Tree Change

by Cooper, Tea

  “Until I rang and turned up again.”

  “Until you turned up at the beach.” Jake smiled at her, remembering the way his heart had lifted when he had seen her dancing in the shallows. “I knew I had to stay away from you, but I just couldn’t, and then I invited you up to the house. I was so excited, because it was the first really tangible evidence we could be together again.”

  He knew what was going to come next. He took a deep breath, praying it wouldn’t spoil the mood of the day. “I had completely forgotten about the portrait. I took the photograph for Lyle and had it blown up and printed on canvas. I thought it would be great for him to have something of all those missing months. He didn’t see his child or his wife from the day they were married until Jade was twelve months old.”

  “Jake, I really feel for Lyle. He’s been so brave, such a hero. I can’t imagine what he must have gone through. I wish I could’ve helped.” Jake watched her out of the corner of his eye. Her face changed, softened, and she looked across at him. Hopefully, she now understood he hadn’t chosen Madeleine over her and her love hadn’t been misplaced.

  “Cass, I couldn’t involve you. First, the police insisted the only way Madeleine would be safe was if everyone believed it was the truth, and second, I was terrified for you, for your safety, as much as, if not more than, Madeleine’s.”

  He lifted his hand from the steering wheel and pulled her closer; she rested her head against his shoulder. “Even when I believed it was all over, you still got caught up in it and all just because I couldn’t stay away from you.”

  ***

  The city was far behind them now, and the highway crossed the Hunter River and led north. The traffic was mercifully light. In a month or two, it would be busy with caravans and trailers as everyone moved north to the beaches for their summer holidays. Jake drove skillfully, his attention fixed firmly on the road. The windows were down, and the warm air blew tantalizing whiffs of beaches and rivers through the car. She loved it. Life seemed full of possibility and promise again. With the wind in her hair and Jake beside her, she was prepared to wait and enjoy the moment. Melbourne seemed a long way away, a rather dull and lonely proposition. What was more important: her art or this man? She couldn’t have both, and she knew she was going to have to make a decision soon.

  She wasn’t about to tell him, but she was more than happy right now just to sit and enjoy being with him, watching him drive and listening to him as he pointed out the changes in the landscape, the beautiful wetlands and the still, glassy water the road snaked over and around.

  “So we are going to the farm? We’re going north; we have to be.”

  “Yes, we’re going to the farm.”

  “I thought you hated the place. You told me you would never set foot there again. You said it represented everything you hated about farming in Australia.”

  “It does; it did, but now it is mine. I can make the changes I wanted my father and Lyle to make and hopefully repair some of the damage done over the years.”

  She sighed and resigned herself to the fact she wasn’t going to get any more information out of him at the moment. She would just have to wait and see. She leaned back and watched the next ramshackle town as they flashed through, ignoring the coffee shops and hamburger joints spinning their living out of the constant flow of traffic north.

  “Where are we going to stay?”

  “I wish you would trust me, and just wait and see.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “You’re not wrong.” He grinned across at her, taking the sting out of his words, and moved his hand on her thigh. She wondered absently whether he was aware of what his touch did to her.

  Would there ever come a time when she didn’t want him to reach for her, touch her? Even when she was at her angriest and hurting the most, she had still had to force herself to ignore the clamoring needs of her body. It was ridiculous, and she was thankful he had never used it as a weapon against her. Her heart took a little dive as he shifted his hand onto the gear stick, breaking the contact and slowing for a speed camera as they approached another town littered with traffic lights.

  After hours of driving, they pulled off the road and crossed a cattle grid onto a dirt track meandering up a hill. The air temperature dropped as the shade from the trees encompassed the car. The dense leaves formed a canopy above them, blocking the sun and throwing a surrealistic veil over them, encasing the car in a shroud of green. Goose bumps snaked up her arms, and she shivered at the unexpected change in temperature. The car slowed to a halt in front of a metal farm gate.

  “Do you want to do gate duty?” She opened the door, slid out of the car, and made her way to the gate. She leaned over it; her trembling hands made the chain difficult to release. Coldness slid from her belly to her toes. Why was she suddenly feeling nervous? She should be excited. She had waited all day to reach their destination, but now they were here, she knew she was going to have to face reality. The trip had been just another interlude, another moment in time with Jake she would treasure. The gate creaked, and she lifted it as it swung across the deep track marks in the dirt. Jake inched the vehicle forward, and she swung the gate closed behind him, locking out the world. Just her and Jake now, and a few thousand ghosts with baggage heavier than perhaps either of them could handle.

  She climbed back into the car, slamming the door behind her, and they wound their way up the hill along the dirt track bordered now by tall trees with shiny, dark green leaves. They looked as though they had been there forever; delicate, sweet-smelling blossoms swung pendulously from the trees, scenting the air.

  “Are these the macadamia trees?” Cassia’s question broke the heavy silence.

  “Some of them. These are probably the oldest ones, planted by my grandfather; the newer plantations are all inside the gates. We’ll be there in a moment.”

  Intrigued, Cassia sat back, looking at the round green fruit hanging between the blossoms. The car hit a rut, and she grabbed onto the door, swallowing the feeling of her heart lurching into her mouth.

  “Sorry. The track’s a bit rough after all the rain. There’s still a lot of work to be done. Lyle hasn’t had much opportunity to keep up with it lately.”

  They crested the hill, and Jake pulled the car over and stopped. An audible gasp escaped her lips as she flung open the door and leaped out. The view from the hilltop looked out to the ocean, and the emerald-green grass was pin-cushioned with the darker green of the macadamia trees. Surprise rippled through her. When Jake mentioned the farm, she had envisioned some red, dusty property with barbed wire fences and scattered cattle, but this green paradise was like nothing she had ever seen before.

  “Welcome to the farm,” he said softly, the pride evident in his voice. She looked across at him. He appeared to be enjoying her stunned silence, leaning back against the hood of the car, his long legs stretched in front of him, his arms folded, and a knowing grin on his face. For someone who claimed to hate the place, he looked at home and quite happy.

  “Are you interested in seeing the rest of the property?” The rest. Of course, but she could have stayed forever looking out across the green expanse to the brilliant cobalt of the ocean.

  “Come.” He held open the door of the car for her, and she climbed back in. “One last turn, and we can see the house.”

  Cassia looked around her, overawed, her heart contracting at the understated beauty of the place. Now the sale of the Shack was beginning to make sense. The view across the ocean there had been just a pale imitation of this incredible beauty. How could he have dismissed the place, left, handed it all to Lyle? No wonder he hadn’t wanted it to be sold. There was so much she didn’t know about him, so much she needed to know. Another thousand questions popped into her mind and were erased in a single shriek she was powerless to control as they followed the curve of the driveway leading to the house.

  “My horses. Jake! You bought them. You’re not an anonymous buyer.” She wanted to see the expression on hi
s face, but tears blurred her vision of him and the entry to the property into a watery confusion. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to see clearly. “Stop the car.”

  She flung open the door and bounded out. Her two driftwood horses stood just inside the gateway, the shadows of their bleached wooden skeletons reflected against the cement-rendered terracotta wall, and behind them, in the distance, the sweep of the Pacific Ocean. It was just as it had been when she and Jake had first seen the horses on the beach below the Shack. “I think you have been planning this,” she choked out through her tears. He laughed and pulled her into his arms, her back pressed against him. His strong arms encircled her, and his chin rested on her head.

  “They could have been made for this spot, don’t you think? Designer sculptures, just like the lady in Double Bay asked for.”

  She slapped him playfully. “I think they have found a home here.” She stood, just leaning against him, absorbing the silence and the memories connecting them.

  “Do you think you could find a home here?” He trailed his mouth from her collarbone up her neck and turned her to face him, his lips seeking hers in the gentlest of invitations. All the tensions of the past months left her. Her resistance evaporated as she returned his kiss.

  She looked from his face to the horses once more. It was so special; he had done this for her. He had done it while she had been stamping around in Sydney, bemoaning her fate, making her own and everyone else’s life a misery. She pulled away from him. He sighed as she moved, and his warm breath ruffled her hair.

  “Now what, Cassia? Tell me what you are thinking.”

  She was thinking fast, her thoughts a jumbled mess. He was so different from the man she thought she had known so well. She hadn’t truly understood him at all.

  “This. All of this.” She waved her hand to encompass the horses, the trees, the patchwork view, and the never-ending ocean. “It’s not what I imagined. It is so different. You are so different. I don’t know what to think.”

  “I don’t want you to think too hard at the moment. I just want you to absorb the ambience. Get a sense of the place and tell me what you feel, truthfully and honestly.” He stretched out his hand to her, and she followed him to the house she could see beyond the circular driveway.

  “This is where Lyle and I grew up, where we lived all our childhood.” She walked with him, taking in the overgrown gardens, the flamboyant hibiscus and brilliant white lilies. She could imagine him as a child delving into the bushes, chasing lizards, and watching birds nesting.

  “Lyle and Bryce went to boarding school when they were twelve, and then when Mum got sick, Dad sent me too.”

  “Bryce? Who’s Bryce?” Cassia looked up at him, and his eyes glinted like the damp grass, and deep lines she’d never noticed before furrowed around his mouth. Despite the warm sunshine, a chill settled across Cassia’s shoulders. Not again. Not some other piece of information he hadn’t trusted her with? Uncertainty hung in the space between them.

  “Bryce was Lyle’s twin.”

  “Was?”

  “Yes, was. He died.”

  Her next question stalled on her lips, and the gentle puff of exhaled air softly lifted the hair from her face.

  “A drug overdose. He and Lyle were on the Gold Coast, playing at being boys after they’d finished their final exams. Bryce got caught up in the moment and took some stuff. It was bad. Lyle took him to the hospital, but he never regained consciousness.”

  The bland, brief words constricted Cassia’s throat. She moved closer to him instinctively and slipped her hands into his, interlacing their fingers and squeezing gently. She couldn’t find any words, but finally she understood. Understood the tortured bond shared by the two brothers and what the past months had meant for them.

  “Lyle brought his body home. He’s buried over there.” Jake turned his head to a grove of red gums. So’s Mum.” She knew how much it was costing him to relive those times, how much it must hurt, but she knew also it had to be said. If they were to move on, she needed to understand, needed to know all that had shaped the rugged vulnerability making this man who he was, making him the man she loved.

  “I wasn’t here when Mum died. Dad didn’t send for me for the funeral. I was still at school. My grades fell, and I got sick, really sick…glandular fever. They sent me home. Dad was dead set against it, but by then he had decided I was a wimp anyway, and all he wanted to do was wash his hands of me. He pinned all his hopes on Lyle. I was left to my own devices. I started doing school from home, and my grades picked up. I finished my last two years of school here at the farm. I worked so hard. I was determined to succeed and get a place at uni. I did it, and I got into Environmental Science at Sydney University and got away from here. The rest is history.”

  “And you have never been back here since then?”

  “Not until I bought the place from Lyle.”

  “But if you hated it so much, why did you buy it?”

  “I owed Lyle. He’d carried the can for Bryce’s death. He’d stepped in and taken over from Dad, and if it hadn’t been for Lyle, I wouldn’t have made it to uni, been able to do what I wanted to do. So when, for the first time in my life, he came to me and asked me for help, what could I do? I owed him. At last I could do something for him. It was my turn.” He squeezed her hands and looked directly into her eyes. Everything else faded into insignificance as she scanned the color of his irises, the reflection of the light making them resemble shards of broken glass. His pupils glittered, a constant reminder now of his loss and pain.

  He stretched his hands above his head and looked out over the ocean. She could see the effort it was taking for him to let go of the memories.

  “But enough. I want you to see the place. I’ve kind of gotten to like it since then. I’ve laid the ghosts to rest, and I have made a few changes while you’ve been busy with your exhibition and planning your move to Melbourne.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her around to the side of the house. “I’ve been doing a bit of work around here. Redesigning a few old rooms.”

  The faded terracotta walls of the old house basked in the afternoon sun, the timbered shutters like eyelids framing the windows. They walked through a covered walkway, redolent with memories speaking of a past she could only imagine. Cassia opened her mouth, about to comment, then shut it again with a snap. Jake stopped in front of a pair of timber doors and threw them open. “This used to be the packing shed.”

  Cassia’s heart thumped faster as she stepped inside. A huge, whitewashed space greeted her. The back wall of sliding glass doors opened to a view across the patchwork of sloping hills to the ocean, and brilliant sunlight illuminated the space.

  ***

  Her silence was killing him. He cleared his throat. “I thought it might make a good workroom or studio. The light’s good.” His voice sounded rough and raspy, and his heart sank. He had expected a reaction of some sort. He had worked long and hard to get this just right. Had he somehow missed the mark? “Cassia? What do you think?”

  She was lost in a world of her own, walking slowly around the room, trailing her hand against the cement-rendered walls. Taking it all in. He followed her gaze as she craned her neck up at the gabled ceiling, and her eyes came to rest on the block and tackle neatly tucked into the peaked roof.

  “It’s beautiful. A lovely space. A space anyone could work in.”

  Was that all she was going to say?

  Her footsteps echoed on the polished concrete floor as she walked across to the small door on the far wall. “What’s through here?” Her voice sounded polite, almost disinterested. His heart took a final dive and landed somewhere between his knees and his boots.

  He opened the door with slightly more force than he intended to reveal a second room, matching the first. The scent of Cassia’s perfume mingled with the smell of new paint as she walked past him. He had taken such a risk bringing her here without telling her his plans, but it had to be her decision. She had to want it as
much as he did.

  She stood in the middle of the space and turned slowly around, twice, three times. He waited, hardly daring to breathe. “I don’t understand, Jake. What is this space for?”

  “I thought perhaps it would make a nice gallery, a permanent exhibition space. Somewhere people could come and see your work, and you wouldn’t have to be in Sydney or Melbourne.” There. He had said it.

  “You built all this for me?”

  The surprise in her voice shocked him. Of course he had. Did she not understand what she meant to him? He was drained of emotion; he had nothing else to say, nothing else to give. He had one last chance, and one last chance only, to convince her, to make her understand how much she meant to him. He had to spell it out.

  “Cass, I want you to come and live here with me. I want you to work here, and I want us to be together. I want to wake up every morning next to you and to go to sleep by your side every night. I will always be here for you, and I will never willingly leave you.”

  Her mouth formed a perfect “O”, and her audible gasp filled the room. Then she was in his arms. She had jumped, and her legs were wrapped around his waist, her lips pressed tightly against his. He buried his face in her mass of unruly curls.

  “I take it it’s a yes,” he mumbled into her hair, reveling in her jasmine scent enveloping them both. She leaned back and gazed straight into his eyes.

  “Of course, it is a yes.” In one fluid movement, she slid down and spun around in the middle of the room with her arms outstretched, coming to a dramatic halt in the very center of her new gallery.

  “And my next exhibition will be…” She paused, a finger touching the corner of her pink lips. “Tree Change. And I can’t very well hold that exhibition in Melbourne, can I?