by Tess Woods
Earlier that day, she’d finally had the courage to call up and book herself in to sing. She hadn’t told her dad; she hadn’t told anyone. This first solo performance in Nashville was something she needed to do for herself and nobody else.
Performing at the Grand Ole Opry had been her biggest dream, and, in a way, it still was. But playing to a packed room at The Bluebird, where nobody knew whose daughter she was, nobody knew about her past, nobody knew about her scars, and all the crowd cared about was whether or not she could sing — that was an adrenaline rush she doubted could ever be topped by anything else.
She took in her audience from the stage, a mix of old and young, men and women, seated at the round wooden tables with drinks in hand. All eyes were on her.
Show time.
She strummed her guitar and for the first time in her life, she sang the first line of a song with her eyes open. And because she did that, she was able to see the way the audience reacted to her. Their shoulders relaxed, their smiles widened. They welcomed her in. She’s good, she could see them thinking.
She was good. She may have stuffed up in other areas of her life. She may have been desperately homesick and pining for her mum and Mia, and not all that comfortable around her dad, who was still a bit of a stranger to her. But this? This she was good at. She was born to be on that stage with nothing but her voice and her guitar and her lyrics.
So she sang her song with her eyes open all the way until the end, and when everyone gave her a standing ovation — the first she’d ever witnessed on open-mic night at The Bluebird — CJ knew she was home.
24 DECEMBER 2018
Jamie knew she ought to be feeling more festive, but how could she when she was sorting her mother’s belongings into packing boxes labelled ‘Charity’, ‘Keep’ and ‘Throw Away’. It had taken her eight months to finally feel able to face this job.
If it hadn’t been for Andrew, she didn’t know how she would have coped in the months following her parents’ deaths and CJ leaving for Nashville. Andrew had been the constant by her side — bringing her dinner, holding her when she cried, easing the load at work, taking her swing dancing on the weekends and helping her forget.
On a cool evening late in October, after a night at the cinema, she realised she hadn’t slept alone in months — and nor did she want to. After that, she and Andrew spent their Saturdays going to house inspections until they’d found the most perfect little townhouse, just the right size for the two of them, close to work and with a spare room for CJ.
Jamie’s parents’ modest house, left to her along with an eye-wateringly large cash inheritance, was now on the market with a solid offer on the table. Now she and CJ were up to their elbows that Christmas Eve morning, cleaning out Jess’s room.
Scott and CJ had only been home for a few days. Scott was staying in a city hotel and CJ had taken up residence in her old room. After joining Scott on tour but staying in the shadows backstage, CJ had told Jamie that she now felt ready to have a go at making it over there herself. She was heading back to Nashville in a couple of weeks to begin work on her first solo album. Who knew how long she’d be away this time?
But Jamie didn’t want to think about CJ leaving again just yet. For now, her daughter was here and she was happy and healthy and that was all that mattered.
She had to hand it to Scott. He’d kept up his end of the bargain and had looked after their daughter the way he’d promised he would. It made her laugh to hear CJ say that Jamie was actually the less strict parent compared to Scott, who she complained was worse than the FBI. Jamie had never seen CJ this happy. She’d been worried to the point of obsession that being far away and with all the temptations a privileged superstar life in Nashville offered, CJ would lose her way again. But her fears had been proven unfounded, and CJ had confirmed it herself two nights ago when she’d confided that she’d not had a single urge to self-harm for months.
CJ had become a fierce young woman, who knew her mind and who held her own while still being her kind sweet self. And as much as she was Scott’s daughter in her talents and her passions, it was Jamie who had raised her to become the woman she now was. Jamie was proud of CJ but also proud of herself.
And she was beyond grateful to have CJ here now helping her with the heartbreaking job of cleaning out her mother’s bedroom. CJ’s presence and conversation made the pain of it bearable.
She picked up one of Jess’s multicoloured scarves and lifted it to her nose. It still smelled of her mother. There wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t wish Jess was still here to talk to, to watch TV with, to fold the washing with.
After much reflection, Jamie had finally put behind her the anger she’d felt at her mother for giving her father the tablets that ended his life. Her dad had made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to keep going. As the months had ticked by after his death, she’d grown in understanding that Jess must have acted purely out of love. And instead of judging her, Jamie had found herself thinking about how terribly lonely it must have been for her to have gone through that alone.
‘Oh my God!’ CJ gasped, pulling Jamie out of her reverie. She was sitting cross-legged with a piece of paper shaking in her hands.
‘What is it, honey?’
CJ’s voice was unsteady. ‘I just found something in one of the boxes under Nan’s bed that I don’t think I was supposed to see.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jamie dropped the scarf into the ‘Keep’ box.
‘There’s a whole bunch of letters to Nan in here. They’re from Vietnam.’ CJ’s eyes bulged. ‘But they’re not from Pop.’
‘What? Like another old boyfriend, you mean?’ She joined CJ on the floor, leaning against her parents’ chest of drawers.
She’d never seen the vintage wooden jewellery box that now lay open in front of her. It had a faded painting of a girl wearing a flower crown on the lid and the words ‘Flower Child’ inscribed on it.
‘Not just an old boyfriend, Mum. He was called Frank.’ CJ looked meaningfully at her. ‘Frank Stone. It says in this letter that she was pregnant and they were expecting a baby together in December of 1970.’
Their eyes stayed locked while Jamie registered her words.
‘What? Show me!’
‘Mum, do you really think we should be reading these?’ CJ faltered as Jamie snatched the letter out of her hands. ‘I feel bad. They’re Nan’s private letters.’
‘Are you kidding? That’s when Mum was pregnant with me. Of course I’m going to read them!’
CJ handed the rest of the letters over. Together they sat on the floor and read each letter in turn until they reached the very last one.
6 SEPTEMBER 1970
Flower Child,
It’s sparrow’s fart here, five in the morning but I’ve been wide awake in the tent all night. It’s so hot up here in the Long Hai mountains. It’s impossible to sleep most nights anyway, but all night I’ve been thinking of having you in my arms again and I haven’t been able to get a wink of sleep.
I want to send you this letter before I go out into the fields for the last time. I fly out tomorrow morning so I’ll be back home with you before you even get this but I want to write to you anyway because I’ve been dreaming about the moment I could write these words for so long — no more days, just a wakey before I’m home!
We made it, Flower Child! We bloody made it!
I love you,
Frank
24 DECEMBER 2018
CJ and Jamie sat in silence for a long time.
‘Mum, did you know this?’ CJ finally spoke. ‘Did you know Great-Uncle Frank was your father?’
‘I had no idea,’ Jamie whispered. ‘He must have died on his last day there. I knew he’d died in Vietnam but I didn’t know when.’
‘How did Nan keep this a secret to herself all these years?’ CJ asked.
Through her tears, Jamie traced her fingers over the box. Flower Child. The box her father had bought her mother. A flower child for my
Flower Child, his letter said. ‘Well, obviously your pop would have known,’ she replied. ‘And his family too. Just not us.’
‘But why? Why would they do that, Mum?’
Jamie shrugged. ‘Who knows, honey? We all have our own reasons for keeping secrets.’
‘Are you angry?’ CJ asked. ‘That Nan and Pop lied to you? That Pop wasn’t your real dad?’
She slowly shook her head. ‘It was a different time back then. Having a baby out of wedlock was a scandal. In their minds they were probably thinking they were protecting me from the shame of it.’
Her brain was going at a furious pace, trying to calculate dates. Her parents were married in early November of 1970. That would have made it only two months after Frank had died. And barely a month before she was born. She could only imagine how turbulent that period of time must have been for them.
All those times when Jess had comforted her about Scott, and she’d thought her mum couldn’t possibly know of the pain she’d endured, she actually had known. She too had endured it — and much worse. Her mum had lost her first great love but in far more devastating circumstances than she ever had.
She buried her head in her hands and wept for her mother — for the pain Jess had never shared with her only child at the loss of her father, for the way she must have suffered as a young woman when her love was sent away to war and never returned.
She wept for the biological father she would never know and for the father who had raised her, who was there at her birth so soon after the loss of his brother and who Jamie knew with certainty loved her and her mum more than any man could, who was even more wonderful and generous and kind than she already knew he was.
And she finally understood why her mum and dad had always behaved as if they shared a mighty secret — they did share a mighty secret!
But more than that, they shared a mighty love. She had no doubt, that as much as Jess may have loved Frank, it was her husband who was her soul mate through life. Jess had found love after her heartbreak, and the same thing had now happened to Jamie. Her mother had been raised lovingly by her uncle, just like what had happened to Jamie. Her mother had wished for many children and ended up with one daughter and so had she. Jamie had more in common with Jess than she’d ever known.
For the first time in her life, Jamie felt truly connected to her mum, and it filled her with peace.
6 SEPTEMBER 1970
Jess knew. When she opened the door and found Frank’s brother, Patrick, standing there, with his bloodshot eyes and his trembling lower lip — before he uttered a word, she knew.
She cupped both hands over her swollen belly.
‘Hello, Jess.’ Pat’s voice shook. ‘Do you mind if I come in?’
Without answering, she unlocked the flyscreen door and stepped back to make way for him.
He bowed his head low and took two steps past her into the entrance hall. He looked at his hands. He sniffed a couple of times. He scratched his forearm and crossed and uncrossed his arms.
‘Pat?’ she asked at last. ‘For goodness sake! What’s happened?’
He looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Jess.’
It was a soft ringing in her ears at first. She caught more words like ‘freak accident’ and ‘stepped on a mine’. But the ringing grew louder and then louder still. ‘Didn’t suffer’ were the last words she heard. She sank to the floor and screamed loudly enough to drown out the ringing in her ears.
Pat crouched next to her and his arms closed in tight around her.
When Jess was hoarse from crying, she stared into his blue eyes, so light they were almost grey. ‘Frank,’ she whispered. ‘I need Frank.’
‘It’ll be all right, Jess. You’re not alone.’
‘He’s supposed to be coming home tomorrow. He has to come home.’
How could he not be coming home?
Pat laid his hand gently over hers on her stomach. The baby kicked under his touch. ‘Jess, he can’t come home. But there’s a big part of him inside you that you’ll always have.’
‘The baby. What am I going to do?’ she sobbed. ‘Oh Pat, what am I going to do?’
‘You and the baby are our family now. I’ll always be here for you,’ he promised her.
And he was.
EPILOGUE
Just like all the other fallen Australian soldiers from Vietnam, there was no Australian flag draped over Frank Stone’s coffin when his body was brought home. There was no guard of honour as the plain steel box containing his remains was wheeled out of the cargo hold at Melbourne Airport. His mother was never awarded a bravery medal in his name. But the one thing Frank did have was the sound of a bugle playing ‘Taps’ when he was lowered into the ground.
In June 2019, a few months shy of forty-nine years since her grandfather’s death, at her first performance at the Grand Ole Opry, and with her mother, father and stepfather in the audience, Charlotte Stone requested a minute’s silence from the crowd. She invited a bugler onto the stage to play in honour of both the grandfather she knew and the one she didn’t.
Lest we forget.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Largest thanks to my beautiful wondrous publisher, Mary Rennie. I scored a publisher who is caring and generous, who balances my crazy with her calm, who is there for me unreservedly at all hours, who comes up with brilliant plot ideas and who nixes my drivel in the kindest possible way. I love you, Mary.
To my incredible powerhouse literary agent, Jacinta di Mase, thank you for always having my back, for the fierce way you go in to bat for me, for the way you commiserate with me when I need sympathy and for always being the first to celebrate my successes. I adore you, I owe everything to you and I’m eternally grateful to have you in my corner.
Thank you to the fabulous JDM literary agents, Danielle Binks, for your advice and support of this story from the start, and Natasha Solomun for taking it out to the wider world. Lots of love to both of you. I’m so lucky to be a part of the amazing JDM girl-gang.
An enormous thank you to my fantastic editors, Di Blacklock and Maddie James, who somehow always magically turn my rubble to rubies and make me look much smoother than I actually am!
Thank you to my village of legends at HarperCollins — Amazing Alice Wood and Stupendous Sarah Barrett for all your hard work with publicity and marketing and promotions. Thank you lovely Theresa Anns, Erin Dunk, Michelle Bansen and the rest of the amazing sales team all over the country. Thank you to my typesetter, Graeme Jones, and proofreader, Pamela Dunne. And huge thanks to James Kellow, who has backed me from day dot.
When I started writing this novel, I knew nothing of the Vietnam War except for what I saw in the Robin Williams movie. My endless thanks to the Australian Vietnam veterans who generously shared their stories with me, sent me valuable resources and answered my many probing questions. Thank you Brian Cleaver and Del Heuke for all of your help, and extra thanks to the amazing Mike Byron without whom this book wouldn’t exist. Mike spent hour upon hour helping me. He let me use his own anecdotes, locations and timelines for Frank’s story and, at seventy years of age, he even read his first ever love story to fact check the manuscript for me. How can I ever thank you, Mike? I hope I have done you, Brian, Del, and every other Australian Vietnam veteran justice. I’ve made deliberate deviations from the information I was given about the Vietnam War that are wholly my responsibility. Despite a lack of accuracy, some changes needed to be made for the story to work. It is fiction after all!
Thank you to the resilient young woman who was the inspiration behind CJ. I can only imagine how difficult it was for you to share your story to help me bring honesty to CJ’s character.
To the awesome Victorian police officer, ‘B’, thank you to you and your team for answering the very, very long list of questions I gave you. Your advice brought an authenticity to the story that I couldn’t have achieved without you.
Thank you to the booksellers, bloggers, librarians, journalists, podcasters, DJs and book reviewers who have sup
ported and promoted my books. You have made all the difference to my career and I’m beyond grateful.
Thank you to my steadfast group of girlfriends including school mum friends, high-school friends and writer friends who have carried me these last couple of years and who’ve been right beside me every step of the way while I went through the seven stages of grief that it took to write this book. I have the best friends in the whole wide world!
Special thanks to Daniella Hassett, the first person to always critique my words with comments in the side margins of my drafts including ‘Seriously???’, ‘Bleugh!’ and ‘Pass me a bucket’. Thank you Dan-Dan, for reading this manuscript so many times that I’d lay money you could now recite it cover to cover. I love you and I’d be lost without you. I promise one day we’ll talk about something that isn’t my book!
To Nina ‘Pretty Ballerina’ Casella, thank you for always taking the time to read my rough drafts, for hashing out plot dilemmas with me and for your thoughtful intelligent insights that impact my books greatly.
Thank you Emma Cockman, for the hours and million messages back and forth coming up with the title and for your unrelenting enthusiasm.
Thank you Lisa Ireland, for your guidance and advice with the opening chapters and for your kind listening ear always.
Thank you Vanessa Carnevale, for making writing less lonely for me with our sprints and for making me laugh so much at your Dumb and Dumber antics!
Thank you Nicola Moriarty, Renee Conoulty and Cheryl Akle for your kindness, love and encouragement as the very first readers of the finished book.
Thank you Renee Hammond, for our lunch back in 2016, when I was in a panic about having no idea what to write next. You told me about the dope-growing nanna and, just like that, the story was born!
Thank you to my big crazy extended family, rock solid supporters of me for my whole life. Thank you especially to my amazeballs super-mum, super-fan, Marianne.