by J. C. Jones
On the front porch, Indigo/Bruce stared at them with her odd-coloured eyes. Pip managed a smile. ‘See you, Indigo/Bruce,’ she said. Then she walked out through the gate.
Pip walked briskly across the park, past the school and down Kookaburra Close to Greene Lane. Inside Number 3, it no longer felt like home. Perhaps, like the house on Elliott Street, it would be sold.
She left Houdini sniffing around the garden and wandered from room to room. She thought some things had been moved since she was last here and wondered if Molly Dunlop had searched for clues that might lead to Pip’s mother.
Upstairs in Sully’s bedroom, Pip took the photo of her mother from her bag and reread the note on the back.
I’m going to go away and sort myself out. Then I’ll come and get the baby.
That’s what she’d written, but she never had come back.
Pip felt a tear splash on her hand and put the photo down to pick up the one of Sully and his Em, looking young and happy.
‘What should I do, Sully?’ she whispered.
He didn’t answer because he couldn’t. Pip swiped at her tears with a hand and was about to put the photos back when she noticed the one of Sully and his Em had slipped inside its frame. She wanted to straighten it but when she tried to undo the frame she found the clips at the back had rusted in place and refused to budge.
Just when Pip was about to give up, the clips gave way. Startled, Pip fumbled the frame, catching it before it fell, but the photo floated to the floor together with something else: a postcard showing a beach and ocean, and the words BEAUTIFUL BYRON BAY.
Curious, Pip picked it up and turned it over. The writing was smudged in places and she had to read it twice to work out what it meant, but she recognised it immediately as Cassandra’s.
Dear Sully
I shouldn’t have surprised you by turning up like that with no warning. Please believe that I’m sorry for upsetting you, but I didn’t know that Em had died. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have left my little girl, I swear. Despite what I said, I understand why you had to give her away. You are right, she has a better home than she would have with me but I will think about her every day.
I didn’t ask if you know her name or if you have a photo. If you can forgive me, perhaps you can write to me at the address below.
Love,
Cass
Pip sat on the bed, dazed. Not ‘cash’, was all she could think. Cass. Cassandra. That’s what Sully had tried to tell her the day he’d died.
She glanced down at the postcard again and noticed it was dated just over nine years ago. Despite what she’d thought all this time, Cassandra had come back a year after leaving Pip on Sully’s doorstep, only to find it was too late – or so she’d thought. Pip felt a tug in her heart to think how disappointed Cassandra would have been to hear that Sully had given her away, and how different things might have been if he had told the truth.
Looking at Sully’s picture, Pip couldn’t blame him for the lie he’d told Cass and the secret he’d kept from Pip all these years. After all, he’d done it so that he and Pip could stay together, and she’d had a good home with him.
But now it was time to find a new home. Pip didn’t know if that home would be with the Brownings or Cass – or even if she’d be able to find her mother after all this time – but she was sure that the Brownings, James Blair and Molly Dunlop would help her to work it out.
Pip put the postcard and photos into her bag, and went downstairs. Soon, she would have to head back to Elliott Street before anyone started to worry, but first she wanted a few more minutes on her own.
So she sat on the back step of Number 3 Greene Lane in the late afternoon sun, watching Houdini chase a butterfly and wondering if she’d be able persuade Molly to leave the police siren on all the way to Byron Bay.