‘Alice!’ Paige’s voice followed. ‘Please, stop trying to run my life. Come in if you’re game, Aiden. Your timing is perfect.’ The screen door snapped shut behind him and both women, standing at the centre of the formal lounge room Sharni never used, turned in his direction. ‘Alice and I are all done here.’ While Paige plonked into one of the armchairs by the fireplace, Alice remained standing, gripping the marble mantel a little too fiercely, as if she didn’t trust herself to let go. ‘In fact,’ Paige planted both hands on the armrests to launch herself from the chair, ‘we should get out of here for a bit. Sharni has the kids. I’m a free woman. More free than I could ever have imagined. And that’s saying something,’ she mumbled in Alice’s direction while striding from the room. ‘Wait for me, Aiden. I’ll be right down after I change.’
There was an awkward few seconds of Alice staring him down before Aiden decided to wait on the veranda. As he turned on his heel to slink away, he heard Alice’s warning voice.
‘Leave Paige to me, please, Aiden. This is a family matter.’ It might have been a whispered command, but the tone in the old woman’s voice worked like a switch, halting him. ‘She’s upset, but I can handle Paige. Perhaps your time would be better spent with your other friend.’
‘My other friend?’ The woman made it sound like he had a harem on hand. Unfortunately, when Aiden sought to clarify, asking, ‘You mean Rory?’ it only seemed to confirm that he did. ‘What I meant to say was . . . Look, Alice, I don’t want to get involved in family stuff. Believe me, I don’t. I’ll respect your wishes, but before I go—’
‘What is it? Quickly,’ she said, her eyes on the stairway, listening as he was to heavy-footed Paige slamming doors upstairs.
‘You’re a nurse.’
‘I was.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Will it take long?’
‘Does Rory look well to you?’
Did the woman’s grip on the mantelpiece tighten even more?
‘What makes you ask such a thing?’
‘She went through a bad patch when we were teenagers and I wondered—’
‘Aiden, you should be talking to Aurora.’ But as if she had second thoughts, the woman’s stance softened. ‘She is sick. Very sick. I promised I wouldn’t say anything, only you’re possibly the best thing for her right now. So you should know. I meant it when I said your time might be better spent with Aurora. Leave Paige to me.’
‘Rory told you she’s sick? When?’
‘I ran into her on the road.’ Alice obviously realised her mistake. ‘I mean, I saw her on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck. I kept her company. She was upset and, well, you know how it is when people are upset. They say things.’
Was that an Alice-style apology for the scene he’d witnessed earlier?
‘Upset how?’
‘She was upset about missing her dialysis appointment in Saddleton.’
‘Dialysis? That’s for kidney failure.’
The nurse must have heard the worry in Aiden’s voice. ‘Dialysis is easily managed these days. Inconvenient, but even those with only one kidney live full lives.’
‘Good, because she does only have one kidney. A kick to the guts by her horse buggered the other one when she was a teenager. They operated to remove the ruptured one and that’s when they found cancer in her other kidney and had to remove a small part of that. As if she’d needed any more crap in her life at the time.’
Alice wavered a little, or was it his imagination? He couldn’t help but notice the sudden shift in attitude. All of a sudden something was hurting her, her face pinched, pained.
‘Aiden, I didn’t examine Aurora. She needed to talk. I listened. I’m sure if you were as close as you say, she’d much rather be talking to you. She needs to see someone cares about her. If you care so much, perhaps your attention on Paige is not helping.’
‘Alice!’ Paige slammed her shoulder bag into the chair by the entry door.
‘What? The man was asking me my professional opinion.’
‘Professional opinion about what?’
‘Rory’s sick, Paige,’ Aiden clarified.
‘Sorry to barge in. Thought I heard my name.’ Rory purposely let the screen door bang, probably for effect, and the sparsely furnished living room that was supposed to be Sharni’s no-go zone was suddenly crowded. She strolled across and slapped Aiden on the back. ‘Need backup, buddy?’
Aiden didn’t return the smile. ‘Alice said you’re sick.’
She shot Alice a look. ‘Yeah, Aiden, I’m sick, okay? The secret’s out. I have been for a while. I came home for some peace and fucking quiet in my own home and to tidy up a few loose ends.’
‘Tidy up loose ends? How sick are you? Alice said it’s your kidney. What can I do?’
‘What can you do, Aido?’ She laughed. ‘Last time I checked there were some two thousand people on the kidney list, so the best thing you can do is find my bloody mother and my sister, that’s assuming they’re still alive, and ask them for one of theirs. Oh, but wait! The woman didn’t choose to keep me forty years ago so I doubt she’d choose to give away a kidney now. That leaves me on the transplant list with everyone else hanging out for a gift from a stranger. To be honest, though, I’m a bit over the will-I-or-won’t-I-make-it-til-then game.’
‘What do you mean your mother didn’t choose you?’ Paige interrupted, allowing Aiden to observe the older woman out of the corner of one eye. Something about the way her hand clutched her chest at hearing Paige’s latest line of enquiry had his attention. Then a bang caught them all off guard as the small trophy that sat under the horse photograph fell from the mantel, the victim of Alice’s sudden arm wave as she lunged forward to grasp the back of one of the winged armchairs by the fireplace.
While mentally preparing himself for a medical emergency should the woman have a heart attack, Aiden wished he hadn’t asked about Rory and started all this. Once the girl got on her soapbox about her mum, he knew there’d be no stopping her.
‘She ran off when I was a baby and left me behind. I wasn’t the one she wanted.’
‘That’s not true,’ the older woman blurted. ‘It’s not. Your mother loved you, Aurora. She spent her last breath telling me she loved you.’
Three pairs of eyes, all blinking in unison, bore into Alice: Paige from the doorway where she stood aghast, both hands cupping her face, her mouth agape; Rory, against the sideboard under the picture window, her slouched position suddenly ramrod straight; Aiden too petrified to speak—but somebody had to do something to breathe oxygen into the room, given all three had just sucked the room of air.
‘Right then,’ he said. ‘How about I get us all a cool drink? I sure as hell could do with one.’
All three, all together, returned, ‘Not now, Aiden.’
36
Alice
‘I’m trying to make sense of this, Alice.’ Paige’s face puckered, shock morphing into confusion. ‘Is this another weird turkey baster scenario? Did you and Mum collect random donors? Oh, and then, adding calamity to coincidence, here we both are in the same house?’ Paige delivered the angry words along with a strangled laugh. ‘Should I get myself a Lotto ticket next?’
Alice looked around the living room, her gaze resting squarely on the confusion in her daughter’s eyes, her head managing three words, ‘I’m sorry, Paige.’
‘You’re scaring me, Alice. What do you have to be sorry about? What is this nonsense?’
As much as she wanted to breathe deep to clear the brain fog, the sudden tightness in Alice’s chest allowed only small gulps of air; not nearly enough to stop the dizzy whirl in her head. She braced her hands on the back of the chair, raised her face to look directly at her daughter, feeling both condemned and strangely comforted to tell the truth—finally. Aiden and Rory had moved, too, and now sat opposite her on the two-seater sofa, while Paige looked ready to walk out the door any minute.
‘Well?’
Alice du
g deep.
The time had come.
‘It isn’t nonsense, Paige,’ she said, somehow managing to recoup that commanding tone. ‘Sit down. You need to—’
‘I don’t want to sit down, Alice,’ Paige returned. ‘And now is not the time to tell me what I need to do, or not do. I’m asking you what the hell is going on.’
Alice’s hands clutched the back of the armchair as she made her way to the front of it, falling into the cushions and wishing the oversized antique would swallow her up. Where was the rabbit hole for Alice to fall into so she could go back to yesterday when everything was different?
‘Very well.’ Alice swallowed the lump forming in the thickness of a dry throat. ‘There was no turkey baster, Paige.’
‘I knew it!’ The smack as Paige cupped a palm to her forehead was loud amid the silent stares. ‘It’s that man in the photo with Mum, isn’t it? He’s my father.’
‘Yes, he’s your father. And Aurora’s.’
‘Rory and I have the same father and mother, Alice?’ Her face pinched up as if Alice had asked her to calculate the square root of 247. ‘Wouldn’t that make us sisters?’
‘You’re more than sisters.’
‘More?’ If blinking were an Olympic sport, Paige had managed her personal best, the concentration on her face telling Alice she was trying to access that part of the brain that would help her understand; the part with the answer to the quiz: Johnny’s mother had three children. The first child was named April. The second child was named May. What was the third child’s name?
Of course, how many children Johnny’s mother had and what she called them was not the issue here and Alice had to stay on point. She had one chance to do this right. Surely her heart would not cope with a repeat performance.
‘Twins.’ The word whooshed out on the breath Alice had been holding back for some thirty years.
‘Twins? How?’ Paige’s voice was small, confused, like when she’d been young and inquisitive.
‘The night your mother left this house, your father was supposed to be asleep. To make sure that he stayed asleep they . . .’ Nobody moved or spoke, all waiting for Alice to start making sense. ‘Your mother sneaked out in the early hours. She bundled you both onto the back seat, refusing to leave you behind. In his drunken stupor your father managed to drive through two properties to where he could cut your mother’s car off before the main road. His rage was uncontrollable that night and he could’ve hurt you all terribly.’ Alice was struggling to breathe, her chest a tightening knot. ‘I can tell you what I know, but it isn’t much. Your mother blocked that night out completely, even from me. The one thing I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is this.’ Alice visibly steeled herself, the words delivered on a rush of relief, ‘Nancy loved you both, equally.’
‘There’s been a sister, out here, all these years and you never—’
‘Paige, my darling Paige, you have to understand. Your mother was so scared. I wanted her to tell you, but you were so young. Before she died she made me promise. She didn’t want you to remember her as anything other than a mother who loved you more than life. I wanted to tell you when the time was right, but I was afraid—’
‘I might have been young when Mum died, Alice, but in case you haven’t noticed I’m all grown up. Are you telling me that for thirty years you never once found the right time to tell me I had a sister? You had the perfect opportunity when I asked you just the other night. My God! For thirty years you’ve lied?’ Paige’s confusion was morphing into disbelief. Anger would not be far behind. Alice had to make her understand.
‘Because I loved you, Paige. Please, let me explain.’ Alice’s voice finally gave out, regret turning to shame.
‘Don’t.’ Paige thrust a stop hand towards Alice. ‘Don’t go saying anything.’
‘Why are you being such a bitch?’ Rory chimed in.
Paige gasped. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Don’t beg mine, princess. The woman wants to explain. Let her.’
Alice remained crumpled in her seat, struck by a pain in her heart so fierce it frightened her.
Rory had stepped cautiously and was now crouched in front of the armchair. ‘What you told me out on the road, about the person who died from cancer? That was my mother?’
As if they were the only two people in the room, Rory and Alice held each other’s gaze, while Paige’s growing anger manifested itself in her pacing of the room. When Aiden stood, making a move to comfort Paige, she backed away, shrugging him off, both arms wrapping around her waist in a protective stance.
‘So are you her, Alice?’ Rory questioned slowly, gently, care and curiosity in the piercing blue eyes, Nancy’s eyes, staring up. ‘The one from that night? The one she left me behind to be with? I’ve always wondered about the rumours I’d heard when I was young. I asked Dad once, but he wouldn’t admit to being left for a woman. But it was a woman.’
Alice both nodded and shook her head. ‘Yes, a woman, but no, I’m not her. I never met that woman; only heard what Nancy chose to tell me about that part of her life before we met. Oh, Aurora, there is so much you need to know, to understand. So much to tell you.’
‘What the hell . . . ?’ Paige was seething, visibly shaking and barley able to form any more words. ‘How about telling me?’
‘How about you lighten up on the hysterics, princess,’ Rory shot up from her crouched position in front of Alice. ‘The world might’ve revolved around you once. Not any more, Ebony Paige.’
‘What did you call me?’
Aiden jumped in between the two women’s line of sight and raised a referee’s palm, one to each of them. ‘Why don’t we all try and stay calm.’
Paige batted his hand away in frustration. ‘I can’t be calm, Aiden. I’m too busy being furious.’
‘Yeah, well I’m busy dying.’ Rory ripped the wig from her head and threw it to the floor. ‘That means I win.’
37
Paige
‘Are you serious, Aiden?’ Paige had trouble keeping the indignation from her voice. They’d been left alone in the room. Alice was doing what she did at times of high stress—making tea—only this time with the help of someone other than Paige. ‘I have a sister!’ Her head shook. Small, continuous shakes side to side.
‘I’m suggesting you need time to let everything sink in. You need to get away for a bit?’
‘I thought I was away, Aiden. I went away to escape a selfish, deceitful husband and let that sink in. Only now you think I’m the lying, unfaithful party in my joke of a marriage, while Alice—’
‘Thought,’ he responded flatly.
‘What?’
‘I thought that’s what you were—past tense and only briefly. I was a bit hasty in my judgment. I shouldn’t have walked off last night. Not something I’m proud of, by the way.’
‘Thank you for sticking around now.’ Paige wiped another line of tears from both cheeks and sniffed. She couldn’t manage a smile, not even a small, crooked one. ‘I don’t know what hurts the most—my husband cheating on me or Alice lying to me all my life. How do I know who I can trust?’
‘By getting away I was talking about getting fresh air, taking a walk, trying to understand.’
‘No, I get it. Really, I do. Time isn’t the answer. Trust is the answer.’
‘You can trust Alice. And you can trust me.’
‘And my husband? The man I chose to live the rest of my life with; the man I chose to have children with and love me, ’til death us do part? I trusted him with my heart and he’s broken it. You should understand that better than anyone, Aiden. Rene betrayed you.’
‘Time helps. Getting away helps. Every case of heartbreak is different. Mine broke suddenly. Totally unexpected. Bam! But a heart that breaks slow, well, they’re harder to heal.’
‘And a heart that’s been walked all over and stomped on?’ Paige wrung her hands so tight her knuckles crunched, fresh tears pricking her eyes. ‘I’ve started to question everything I’ve ev
er known to be true.’
‘When the person you believe in more than anyone betrays you, it messes you up. I do understand, Paige. You start to question every decision you’ve ever made, like you’re no longer a good judge of anything.’
‘This cannot be happening. Why keep such a secret all these years? Alice, of all people—’
‘The slap in the face that stings the most is the one from someone you love.’
Paige swung around at the sound of a voice so familiar she wondered why she hadn’t recognised it before now. The subtle sibilance with every ‘es’ spoken’, the ‘hiss’ sound as the tongue tangled with the back of teeth rather than the top of the mouth to smear words like: Slap. Sting. Someone. But there it was, clear as crystal to Paige.
There was no contest as to where Paige’s tongue was right now. It was glued to the bottom of her mouth, her jaw frozen ajar.
‘I understand. I do, really,’ Rory said. ‘I even feel sorry for you.’
She feels sorry?
Paige forced her mouth shut, desperate to keep the string of profanities locked inside.
‘What I mean is, this has to be more of a shock for you. I at least knew you existed—somewhere, once.’
‘If you knew, why didn’t you try to find us—find me? How could you not?’
Rory’s incessant shrugging stuck in Paige’s craw, testing her.
‘Why would I?’ she blurted. ‘I lived in the shadow of the lost daughter my entire life. He mourned you. Our mother picked you over me when she left. That’s what my old man told me, like he told me the runt of the litter is often rejected. That’s what I believed. As for me adding to his grief by trying to track you both down?’ Rory shrugged, tried to toughen up. ‘Hey, maybe it’s me, but knowing you weren’t wanted by one parent makes you avoid pissing off the only other person in your life by asking too many questions. It also makes you wonder how long before your father stops wanting you. I sure as hell would never hang around long enough for a boyfriend to dump me. That’s why, as soon as I could manage it, I was out of here. I chose to live my life my way. I chose to leave here and I chose to tell no one, even Aiden.’
Season of Shadow and Light Page 39