate’s.” His eyes went up as he racked his memory. “Oh yeah, that’s right, he mumbled something about having news of Kate’s daughter.”
The hackles on Scott’s neck rose as he listened to Jack’s description of the man looking for them. Jack had no way of knowing that the woman Scott had been spending his life with had been using a name not really belonging to her, nor that any person on this planet should know that Kate did indeed have a daughter. But how could Glen have connected Lilly, aka Kate, to him? Scott wondered. His mind began to scan back over the last few years, and finally his thoughts hovered over a lone incident that may have revealed their connection to Glen – Cindy Churchill.
They had bumped into her two years previously while they were travelling through Cairns by road. They had stopped there for a few days to take a break from the road. They had not been in town for sightseeing or socialising of any kind, and yet Lilly insisted one morning that they visit the Daintree rainforest. Scott had reluctantly agreed, as they had already made the visit numerous times in the past and the rainforest was one of her favourites. Anything to see her smile again, he had thought. They had been relaxing on some boulders by the river after hiking through the rainforest when they had heard the voice of a woman call out to them.
“Oh my God!” The voice called as she came rushing to them, “Lilly Winston and Scott Perry!” It was Cindy Churchill.
She had always been an athletic student at school, Scott recalled, remembering that her forte had been swimming, and she had retained the physique of a trained swimmer. She had solid shoulder muscles which flexed as she opened her arms to hug Lilly. Scott had done his best to ward off the unwelcome school reunion, quickly ushering Lilly away from the questioning intrusion with promises of meeting her for a drink later that evening. Cindy thrived on gossip, and Scott knew that that meeting would be too much for her to keep to herself once she returned to the Gold Coast.
Scott gathered all the information he could from his friend, who described the man inquiring after them as tall and solid with short, clipped spiky hair.
“Like a beefcake!” Jack chuckled, then his expression became serious. “But it was really his eyes that stood out to me the most. They were like the flames of hell,” he said, lowering his voice and frowning.
***
A streak of laughter shot through Kate’s numbed mind, shocking her into a hazy awareness. “Damned people,” she grumbled, as she fumbled to sit up on her beach towel. Dull bloodshot eyes regarded the shadowy beach while she struggled for a few clouded moments on her whereabouts. Ah yes, she thought as she frowned up at the laughing couple strolling along the sand, I’m at the beach. She vaguely remembered stumbling down the short pathway across from Scott’s old apartment. She had been surprised when she had learned that he had kept the Gold Coast apartment after their years on the road together. This had only caused her to wonder what other secrets he had kept from her. She hadn’t voiced this much to him – yet. However, his disappearance that afternoon spiked her suspicions, and she had grown impatient with waiting around for him to return. Where did he go again? Her mind wrenched as she attempted to recall that information. Ouch! She reached for the half-full bottle of vodka she had brought along for company. Dreary lifeless blonde hair fell back off narrow bony shoulders as she took a generous gulp from the glass bottle. That’s better, she thought, as her mind began to whip into a more coherent line of action. “Probably screwing another woman,” she mu
ttered out loud. Yes! That’s what he’s doing. Sneaky, cheating arsehole! Another generous swig of alcohol coursed its way down her throat. The fog in her mind cleared as she grappled around with twitchy fingers for her cigarettes. She lit one and inhaled the thick toxins before allowing the white curl of smoke to drift from her lungs.
The looked down at her body. The once vibrantly taut skin now fell loose and grey around a gangly, ossified body. Nails and hair had lost all youthful appearance, leaving a brittle dull shadow of what once had flourished. No wonder he wants me no more! she thought, as tears of despair welled within her. The whisper within her, although constantly buried deep amid a murky alcohol-induced haze, mourned at the person she had allowed herself to become. The strong determined woman who had left a monster with great plans to create the life she had always wanted, had faded from her vision completely. This was not how it was suppose be! she cursed herself. And yet, as she lifted the bottle to her lips another time, she felt powerless to be otherwise.
She surveyed the almost deserted beach, and for the first time in the ten years, Kate admitted to herself that she needed help. Tears coursed from hollow eyes and toppled down the sunken pockets of flesh under her cheekbones. The salty warm liquid blended with the lingering salty air that drifted above the cooling sand in an opaque, misty haze and stung the graze of her lips. She shuddered as she came face to face with the reality she had created for herself. Every dream she had ever aspired to had fallen through her fingers and evaporated away. Every thought that went unwatched; every discordant feeling that was pondered over and over; every twisted emotion of guilt and spite haunted her as her body shook at the life she created for herself. The grudging alcoholic I have become! She sat there feeling every sober moment of her self-created life. She allowed the emotions to permeate through every part of her being, as she knew she had to feel it in order to make a positive change. She was so engrossed in her new realisations that she failed to hear the thud of sand-muffled footsteps as they neared her from behind.