Last Bridge Before Home

by Lily Malone

  It was his first real opportunity to study Jasmine in the light of day, and it amazed him that the world could have two Jaydah’s. Jaz had the same brown eyes and black hair, although the skin of her face and arms was tanned a darker shade than JT’s. He had the feeling if he touched her cheek, her skin wouldn’t be as soft. This close, the skin around her eyes was paler—a sunglass tan—and there was a trace of yesterday’s zinc cream in the groove beneath her cheek.

  She was heavier than Jaydah, although the two women were similar in height, and she looked muscular-strong across her shoulders and upper arms—probably from all the shovelling of rocks, and thicker around the belly. Jaydah was lighter, toned, a warrior.

  They might be similar, but he’d never have been fooled.

  There was only one JT.

  Jaydah had those eyes that seemed to open wide and peel back, layer after layer and he’d never reach the bottom. Jaz’s eyes were mirrors. They didn’t go deep.

  ‘No one here will ever hurt you, okay? They’re all friends,’ Brix said, hoping it was the right thing to say. Rosalie was shaking and she had her arm crooked around Jaydah as if her daughter might disappear in a puff of smoke if she let go. Jaz held Jaydah’s other hand and the three women fanned behind him, JT in the middle, all of them watching.

  He took a breath and turned, leading the way towards the side patio, but then there was the sound of slapping feet and a high-pitched squeal and Sam burst around the side of the house. Water dripped from his clothes, his green paper Christmas crown was half off his head, and he was looking back over his shoulder at Charlotte. She’d also rounded the corner with a loaded water pistol, arms pumping, hammer cocked, water already squirting …

  Water streamed from Charlotte’s pistol straight at Sam.

  Sam ducked and the barrel of cold water shot over his head and hit Rosalie square in the chest.

  Jaydah’s mum reeled backward, arms flailing as she tugged at her blouse, squawking with shock and fright.

  ‘Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry!’ Charlotte’s eyes bugged out of her head.

  Sam’s shriek of laughter died. ‘Oh boy, are you in for it now!’

  And Jasmine tugged her hand free of Jaydah’s and ran all the way back the same way they’d come.

  CHAPTER

  15

  ‘It’s okay,’ Jaydah said, stepping through the spreading puddle at her mum’s feet. ‘It’s okay. It’s just water, Mum.’

  Her mum’s hands flapped. Her mouth opened and closed but no words came out.

  ‘You are so dead, Charlie,’ Sam breathed, eyes overflowing with the single thought of how much trouble they were in.

  ‘No you’re not, Charlotte,’ Brix said. ‘You didn’t mean to. It’s Christmas. What’s Christmas without a water-pistol fight?’

  Jaydah tried to think if she’d ever had a water-pistol fight at Christmas? At all?

  ‘Should I go after Jaz?’ Brix asked, but his voice felt all far away.

  Who needed water pistols for fighting when one had kali sticks on the wall?

  ‘JT? Do you want me to go after Jaz?’ Brix said again, and she forced herself to concentrate.

  ‘Maybe see if you can see her from the steps? I think she’ll run back to see the pony. I think she’ll stop there. I’ll go after her in just a minute.’

  Brix turned and ran down the steps and Jaydah took her mum’s arm and moved her out of the puddle, feeling her mum’s fright because Rosalie couldn’t stop shaking, and all the while her brain stuck on water pistols and Christmas and how Christmas for her was just like any other day. Her and Jaz’s birthday was just any other day. She always practised kali with her father first. Even today, Christmas and her wedding day, she’d already practised first.

  Just once, it would have been nice to fight a fake water-pistol fight with Jaz rather than a full-blown sparring session with deadly weapons where she wished she could kill a monster.

  The laugh slipped from her mouth before she could catch it. It started grim and gravelly, a serious thing, but then Sam shoved his now wet and sagging green paper hat back up above his eye, and Charlotte sputtered as she watched Sam, and Jaydah’s laugh turned from grey to gleeful, and that set all three of them off.

  She had to hold her belly and even then she couldn’t stop, which probably meant she was hysterical. It had been that sort of a morning.

  ‘What’s going on now, you two?’ a voice called from around the corner and two seconds later, Ella appeared. She wore a red fluffy Christmas hat with a white pompom on the top, and a dress with a flowing skirt covered in green and blue swirls all the way to her ankles.

  ‘Oh!’ Ella stopped at the sight of them: Jaydah in the white dress; Rosalie still trying to wring water from her shirt, the puddle spreading at her feet; the kids cackling.

  ‘Have you said sorry yet, Sam?’ Ella asked her son without missing a beat.

  ‘It wasn’t me. It was Charlotte.’

  ‘Yes, I said sorry,’ said Charlotte, trying and failing to suppress her giggles.

  ‘Sam, the nice thing to do now is for you to run inside, please, and find a towel.’

  The kids took off, shoving each other and laughing, and from behind them Brix ran back up the stairs. ‘You were right, JT. She’s with the pony.’

  Her mum’s soft sigh of relief mirrored her own, and Jaydah felt some of the stiffness leave her mum’s arm.

  ‘Who’s with the pony?’ Ella asked, and as Brix came up beside her Jaydah heard him draw breath to answer, but then Ella put up her hand. ‘No. Scratch that question or you’re only going to have to say it again when Jake gets here. First things first.’ She shifted her attention back to Rosalie. ‘You must be Jaydah’s mum. Merry Christmas, Mrs Tully.’

  ‘Ella, this is Rosalie,’ Brix said, and Ella leaned in to welcome her mum with what might have been the beginning of a Christmas hug, or at least a kiss on the cheek. Rosalie shrank back in surprise.

  Ella stopped as if she hadn’t noticed anything off. ‘I’ll find you another shirt to wear, Rosalie. There’s bound to be something going spare around here.’

  ‘Oh no, thank you,’ her mum said, flapping at the shirt as she tried to dry it in the breeze.

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ Ella said.

  ‘Alright then ... what did these two spill now? Is anything broken? Do I need to get the vacuum out for broken glass?’ Jake stalked around the corner.

  Sam and Charlotte dashed past Jake with a bath towel each, skidding to a halt in front of Rosalie, who took one of the towels and shrugged free of Jaydah’s arm to kneel on the verandah floor and mop at the water.

  ‘Don’t worry about the pavers, Rosalie!’ Ella scolded gently, taking Jaydah’s mum’s arm and guiding her up. ‘The towel is for you to get yourself dry! Are you sure I can’t find you another shirt?’

  With the second towel, Ella patted at Rosalie’s clothes.

  ‘Rosalie, this is my brother, Jake,’ Brix introduced them and her mum said a shy hello with the towel clamped to her chest like a shield.

  ‘It’s nice to see you here. Merry Christmas,’ Jake said.

  ‘Thank you,’ her mum managed. ‘I hope we are no trouble.’

  ‘No trouble. We always have a mountain of food. You’ll save me from eating it all. You’re very welcome here. And as for you—’ Jake dove through kids and adults and bee-lined Brix, shaking his hand until he gave up on the handshake and clapped him around the shoulders. ‘Congratulations. Come on in and let’s tell Mum and Dad. I can’t wait to see what they say.’

  ‘We will in a sec,’ Brix said. ‘We’re missing someone.’

  ‘Who are we missing? Everyone’s here.’ Jake frowned. ‘Except Abe and Taylor. They’re always late.’

  ‘Not Abe and Taylor,’ Brix said, and then he stood tall and straight and said clearly to his brother, ‘we’re missing Jaydah’s sister, Jasmine. She’s with us too.’

  Jake’s eyebrows shot skyward. ‘I didn’t know you had a sister, Jaydah?’

&n
bsp; ‘Well …’

  Why did her tongue feel useless and thick? Why hadn’t she thought of how she’d answer the question? She’d worried so much about how she’d tell Brix about Jaz, she hadn’t given much thought to how she’d tell anybody else.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a sister either,’ Ella said. ‘Has she been living away?’

  ‘She’s just up with Charlotte’s pony. She loves horses.’ Brix filled her silence. ‘Jasmine is Jaydah’s twin.’

  ‘Her twin?’ Jake said, at the same time as Charlotte said, ‘You’re a twin? How cool. I would love to be a twin.’

  Sam groaned. ‘Then there’d be two of you.’

  ‘I have two daughters,’ her mum said, and everyone—even Sam and Charlotte—stopped still and stared because her mum had barely volunteered a word till now and Jaydah got ready to fill the next gap and answer all the questions, but Brix beat her to it.

  ‘I’ll explain later, and it’ll make more sense when you meet her. We better go get her now though, hey, JT? Jake, would you please look after Rosalie and introduce her to Mum and Dad?’ There was a tone in Brix’s voice, a hum of something that made Jake and Ella glance at each other to see what they might have missed.

  ‘Sure, no problem. Come this way, Rosalie,’ Jake said.

  Jaydah’s mum hovered off to the side of the wet pavers, almost in the garden, and she looked very much like she wanted to run too, go pat a pony, jump in the car and not come out for a week.

  Brix leaned towards her mum and with a hand behind her back he nudged her towards his brother. Jake moved to one side of Rosalie, Ella to the other.

  ‘Come with us, Rosalie. Would you like a cup of tea?’ Ella asked. ‘Or a glass of wine?’

  ‘No. No wine,’ her mum said, on the verge of tears.

  ‘We won’t be long, Mum,’ Jaydah said. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Have you ever met my mum and dad, Rosalie?’ Jake asked.

  ‘Do you like food and cooking, Rosalie?’ Ella asked.

  ‘I like cooking.’ Her mum’s voice was a whisper.

  ‘Then my mum will be so happy to see you,’ Jake said. ‘My brother Abe isn’t here yet, and he’s the only one of us kids who is any good at cooking. Mum loves talking about food and I gotta admit, I could use some help with the roast pork. You can help me get the crackling perfect.’

  * * *

  Brix walked beside JT. Jaz was up there near Jaydah’s silver car, leaning over the fence patting Starburst, and then a fire-engine red vehicle they both recognised turned off Quarry Road and came hurtling down the gravel driveway.

  Jaz ducked behind the Subaru.

  ‘She’s frightened,’ Jaydah said, increasing her pace.

  ‘Abe and Taylor won’t hurt her.’

  ‘She doesn’t know that. She’s spent her life hiding because that’s what my father always told her to do. He told her strangers were bad. Anytime anyone ever came to the farm to get a trailer of rocks, Jaz hid in the laundry because Dad didn’t want anybody to see her. He kept Hammer chained behind the house, because nobody would ever go snooping along that back verandah near the laundry while Hammer was chained there.’

  Taylor’s Redline stopped in the middle of the driveway. Brix could see a black dog trying to get his head through the open crack of one of the rear windows. The dog’s small black nose huffed and snuffled until Taylor got out and scolded him to sit down.

  Jaydah aimed for the spot where Jasmine crouched by the Subaru’s tyre, hair falling over her face.

  Taylor and Abe covered all the initial confusion with kisses and hugs and Christmas greetings.

  ‘I think I mixed up the dress code, mate,’ Abe said, eyeing his shorts and tee-shirt and arching an eyebrow at Brix’s suit.

  ‘You’ll do,’ Brix said.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Long story,’ Brix added.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Jaydah,’ Taylor said, and Abe—who’d been facing away from Jaydah and the car—spun around. It was kind of fun to see the way Abe’s mouth opened, then closed, as he got his first look at the Tully twins.

  ‘Merry Christmas.’ Jaydah smiled at them but didn’t let go of Jaz’s shoulders. ‘Abe and Taylor, this is my twin sister, Jasmine. Jaz, this is Brix’s brother Abe, and his friend, Taylor.’

  ‘Hello,’ Taylor said.

  ‘Hi,’ said Abe.

  Then there was silence while Jaz studied her feet.

  ‘So, JT and I got married this morning,’ Brix blurted. ‘Jaydah’s mum is down at the house. She and Jasmine, well, we’re all here for Christmas lunch. It’s a long story. We’ll tell you all about it later.’

  ‘The more, the merrier,’ Abe said.

  ‘I want to go home,’ Jasmine said.

  ‘We can’t go home yet. We haven’t had lunch,’ Jaydah said.

  ‘I want to go home!’ Jaz rocked forward from the hip. Jaydah’s arm was still wrapped around her shoulder and the movement made both women lurch. ‘I want to go home. It’s not fair! I didn’t ask that we came here. I didn’t have a choice.’

  Bloody hell, Brix thought. What did they do now?

  Taylor saved them. She put her hand lightly on Jaz’s forearm, near her wrist, and her touch stopped Jaz’s rocking.

  ‘Please don’t go home yet,’ Taylor said, speaking clearly and directly to Jaz. ‘We have all our presents in the car and we don’t have anyone to be Santa. Could you please be Santa for us?’

  ‘How can I be Santa?’ Jaz said.

  ‘We have a big basket of presents in the back of our car, and someone has to give them all out.’

  ‘But what if I break one?’ Jaz said, hand creeping up to cover her mouth.

  ‘If you break one, it would be an accident,’ Taylor said, and she reached out casually and took Jaz’s hand from her face. ‘No one here will get cross at you. Everyone has accidents sometimes.’

  ‘So I could be Santa?’ Jaz’s face brightened. ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Okay. That would be good.’

  ‘I’m so glad that’s settled, Jaz,’ Jaydah said. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘I am a bit hungry,’ Jaz said.

  Abe said, ‘I made Christmas biscuits, and Christmas pudding—’

  ‘With custard,’ Taylor added.

  ‘I love custard,’ Jaz said, and she forgot about presents, Santa, the pony or covering her mouth with her hand, and she turned and raced down the hill to the farmhouse.

  ‘Well done, Doc,’ Abe said to Taylor, and he pulled her to him and pressed a kiss into her red hair.

  Taylor gave Brix and Jaydah a wink. ‘Stop looking so worried, you two. It will all be okay.’

  Brix leaned towards Taylor and pushed his brother out of the way. He murmured, ‘Thank you from me too. From now on, I’m gonna call you the Jaz Whisperer. You’re a legend.’

  CHAPTER

  16

  ‘I think she’s finally tired your mum out,’ Jaydah murmured to Brix.

  His mum sat at the end of the table with Rosalie on one side and Jasmine on the other, eyes closed, head nodding to her chest.

  She’d talked with Jasmine all afternoon about animals mostly, and what it was like living on the farm. She’d told stories of chasing sheep along the road after a tree branch fell over the fence which let the sheep escape, and about the time she’d got their tractor bogged, and about her favourite chickens (‘Did you call one Tara?’ ‘No, they were Speckles and Carrot and Nigella’) and the time the rooster had tried to scratch her, lashing out with his clawed feet when she’d gone too close to one of the nesting hens.

  Jaz listened to all the stories with her hand clamped across her open mouth, wide-eyed.

  It was their wedding news that had excited Brix’s mum the most. She’d burst into tears when they first walked onto the patio with Jasmine proudly carrying Abe and Taylor’s presents in a laundry basket.

  When his mum saw the wedding dress, her dress, she’d spent long minutes just rubbing the satin skir
t between her thumb and fingers, eyes welling. Even his dad shed a tear.

  ‘Didn’t I keep that secret well?’ she’d said eventually. ‘Didn’t I?’

  ‘You knew about this, Mum?’ Jake demanded.

  ‘I did. He thought I couldn’t do it.’ She hooked her thumb at Brix. ‘I told you I could keep a secret. I kept the secret about Abe all these years. Was it Irene who altered it?’

  ‘Irene worked her magic, yep.’ What secret about Abe? He glanced at Jake to see if he’d heard but he’d been distracted by a tug on his arm from Charlotte.

  ‘Hasn’t she done a good job?’ His mum ran her hands over the material again. ‘Oh it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. I’m so happy for both of you. It’s just such lovely news.’

  She’d cried a bit then. Tears streaming as she apologised for being so silly.

  Extra chairs were dragged out to the patio for the Tullys, and after that it had been food, conversation, presents and Honeychurch Christmas hospitality beneath the shade-sail over the patio, guarding them from the Australian sun.

  Now, Sam, Charlotte and Abe were helping Jake clear the dessert dishes away as everyone around the table pushed their chairs back and sighed, except for Jaz. Jaz had her eyes on another serve of Christmas pudding.

  ‘Don’t take that away yet, Sam,’ Brix said, leaning forward to cut a slice. He put it on a napkin and passed it across to Jasmine who took it and spooned custard on top.

  ‘Can Sam and I go down to see Starburst, Dad?’ Charlotte asked Jake when they’d finished cleaning up.

  There was a lot of Jake in Charlotte, Brix decided, watching the pair of them. She had his easy-tan skin, legs already brown as brown sugar in just those few days on the farm. When she asked a question her brow creased, same pattern as Jake. If she didn’t like the answer, her scowl was the same as Jake’s too.