Burning Fields

by Alli Sinclair

  Her mother fiddled with the lid on the sugar bowl. “Your father and I lied about our marriage date because…because…” Once more, her mother gulped and fell into silence.

  Rosie reached for her mother’s shaking hand. “Tell me, please.”

  “We lied about our marriage date because John is not your natural father.” The words came out fast, like her mother was afraid she’d lose her nerve. And as the impact of her statement hit Rosie, a sharp pain stabbed her in the chest. The wind felt like it had been knocked out of her.

  “I don’t understand.” Her tongue seemed swollen. Her mouth dry.

  “I hadn’t planned on keeping it from you forever, I was just trying to pick the right time.”

  “Dad is my father,” Rosie managed to get out.

  “He’s not your real father.” More sniffing from her mother.

  Rosie pushed the chair back from the table. The wooden legs scraped against the boards and made a horrendous sound. She didn’t care.

  “What…How…” Rosie’s body tensed. “When did you plan on telling me? When I was fifty?”

  “Rosie—”

  “You’re only telling me now because you’re backed into a corner and even your own husband won’t bail you out.” The anger that overtook the shock increased twofold.

  “Rosie—”

  “No, Mum, it’s obvious that Dad…” He was still her father, wasn’t he? He’d brought her up as his own, although, at times, he’d been cold toward her. She’d always put it down to his generation of men not showing their feelings—what if it was because he regretted passing Rosie off as his daughter? She squeezed her eyes shut. Oh please, no. She opened her eyes and focused on her mother. “It’s obvious that Dad never agreed with you keeping this a secret.”

  “I did it to stop you from being hurt, sweetheart. I was worried you wouldn’t accept your father…John…and—”

  “You’re kidding, right? He’s my only father.” Rosie narrowed her eyes. “Who was it?”

  “Who?”

  “Who fathered me?” God, did she have to ask everything twice?

  Her mother got up and stood on her tippy-toes to open the cupboard door above the stove. She grabbed a teacup and lifted the lid off the ceramic jar on the bench. Out came a small bottle of brandy.

  “You don’t need that, Mum.”

  “I do.”

  “No, you don’t.” Rosie got up and gently pried the bottle from her mother’s hands. Cecile collapsed on the nearby chair.

  “His name is Vincenzo Pasquale.”

  “An Italian?” She sucked in her breath. “Is this why my father…John…my father…hates Italians?”

  “It’s not as simple as that, sweetheart.” The look of fear on her mother’s face caused Rosie to stop for a moment. This couldn’t be easy for her. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a walk in the sunshine for Rosie.

  “I need you to tell me everything,” Rosie said evenly. “Don’t leave out a single detail.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sob. “I’m so very, very sorry you had to find out this way.”

  Rosie felt hollow, like all the emotion had been drained out of her. “Who is this Vincenzo person?”

  Her mother concentrated on the trees outside the window. The wind had picked up and the dark sky promised rain. Wherever her mother’s mind had taken her, it left a smile on her lips which only irritated Rosie more.

  “Who is he?” she asked, this time with more force.

  Her mother didn’t look at her. “He was my first husband.”

  “What?” Rosie gripped the edges of the chair, hearing, but not fully registering, the weight of her mother’s words. “But Dad was your first…” She didn’t even know how to finish the sentence.

  Cecile placed her hands flat on the kitchen table—the same kitchen table that had served as a gathering spot for the entire family. Just in front of Rosie she could see the dents from when Geoffrey had dared Alex to lay his hand flat while Geoffrey stabbed the knife between Alex’s fingers, getting faster and faster. Their father had blown his stack when he’d discovered the damage and the idiocy of his sons, but now, Rosie looked at the dents with affection, missing those crazy days.

  “Vincenzo worked here at Tulpil when my father—your grandfather—was running it. He’d arrived from Italy when he was seventeen and he worked so very hard to make a good life for himself. He missed his family, so we used to go for walks and I’d teach him English and he’d teach me Italian.”

  Just like the walk and talk I do with Tomas.

  Pushing this thought aside, Rosie asked, “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen, but we were friends for three years before anything romantic happened,” she said, her tone defensive. “We married when I was twenty, so I was not that young.”

  “What did your parents say?” As the story unfolded, Rosie could sense how hard it must have been for her mother. A tiny feeling of empathy crept in then anger caused a band of pain to race around her head.

  “My parents didn’t approve, of course. I was the farmer’s daughter and shouldn’t have been cavorting with the hired help. But love is love, no matter the social standing or nationality. If a couple want to be together, then they should.”

  All the pieces of the jigsaw she hadn’t known existed started falling into place—her father despising Italians, his strong stance against Rosie spending too much time with the workers… Was he afraid she would fall in love with one of his men and get pregnant, just like Cecile? This explained so much about his over-protectiveness.

  Her mother speaking about loving another man made Rosie extremely uneasy, however she had to quash the brewing anger and get the full story to make sense of it all. She really had no choice.

  “So, my grandfather objected?” Rosie pictured Pop, with his bushy gray eyebrows, balding head, and beefy arms. Growing up, he’d put the fear of God into Rosie and she could only imagine his reaction once he discovered the clandestine affair her mother had embarked upon.

  “Of course, he objected. In his eyes, Vincenzo was a no-good scoundrel who barely had a penny to his name. He was so very different to the Australian men and my father had no hope in ever understanding what I saw in Vincenzo. To me, he was everything.” Once again, her mother’s eyes held that faraway look but she shook her head, like she was forcing herself into the present. “I’m sorry, this must be extremely difficult to hear.”

  “It is.” Rosie shifted on the chair. “But I need to know.”

  Her mother pursed her lips and blinked slowly. “After we suffered the wrath of my father, I decided I couldn’t take his overbearing ways anymore.”

  “So you got pregnant?”

  “No! Of course not! I was a virgin when I got married.”

  “Sorry, I—”

  Her mother reached for Rosie’s hand. “You have nothing to be sorry about.” She let go and returned to fiddling with the sugar bowl. “We eloped.”

  Up until now, all Rosie had seen was a woman who was deeply troubled because she couldn’t get over the death of Geoffrey and she’d spent years believing the worst about Alex. Oh god. Rosie did a quick calculation of dates. That meant Geoffrey and Alex were her half-brothers. Half. Brothers. A growing feeling of illness formed at the back of her throat.

  “We got married out of town, not too far from Piri River, but far enough that it took some time before my father found us.”

  “What happened when he did?”

  Rosie imagined her mother and Vincenzo enduring Pop’s rage. It wouldn’t have been pretty.

  “My family disowned me.” She hung her head. “We moved far away and Vincenzo found work on another farm. He was so clever, Rosie. Such a wonderful mind for numbers and engineering. He could take the simplest thing and make it functional and—” She looked at Rosie. “Just like you.”

  Rosie stood and walke
d over to the bench to pour a glass of water. She didn’t care that it was warm, she needed something to loosen the grip of anxiety.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, all this is difficult to take in, I’m sure.”

  “It’s not easy,” Rosie mumbled as she took a long gulp. Vincenzo was good at numbers, just like Rosie. Was that yet another reason why her father…John…struggled to let her do the books? Because Rosie reminded him of Vincenzo and his mathematical ability?

  “I realize now it’s something you should have known about a long time ago, but with the war and losing Geoffrey and then thinking we’d lost Alex…” She shrugged. “Time passed and it never felt like the right moment.”

  “I was old enough to know about this when Geoffrey went away.”

  “We were all so worried about him. The world was changing. No one knew what the future held. We—”

  “They’re all excuses!” Rosie slammed the glass on the counter so hard that water sloshed out the sides. “This is my life we’re talking about! My life! You can’t sit there and tell me how hard it is for you when you’ve known this all along and led me to believe I was a Stanton.”

  “Of course you’re a—”

  “I’m not! My entire life has been a lie. What am I supposed to do with this information now?”

  Rosie looked at the door that led out to the back verandah. It would be so easy to run, to get away from this horrible mess, though what good would it do? Running would not give a different outcome. She was not a Stanton. She was the daughter of an Italian immigrant.

  “When did you get pregnant?”

  “Not long after we were married.”

  Rosie needed to get the facts then find some solitude to process it all. “When did you tell Pop about me?”

  Her mother picked at an imaginary piece of fluff on her skirt. “I had no backbone then. Your grandfather, bless him, was a force to be reckoned with and frankly, I was scared. Although I managed to swallow that fear and wrote a letter to let him know he had a grandchild on the way. I posted it just before…” Her eyes welled up and she blew her nose on the edge of her apron. “As expected, I heard nothing.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  “Regret marrying Vincenzo?” She raised her eyebrows. “Absolutely not. Otherwise I wouldn’t have my beautiful girl.”

  The sincerity in her mother’s eyes told Rosie’s heart this was the truth. A small wave of empathy rippled through her. For her mother to give up her family because she loved a man so deeply…

  “What happened to him?” Rosie asked, her voice cracking.

  Her mother took some time before answering. “He died in an accident.”

  A heavy, sad feeling weighed on Rosie. Had she hoped he was still alive? That they could meet? So many emotions surged through her that she could barely hold on to a thought long enough to make sense of it. In a raspy voice, she asked, “How?”

  “It was such a stupid, stupid accident. The roof of the shed was falling apart and something had to be done. Vincenzo naïvely volunteered to do the work—he’d done repairs like this elsewhere without incident—yet…” She dabbed her eyes. “The owners of that farm had no sense of safety for their men and Vincenzo bore the brunt of their idiocy. They’re not entirely to blame, though. My grandfather had made sure Vincenzo was blacklisted from as many farms as possible. The only ones that would take him on were ones with dubious work conditions.”

  Rosie remained silent, trying to take it all in. Only a short time ago she’d gone from someone with one father to two, then back to one. Irritation about the cover-up disappeared as a new ache in her heart formed—an ache to know her natural father, to hear his voice, look into his eyes, to study the shape of his face, the curve of his nose…But those would forever be wishes that could never be granted. She’d have to live the rest of her life wondering about what could have been.

  “I was a widow with no money. No one would employ me, not even cleaning houses, and I was destitute. The landlord let me stay on for as long as he could, but the time came for me to leave as he couldn’t give me free rent any longer.” Now that the floodgates had been opened, her mother appeared desperate to get it all out.

  It occurred to Rosie that her mother had suffered exactly the same circumstances as countless other women who were widowed or deserted.

  “So, you returned to your family?” she asked.

  “I had no choice.”

  “Pop accepted you?” If he’d been as furious as her mother had said, then surely it would have taken some serious convincing to let Cecile come back to Tulpil.

  “Your grandfather didn’t accept me at first, but your grandmother persuaded him to let me back into the family fold. I was pregnant, and honestly, I don’t think he had much choice. The women in our family can be quite formidable. Well, most of them.” Her mother’s gaze travelled to the brandy bottle sitting on the bench.

  “Fine, do it. But we will be talking about your relationship with alcohol later,” said Rosie.

  Cecile jumped up and quickly poured the brandy into the cup. She took a gulp, sat down at the table and cradled the cup between her hands. She seemed to relax instantly. Her mother took one more sip then said, “I knew my parents loved me but didn’t love my choices. Once your grandfather let me through the door of the family home, he and I never spoke of Vincenzo again.”

  “I don’t understand why he objected so strongly.”

  “As with most elopements, it boils down to class or culture. I loved my father but he was a snob. His own family had been working class and had struck gold, literally, and had invested their riches in cane farms. These investments tripled their money and from there, their fortune increased with every season. I’ve always said that new money is the root of evil.”

  “That’s a bit harsh lumping everyone together like that.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand, but things were so different back then. And it would bring disgrace upon the family if outsiders found out that I’d run off with an Italian worker.”

  “How did Pop explain your absence?”

  “The official word was I’d been spending time with relatives up north.”

  “Oh.” She couldn’t even fathom what it would have been like to be rejected by family. Even with all the arguments and trials that her family had been through, Rosie had never felt like she could lose them forever—until now.

  “What about…me? How did they explain that?”

  “There was no way I was getting out of this scot-free, so we just let people believe I was pregnant to your father before I was sent to stay with relatives. Then we married after you were born. As I’d kept the relationship with Vincenzo under wraps, it was easy to fool the sticky-noses.”

  “No one questioned you?”

  “Not to our faces. I’m sure I was the subject of town gossip. You can’t live in a place like this and not be a hot topic. People can’t mind their own business. It was a small price to pay, though. At least this way you had a roof over your head, food in your belly, and a mother who wasn’t on the verge of a nervous breakdown anymore. And, of course, the love of your father.”

  “John,” Rosie said, still unsure what to call him.

  “He’s still your father, darling.”

  Although Rosie’s heart wanted to reject these revelations, everything now fell into place—her love for numbers, maybe even the strange sensation she’d returned home whenever she visited the Contis. She looked out the window at the streaks of gold forcing their way through the gray clouds.

  Rosie had no idea what home meant anymore.

  Chapter 27

  Rosie sat at the table in silence. Across from her was Cecile, deep lines etched in her forehead. Her skin appeared paler and rougher, her eyes black pools. What kind of hell had her mother gone through back then? And how did her father come into the picture?

  H
er mother traced Geoffrey’s dents on the table and Rosie wondered if Cecile remembered how they’d got there. Releasing a deep breath, her mother said, “When I first moved back, your grandfather and John…your dad…came to an agreement.”

  “You had an arranged marriage?” Rosie had no idea how many more surprises she could handle. The headache that had been simmering now boiled over and she massaged her temples, willing the incessant pain to go away.

  “Are you all right?” Cecile rested her hand on Rosie’s arm.

  She pulled away. “No, I’m not all right. Everything I know has been ripped away.”

  “Darling—”

  She turned to face her mother. “How can you have lied all these years? You’re my mother, I trusted you!”

  “I never lied, I just omitted—”

  “Why did Dad marry you when you were having Vincenzo’s baby?” The name stuck on the edge of her tongue, like she couldn’t shake it off. Would she ever get used to saying it?

  “Your father and I have been friends since I was ten,” continued Cecile. “We’d gone to school together, spent our holidays swimming in the river and riding bikes all over the countryside. We were good friends.”

  “Only friends?”

  “More than friends, for a short while. Then I met Vincenzo. I fell in love with his charm and his exotic ways captivated me.”

  “I still don’t understand why Da—John—would marry you.”

  Her mother placed her hands flat on the table. “Your father and I always had a special relationship—”

  “Obviously not special enough because you married someone else first.”

  Hurt flashed in her mother’s eyes. “I understand you’re angry but please, let me explain.”

  “Fine,” Rosie muttered.

  “Thank you,” said her mother. “I want you to know that I have always loved your father. Even more so after he married me.”

  Her father was a good man, but surely he had limits about marrying a pregnant woman who had rejected him.

  “Your grandfather promised John he’d inherit Tulpil if we wed.”