Six Ways to Sunday

by Karly Lane

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like this,’ she waved a hand at him. ‘You’re miserable. Ellen’s miserable. I know you love her, I can tell, and yet you’ve let pride and embarrassment push between you.’

  ‘You don’t know anything,’ he said, although some of the fight seemed to have gone out of him. He sounded sad and defeated.

  ‘I know two unhappy people when I see them. I know that Ellen is just as lonely as you.’

  ‘I should never have married her.’ The admission came out of the silence which followed, and surprised Rilee.

  ‘Why would you say that?’

  ‘She didn’t belong out here. She never wanted to leave the city.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have stayed all these years if she didn’t want to.’

  ‘She’s got a bigger stubborn streak than even I have, in case you haven’t noticed,’ he scoffed. ‘She couldn’t leave and admit to her family she was wrong and they were right. They never liked me—thought their precious daughter deserved more than a farmer. Didn’t matter to them how hard I worked, or how far back the Kincaid family name went out here. Theirs went further.’

  ‘She must have loved you very much to go against her family’s wishes in the first place,’ Rilee ventured gently.

  ‘Maybe. At first. Then reality hit home and she realised she’d made a mistake,’ he said bitterly. ‘Over the years it was easier to play along, for the kids’ sake. We just went through the motions. But now there’s nothing to keep up the pretence for.’

  Rilee couldn’t believe that; there had to be more to it. She couldn’t imagine Ellen ever doing anything she didn’t want to do, including staying in a marriage with a man she no longer loved.

  ‘Let me help you,’ Rilee said.

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘Because you still have a lot of years to live, and wouldn’t it be better to be able to enjoy them without the pain and discomfort you’ve been living with?’

  ‘It’s not going to change anything. It’s that prostate cancer thing everyone’s going on about.’

  ‘We don’t know for sure what’s going on, and we won’t until you get it checked out. Besides, what have you got to lose? This isn’t living,’ she said, waving a hand at him sitting miserably alone in the office.

  ‘What can you do? I know you can die from it.’

  ‘You haven’t been tested, so you don’t know what’s wrong with you. Even if it is the worst-case scenario, it doesn’t mean you’ll die from it. There are things that can be done to manage it. Let me help you.’

  For a long while Jacob didn’t speak. He didn’t look up, he just stared at the floor. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Okay then,’ she said, releasing a long breath. She hardly dared believe it.

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘it’s between you and me. You don’t breathe a word to Dan or Ellen…or anyone else for that matter.’

  ‘Of course. Patient confidentiality goes without saying,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Not even Dan, you hear me?’ he glared over at her.

  ‘All right. I won’t say a word.’

  He held her gaze for a few more minutes and then gave a brief nod.

  ‘You’ll need to get an appointment with your doctor as soon as possible. He’ll do some blood tests and we can have him send me the results. I’ll be able to work alongside your GP and any specialists, if it comes to that.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said with a decided lack of enthusiasm. ‘I’m flying to the city later in the week for a meeting. I’ll see him then.’

  ‘Good.’ It was an odd feeling finally to break through that tough exterior. She felt a little weepy and wondered if this was the start of a fragile new bond.

  ‘Now go.’

  And then it was gone. Jacob of old was back. Yet the old Jacob would never have revealed any of this to her, so maybe, just maybe they’d made some kind of headway tonight after all. As she slipped back into bed, she thought about Jacob and Ellen. She didn’t believe she’d manage single-handedly to put their marriage back together like some magical fairy godmother—it had taken years to develop into the dysfunctional masterpiece that it was today—but maybe she could help them eliminate some of the factors that were adding complications.

  Things had been crazy busy, between running the clinic and implementing the first stage of Operation Bazadais. True to her word, Rilee had involved herself in every step of the process and was, to her surprise, finding it fascinating. Most of their spare time was filled doing research and making phone calls, tracking down the perfect cattle. There was so much to research. The cattle had to be a certain build for ease of calving, while still having good yields and growth rates.

  Dan took her for a drive early one morning and proudly showed her an expanse of land at the edge of their holding. Rilee hadn’t ventured this far before and it still boggled her mind to realise just how much land her husband’s family owned.

  ‘This is where the magic’s going to happen,’ Dan said as they drove slowly over the rugged ground.

  ‘It looks a bit…sparse,’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘Yeah, well, the old man wouldn’t give me the good stuff, would he,’ Dan said with a lopsided grin. ‘The paddocks further over have some good feed in them. We’ll work on these others—plant them for later feed.’

  He pulled the ute to a stop and they got out. Rilee walked across to a nearby fence line and bent to take a closer look at a rather pretty plant growing there before Dan yelled out for her not to touch it.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s mother-of-millions,’ he said, walking across to her with a frown on his face. ‘It’s toxic to livestock and humans.’

  She looked down at the reddish-orange cluster of flowers and wondered not for the first time how even the prettiest of nature’s creations could be deadly.

  ‘Bloody nuisance. The paddock over there was thick with it a few years ago before we burnt and sprayed it, but thanks to your dad we might finally be getting on top of it.’

  For a moment Rilee was confused, until she recalled the dinner conversation when her parents had visited. ‘The bugs?’

  ‘Your dad sent me a few plants with thrip on them, and already they’ve started to work.

  ‘Does your father know about this?’

  Dan gave her a brief grin and she couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘He’s not going to be happy that his son is using hippie mumbo jumbo to fix a problem,’ she said, imitating her father-in-law’s impatient growl as she snaked her arms around his waist.

  ‘He gave me this area because he knew it was hard work. If I fix the problem and restore it back to viable grazing land, there’s not a hell of a lot he can complain about, is there?’

  She loved that he was such a quiet achiever. His father hadn’t been encouraging about the new cross-breed project, and he hadn’t made it easy for his son. If Dan wasn’t so determined, he probably would have given up on the idea a long time ago. Instead he’d found ways to overcome the problems and make the best of the less than ideal tools he had to work with. His vision and hard work filled Rilee with pride.

  ‘It’s so vast out here,’ she said, looking out over the seemingly endless land surrounding them.

  ‘Yep, there’s a lot of country.’

  ‘I’m really proud of you, Dan. All your hard work is paying off.’

  He gave her a squeeze and looked down, making her breath catch. ‘Our hard work,’ he corrected. ‘This is going to be our future, Ri.’

  She was touched that he was so accepting of them working together, but a tiny part of her felt like a failure at her own business. Her dreams had once been big like this. She’d only envisaged the success. The reality was turning out to be a lot different to what she’d imagined.

  Thirty-one

  Rilee picked up the plastic shopping basket as she walked into the supermarket. While perusing the shelves in search of inspiration for dinner, she heard her name being called and turned to find Edna making a beeline towards her.

&
nbsp; ‘Have you heard, dear?’

  ‘Ah, heard what?’ Clearly it had to be pretty big news if it replaced even a hello.

  ‘Errol Stetton died.’

  ‘What? When?’ Rilee gaped.

  ‘At lunchtime. He went home for his usual lunch break, told Betty he was going to have a lie-down for a few minutes and never woke up.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’ She couldn’t say she had any fondness for the man, but it was still a terrible shock to hear that he’d died so suddenly. ‘Poor Betty.’

  Edna shook her head slowly. ‘Yes. It would have been horrible.’

  ‘Does she have any family in town?’

  ‘In-laws and such,’ Edna nodded, ‘but Lisa, their daughter, will be here tonight apparently. Which is nice, considering the whole falling-out business between Lisa and her father.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad she won’t be alone.’ She chose to ignore the piece of gossip Edna was dangling in front of her. Or maybe she wasn’t dangling it, Rilee couldn’t be sure, since everyone around here seemed to know everything about everybody. Maybe Edna just assumed Rilee knew what she was talking about. Edna took her leave and Rilee finished her shopping in record time, eager to avoid any further discussion about the Stettons’ sad news.

  She looked up from making a salad when the back door opened and Dan walked into the kitchen, hanging up his hat and taking off his boots.

  ‘How was your day?’ he asked, snagging a slice of carrot as he leaned down to kiss her hello.

  ‘Fine. Although I heard some sad news about Errol Stetton.’

  ‘Yeah. Bummer, huh.’

  ‘Wait, what? How did you know?’

  ‘Mum. Passed her when she was on her way into town with a casserole.’

  It was seriously scary the speed at which news travelled in this town. ‘Oh, that was nice of her.’

  Dan shrugged as he chewed on the carrot stick. ‘The church women usually cook enough food to sink a ship in times of crisis.’

  ‘I think it’s nice,’ Rilee said as she carried the food to the table. ‘I wonder what will happen with the pharmacy now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘To operate, there needs to be a pharmacist working there. Without a qualified dispenser, the chemist will have to close, which means we’ll no longer have even that limited access to medical treatment.’

  ‘They’ll figure something out. Lisa will help sort it, I’m sure.’

  ‘That’s the daughter? I heard she was on her way back. What’s she like?’

  Dan forked a piece of steak from the serving plate. ‘Dunno, I haven’t seen or heard of her for years. I always remember her being a bit…different.’

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘She was pretty quiet, always had her head in a book. I didn’t really pay much attention, to tell you the truth.’

  With a bit of luck maybe Lisa would be able to find a pharmacist to take over her father’s business. Without a functioning chemist, the town was going to suffer terribly. A lot of people depended on it for regular medications. Losing it would be a massive headache. And yet another service they’d have to add to the growing number of resources that were being lost from the town.

  When Rilee got home from the clinic earlier than usual, Dan was just finishing a phone call and looking across at her with excitement. Her spirits lifted, the worry she was feeling about the lack of clients momentarily forgotten.

  ‘You’re in a good mood,’ she said after Dan had swept her into his arms and kissed her soundly.

  ‘I just got some great news. Mick Honeywell has found a mob of cows going for an absolute steal at a dispersal sale. They’ve got calves at foot and are already in calf again.’

  ‘What does this mean?’ she asked slowly.

  ‘It means this is the equivalent of winning the cattle lottery. We’ll be two seasons ahead of what we were planning. And I spoke to Bill McPherson earlier and made him an offer on that bull we were looking at online.’

  ‘But he was worth thirty thousand dollars,’ Rilee gasped.

  ‘Yeah, but seeing as we’ll be so much further ahead when we get these cows, it suddenly makes it viable.’

  ‘But we weren’t going to go in this big this fast. I’m not sure how we can work that much outlay into our business plan.’

  ‘Look, Ri, this is an opportunity we need to grab. They don’t come along very often. This speeds up our time frame, the game’s changed.’

  ‘But that’s why we made a business plan, so we had something to stick to and so our expenses didn’t get out of control.’

  ‘Rilee, you have to trust me on this. I know on paper your plan looks great, but I’m talking as a farmer here—you can’t always plan for things like this.’

  ‘Well, why do we need the bull now? If they’re already in calf, can’t we just wait a while before we decide what to do? You said artificial insemination was the way to go. Why are we changing our minds now?’

  ‘Because they’re in calf we need to make a decision about remating now. We’ll only have a few weeks after they’ve delivered to implement the decision. Besides, this bull is too good to pass up. Not only can we breed from him, but we can sell his semen as well—double the investment.’

  Rilee chewed the inside of her lip as she mulled over his arguments, but her gut was telling her outlaying this much money in the early stages of their business was not a smart move. And yet this was an industry she knew next to nothing about and Dan was asking her to trust him. ‘Can we think on it a few days before we make our decision?’

  She hated seeing the light go out of Dan’s eyes; she knew she’d ruined his excited mood by being the voice of reason, but she just couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a bad idea.

  ‘There’s really nothing to think about, Ri,’ he said, taking his hat from the hook and putting it on. ‘I’ve got some stuff to do out in the shed. I’ll be back in a little while.’

  Rilee let out a long, tired breath as she closed her eyes and tipped her head from side to side to ease the tightness that had been building all day.

  She opened the fridge and took out the ingredients for dinner and started preparing the meal. When Dan came in and they were seated at the table, Rilee broached the subject once more.

  ‘I’ve already told McPherson we’ll take the bull,’ he said without looking up from his plate.

  Rilee blinked, uncertain that she’d heard him correctly. ‘I thought we were thinking it over?’

  ‘Like I said before, there’s nothing to think about.’

  ‘But I thought we were partners in this.’

  ‘We are. You handle the books and I handle the farming.’

  ‘I can’t very well handle the books when you spend money we don’t have.’

  ‘Damn it, Rilee,’ he said, looking up and holding her gaze angrily. ‘I get this shit from my old man. I wanted to start my own business so I didn’t have to deal with someone second-guessing me all the damn time.’

  She could see his frustration and she immediately felt bad for doubting him. Maybe he was right. Maybe she just needed to shut up and let him do what he thought best. ‘All right. If you think it’s a risk worth taking, then okay.’

  He visibly relaxed, his mouth losing the tightness of moments before. ‘It’s worth it,’ he said softly.

  She managed a smile. She needed to ignore the whisper of unease she felt; after all, what would she know about running a business? All she had at the moment was a shopfront and no customers. At the rate she was going, this cattle venture might be the only thing she was involved in that was a success.

  Thirty-two

  The kitchen door opened and Ellen swirled in like a mini cyclone, ending the peaceful early morning cuppa Rilee and Dan had been enjoying.

  ‘I just popped over to remind you that the funeral is at ten, but I need you to help set up for the wake and deliver those tables for me.’

  ‘Yeah, I remembered, don’t worry,’ Dan told his mother.

 
Rilee cradled her mug. ‘I’m not sure I should be going.’

  ‘You have to,’ Ellen said, turning to face her.

  ‘I don’t have to,’ Rilee disagreed calmly. ‘It’s not like I knew him very well.’

  ‘Then you go to support the family.’

  ‘It feels strange going to a funeral of someone I didn’t really know.’

  ‘It’s how we do things here.’

  ‘We’ll be there, Mum,’ Dan cut in smoothly.

  Rilee glanced over at her husband but didn’t bother protesting. She wasn’t about to give Ellen a front-row seat to a disagreement.

  ‘I know you didn’t get on with Errol, but Mum’s right. It’s for the family. You show up at these things to support them,’ he said after ushering Ellen towards the door and waving goodbye.

  ‘Fine,’ Rilee said, putting her hands up in front of her. ‘I just feel like a hypocrite, that’s all.’

  Dan snagged her hand and tugged her closer to him, drawing a reluctant smile from her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, lazily running his hands up and down her sides, ‘you feel pretty good to me.’

  ‘I’m serious, Dan,’ she laughed, slapping at his hands. ‘I yelled at the man. I feel really bad.’

  ‘Has your opinion of him changed?’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘Which makes me feel even worse. The guy’s dead, but I still think he was arrogant and self-righteous.’

  ‘Well, then, you’re not a hypocrite, are you?’ he surmised.

  ‘No, I’m just a horrible person.’

  ‘You’re not a horrible person. You have a right to your opinion. It doesn’t mean just because you didn’t get on with him that you can’t show up as part of the community and give his family your support. Imagine if everyone he pissed off in his time decided not to show up at his funeral? It’d be half the town,’ he grinned. ‘But imagine how Betty and Lisa would feel if no one showed up.’

  Put like that…Rilee gave a short huff. ‘Fine. I see your point. Okay, I’ll go to the funeral.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Dan grinned. ‘You know, you’re kinda cute when you’re annoyed.’

  ‘Oh really?’