Jack stood back to let her inside. ‘Belinda invited you?’ he asked.
‘No.’
Delilah-Grace headed straight for the kitchen.
‘Belinda!’ Jack called as he followed her.
In the kitchen Delilah-Grace pushed the bag up on to the counter. Belinda appeared in the doorway from the living room and looked questioningly across at Jack. He shrugged. They both stepped towards the island bench where Delilah-Grace was lining up ingredients.
‘Separate the eggs,’ Delilah-Grace instructed Jack.
Jack and Belinda exchanged another look. They both knew that the reason this little girl was staying with her grandfather was because her parents had both been deployed to some far-off country for an undetermined amount of time. And they knew another thing too; they knew that Dr Russell was becoming increasingly worried about his daughter and son-in-law, as he hadn’t been able to make any sort of contact with them for several weeks now. Jack had overheard him talking about it with Chris, the owner of the grocery store recently.
How could they say no?
‘How many?’ Jack asked.
‘As many as you think.’
The three of them worked together for forty-five minutes and it was just as it had been with Amy: Jack and Belinda felt drawn in by Delilah-Grace. The more they worked, the more they fell under her hypnotising presence. They chopped dark chocolate, they sifted flour and they melted butter on the stove. Every now and then, Delilah-Grace would order one of them to taste the mixture. Each time they did, they would feel another part of their body softening, relaxing. Another piece of anger would drift out the window. After the cake was in the oven, and when Belinda had walked Delilah-Grace home and returned to sit at the kitchen table across from Jack, they took one another by the hand and they laughed at the madness of their evening. Then they stopped laughing and they felt grateful for their lives, for how lucky they were to have one another. They knew that their problems weren’t solved. They knew that one night of laughter wasn’t going to magically fix everything. But it was a start.
It was the first time in many months that their kitchen had heard the sound of laughter.
Delilah-Grace knew that Wednesday would be the hardest. But she also knew that with a little bit of a hope, a little faith and some chance, it could work. She wrote the letter at her desk. Her spelling wasn’t perfect, but the message was. When she finished, she stood up, walked to the window, folded the letter into an aeroplane and tossed it into the sky. With any luck, the wind would pick it up and take care of the rest. It was better not to watch it though, best to turn from the window, close her eyes, and maybe cross her fingers. She would know by Friday. For now, she needed to go downstairs for dinner with Grandpa.
On Thursday, Delilah-Grace and Grandpa spent the day at the beach. Grandpa taught her how to dig in the sand for tiny crabs. They built elaborate sandcastles and decorated them with leaves, pebbles and seashells. They dipped their toes in the icy cold water and when the bright sun came out, they lay back on the picnic rug and closed their eyes, savouring the warmth on their skin.
‘Looking forward to going back to school after the holidays?’ Grandpa asked.
‘Sort of,’ said Delilah-Grace, ‘But…’ she paused and Grandpa stayed silent, waiting for her to finish. ‘I like Auntie Liz,’ she continued eventually, ‘but I like it best when Mum walks me to school. She lets me walk along the brick wall in front of Memorial Park. And she lets me pick daisies on the way, and sometimes we make daisy chains with them.’
‘I’m sure Lizzie would let you do that too, if you asked.’
‘Yeah. I guess.’
That afternoon, when they arrived back at Grandpa’s place, Delilah-Grace dropped her backpack and the bucket full of shells that they’d collected just inside the front door, then asked Grandpa if she could just drop in on one of his neighbours for a minute. Grandpa paused, ‘You seem to know my neighbours better than I do,’ he said. ‘Yep,’ she replied, ‘guess so.’ And then she ran down the street to number two. She had a packet of sunflower seeds in her pocket that she’d been keeping safe all day. She saw Jessica Harrison working in her garden. Jessica smiled when she spotted Delilah-Grace. Despite the fact that her back ached when she spent too long crouched down on her knees tending to her flowers, it was still where Jessica spent most of her time. The garden kept her company. She liked to speak to the lilies, to sing to her gladiolas and roses.
‘Whatcha up to there?’ Jessica asked from her flowerbed.
‘Magic,’ she replied.
‘Magic?!’ Jessica asked in surprise. ‘That sounds intriguing.’
Delilah-Grace nodded and then she turned and began to slowly drop the seeds, one by one in the grass along the nature strip in front of Jessica’s fence.
‘Honey, they won’t grow if you don’t plant them properly,’ Jessica called out to her, but Delilah-Grace waved her concerns away with her hand. ‘They’ll be OK,’ she said. She continued to sprinkle the seeds, all the way down the street and up to Grandpa’s front gate. When she was done, she dusted her hands.
Before Delilah-Grace headed inside, she checked the letterbox. It was empty – but Delilah-Grace wasn’t too concerned. It was still only Thursday; she knew that her paper airplane needed at least a little time to work its magic. Tomorrow there should be a letter.
The following day however, there was still no letter. Now Delilah-Grace was feeling worried. She had expected a response by today. If the aeroplane had done its trick, then there would have been a letter.
Over the weekend, Grandpa took her bushwalking. He packed them a picnic with ham and cheese sandwiches, vanilla cake and strawberries. They followed a track that wound its way through silver beech and rimu trees, all the while slowly climbing its way up one of the many mountains that flanked the fishing village below. Sometimes Grandpa would stop suddenly, hold his finger to his lips and then point out a White Heron up above or a Weka bird watching them from in-between the trees. But each time, Delilah-Grace barely acknowledged the small creatures. Eventually they came to a clearing and found a spot for their picnic rug. In front of them was a spectacular view of the ocean, spread out like a vast blue carpet beneath them. To their left they could see the village surrounded by the jutting mountains with lime stone cliffs, and in the distance, the Southern Alps, tinted pink in the afternoon light.
They sat down and ate their late lunch silently, but eventually Grandpa put down his sandwich and asked Delilah-Grace what was wrong.
‘My plan is falling apart,’ she replied.
‘What plan ’Lyla?’ he asked.
‘I can’t tell,’ she replied. ‘It’s like when you blow out your birthday candles and make a wish. If you tell, it won’t come true.’
‘But maybe I can help?’
‘No. I don’t think you can.’
On Monday morning, Delilah-Grace met the postman by the front gate. ‘Any letters for us?’ she asked, her hands entwined tightly behind her back, every finger crossed as she waited for an answer. ‘Sorry darlin’, nothing for number eight.’ And the postie roared off on his bike leaving behind a small girl who was trying her very best to fight back tears. Before heading back inside, she paused to look down the road at the nature strip. Her sunflowers hadn’t grown either. Nothing was working anymore.
That night Grandpa suggested they have pizza for dinner by the wharf. He was desperate to find a way to cheer Delilah-Grace up. As Grandpa pulled the front door shut behind them, neither of them heard the telephone that had just begun to ring inside. ‘Shall we take the street or beach?’ Grandpa asked.
‘Beach,’ she replied.
‘You don’t mind the sand in your shoes?’
‘Nup.’
They shared a chicken and prawn pizza at an outdoor table at the local pizzeria as the sun set over the water, watching the ocean change colour and become glossy in the fading light as the last few fishing boats gliding back into the harbour. They had just ordered their ice creams and w
ere about to start the walk back home when Chris came running out of the grocery store over the road towards them, waving his arms in the air.
Grandpa turned to look at him in surprise.
‘Phone call,’ said Chris, puffing a bit. ‘Phone call for you in the store.’
‘For me? Why would someone call your store trying to reach me?’
Chris shrugged. ‘She said she’d been trying you at home and she couldn’t wait any longer so she just started phoning stores along the wharf hoping to find you.’
‘Who?’ exclaimed Grandpa.
‘Your daughter…’ He paused for a moment seeing the look on Dr Russell’s face and then added hurriedly, ‘Lizzie, not Sammy.’
In the store Chris put one hand on Delilah-Grace’s shoulder as they watched Grandpa take the phone and raise it to his ear. Delilah-Grace wasn’t listening to Grandpa’s voice. She didn’t try to decipher the conversation based on Grandpa’s responses into the phone. Instead she was watching Grandpa’s nose. When Grandpa was upset, he would always grimace his lips and wrinkle his nose. If he felt happy about something, his nostrils would flare just a little. She concentrated hard, watching, waiting.
Twenty seconds into the phone call, Delilah-Grace saw what she’d been waiting for, Grandpa’s nostrils flared and without waiting a moment longer she flew at Grandpa and wrapped her arms around his waist.
*
That Friday they held the street party. Delilah-Grace wore her favourite blue dress, the one with the white flowers embroidered around the hem. She held Grandpa’s hand as they waited, their eyes fixed on the end of the street. When the car turned the corner and came into view, Grandpa squeezed her hand and they both watched as the car pulled over and the doors opened.
‘How is this possible?’ Grandpa whispered. ‘For weeks and weeks, no news, and then out of the blue a letter arrives at Lizzie’s house, and today, here they are. Home. At last.’
Delilah-Grace couldn’t believe she had been so silly. Of course the letter would go to Auntie Liz. She was the one who’d been appointed Delilah-Grace’s guardian all these months. She should never have stopped trusting in her plan.
‘Sammy,’ Grandpa called, and Delilah-Grace heard his voice crack as first they saw Delilah-Grace’s mum and then her dad climb out of the taxi.
But she had barely set her eyes on her mother’s face before she was being swept up into Sammy’s arms and then she couldn’t hear anything else but her mum’s heartbeat as she held her tight. A second later her daddy was hugging her too and they were all crying and Grandpa was dancing on the footpath.
When Sammy and Cal finally put Delilah-Grace back down on her feet she stepped back to look down the street. As she watched the grass, the sunflowers that she had planted late last week pushed their way up through the earth, opened their petals to the last dying rays of the sun and began to sway in the breeze. Jessica Harrison stepped out through her front gate and followed the sunflowers, all the way down the street, past the tables that had been set up with bowls of chips and jugs of lemonade, past the ribbons and decorations and right up to the front gate of number eight, where Grandpa was still dancing. When he saw Jessica, he reached out his hands, pulled her in close, and they began to dance together.
Much later, when Delilah-Grace was older, she supposed that she must have imagined those sunflowers, growing so suddenly and quickly, showing Jessica (or Grandma Jess as she had later come to know her) the way to her grandpa. And she laughed when she remembered painting Amy Patterson’s wall, and wondered at that young mother having let a seven-year-old do such a thing on nothing more than a whim. When she remembered baking that cake with Belinda and Jack, she smiled – although she wouldn’t have believed that that single act had rekindled their broken relationship. But most importantly, she often wondered if it was just a coincidence that her mum and dad had been sent home from Afghanistan the very next week after she had tossed that paper aeroplane from her window. The aeroplane with her neatly printed words, begging for them to be sent home. Begging for them to come home to stay.
But then again, chances are, Delilah-Grace’s magic was all quite real, and her paper aeroplane had reached its destination just as it was supposed to.
About the Author
Nicola Moriarty is a writer, student and mum to two small (but remarkably strong willed) daughters. Her writing was once referred to as ‘inept’ by The Melbourne Age. Luckily on that same day the Brisbane Courier Mail called her work ‘accomplished, edgy and real.’ So she stopped crying into her Weetabix, picked up a pen and continued to write. She has been fueled by a desire to prove The Age wrong ever since. She has now published two novels and one novella with Random House Australia and has written for the websites Mamamia.com and iVillage Australia.
Website: www.nicolamoriarty.com.au
Twitter: www.twitter.com/NikkiM3
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NicolaMoriartyAuthor
Visit www.sunloungerstories.com to discover more about the authors and their story destinations.
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Dreams of Pushkar
***
Alexandra Potter
DESTINATION: India
‘OK, so now for the best bit.’
‘What you mean it gets better than "will you marry me"?’
‘Absolutely,’ he nodded. ‘That was just for starters.’
I laughed, my face splitting into the widest of smiles, and wiped the tears of joy from my eyes, giddy with surprise and delight. I looked at Will, still down on one knee on Hampstead Heath from where he’d just proposed. Muddy knees, shock of dark hair, crooked smile. I feel as I’ve been dipped in melted happiness.
It was a Sunday afternoon in late August, wet and blustery, your typical British bank holiday weather. I’d wanted to stay in and lie on the sofa watching bad made-for-TV movies, but Will wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Come on, let’s go fly kites,’ he’d grinned, tugging me off the sofa with his usual American buoyancy. Born and bred in Arizona, for Will the sun was forever shining; it didn’t matter if outside it was grey and cold, inside of him he had the kind of sunny disposition that made you want to have a nice day.
And it was all for real. Nothing about Will was fake. Not his perfect white American teeth, his childish love of rain or his devotion to recycling. I can’t tell you the number of times I got told off for forgetting our reusable cotton bags and trying to sneak in the back door with arms full of groceries in plastic Tesco carriers. Of course he always caught me. And he would get mad and wave broccoli florets at me whilst I sulkily banged around tins of baked beans.
But bad moods to Will were like clouds to a Phoenix sky, rare and fleeting. Before you knew it he’d be cracking some stupid joke, showing off his juggling skills with the oranges, or simply grabbing me by the waist, pulling me close and telling me how much he loved me. Even if I was killing the planet.
So I’d said yes. You couldn’t say no to Will, his enthusiasm was infectious. And we’d climbed up the grassy hill in our anoraks and wellingtons, unfurled our kites and watched with childish glee as the wind took them and whipped them into the sky. I’ll never forget Will’s whoops and cries filling the air as he raced around like a puppy, tugging the cord, making his kite dance, a bright blue bird swooping and circling above our heads.
My kite dive-bombed quite quickly. Like a kamikaze pilot it crashed to the ground, the red triangle forlornly fluttering in the grass.
‘Don’t worry babe, I’ll get it,’ he called, rescuing it from its muddy grave.
‘God, I’m hopeless,’ I groaned.
‘Hopeless but cute,’ he grinned, walking back to me, my kite in his hands.
‘Thanks,’ I smiled. Reaching out I took it from him and begun untangling the cord, my fingers picking at the jumbled mess. God, it was so tightly knotted.
‘I’ve got something else for you—’
I zoned back in to realis
e Will was still standing next to me.
Correction: kneeling.
‘Will? What on earth are you doing?’ I said, frowning. ‘It’s all wet and muddy, you’ll get your jeans filthy…’ I trailed off as a thought suddenly bubbled up inside of me.
I met Will’s gaze. Gone was his usual laid-back grin.
Surely, he wasn’t going to…
Four words.
That’s all it took to make me the happiest girl in the world.
‘Now we get to talk about the honeymoon,’ he said, standing back up.
I looked at the delicate ring glowing softly on my finger and back again at Will. ‘That’s the best bit?’ I laughed, pretending to be affronted.
‘Well you know how I love to travel.’
‘Oh, so that’s why you proposed?’
‘Any excuse,’ he grinned, wrapping his arms around me. ‘So where do you want to go?
It was framed as a question, but we already both knew the answer. There was only one place both of us had always wanted to go. One place that had captured our imaginations. One place we’d talked about endlessly as we’d sat snuggled on the sofa, or dreamed about as we lay spooned together in bed before we fell asleep.
Without a moment’s hesitation we both looked at each other, our eyes shining with shared excitement, our faces splitting into the widest grins, as together we both said in unison:
‘India.’
*
The bus shudders to a halt and grabbing my backpack I clamber down the steps onto the dusty road. With the smell of diesel still in my nostrils, I look around me, taking in my unfamiliar surroundings. The street vendors, sitting cross-legged at the side of the road, their wares spread out on blankets before them. Barefoot children playing. A caravan of camels sauntering past.
SUNLOUNGER 2: Beach Read Bliss (Sunlounger Stories) Page 54