by Mandy Magro
Stepping outside, the view stole her breath instantly. She paused as the screen door closed softly behind her, unable to move, her eyes filling with happy tears, the beauty of Wildwood Acres somehow otherworldly. Her hand fluttered to her chest and she shook her head in wonder. How had she survived staying away from such a heavenly place so long?
She wandered dreamily to the swing chair and eased herself down, completely captured by what was unfolding before her. The atmosphere felt acutely alive, the energy around her filling her spirit with the kind of vitality she’d been craving. A slight mist lingered above the lush green grass, the sky partly cloudy with patches of powdery blue peeking teasingly through. Off in the distance, a stand of ghost gums and a slowly revolving windmill stood like towering shadows contrasted against the first rays of light as, like a chivalrous bow, night began to give way to day. Like the burning red and orange embers of a fire, the sun rose slowly amongst the coal grey clouds, sending hues of pink and auburn throughout the blue. It was like watching a well-choreographed dance as the elements of the earth came together in a spectacular show worthy of a standing ovation. And stand she did.
The horses in the paddock opposite the homestead whinnied and snorted as they, too, welcomed the new day. Renee’s heart sang at the sight of her old chestnut stockhorse, Jackson. He was close to seventeen now, and retired from station duties, happily living his days out grazing and sleeping. Her pa said he and Mick took him out occasionally, just to keep him on his toes, but he preferred to use his own horse, Gus. She couldn’t wait to go and give Jackson a good brush down while breathing in his glorious horsy scent. Jackson had always been extra keen on being groomed. She wondered if he’d remember her.
With the landscape now bathed in golden sunlight, she stood and made her way down the five front steps and towards the horses, the earth beneath her bare feet pulsing with life and filling her with the kind of peace that she’d found impossible to ever feel within the grip of the city. Until now, she really hadn’t realised how much she had missed the sensation of being at one with the earth. After all the years of stress over coming back here, the sense of feeling at home took her by surprise. Wherever she gazed, she was completely captured by the beauty surrounding her. It just felt so good to be able to walk out the front door and feel grass beneath her feet, instead of cement, and to see glorious rolling land instead of building after building. Here, in the heart of the country, she couldn’t help but look forward to her day.
First, she was going to go say hello to her horsey mates, and then after a shower she was going to pop over to the workers’ quarters and say a quick g’day to Mick before she met her pa for smoko.
Pa had warned her that Mick was a little on the grumpy side at the moment—a result of the sixty-two-year-old stockman finding himself cooped up all day long when being used to working the land day in day out—but she didn’t mind. After forty-four years of loyal service at Wildwood Acres, Mick was like an uncle to her. The old bushy was as tough as nails on the outside, but a big softy on the inside. It was such a shame he’d never got married, but he was happy that way.
After nine years away, she was looking forward to giving him a hug—he’d always been a champ at bear hugs. Drawing in a lungful of fresh air, she smiled broadly as she bounced across the dew-covered front lawn and towards Jackson, feeling like today she was ready to face whatever the universe wanted to throw her way.
CHAPTER
5
Admiring the blanket of flickering stars in the velvet-black sky while noticing they all looked way brighter and bigger than he’d ever seen before, Dylan strolled from where he’d just parked his Land Cruiser in the machinery shed and made his way up to the front door, being careful to remove his boots before he stepped inside. It had rained for half the afternoon, leaving him grottier than usual. Shelley would kick his butt if he walked mud in on her freshly cleaned floors. He grinned as he imagined her giving him a serve. She was so adorable when she was angry.
He gave Bossy a scratch behind the ears, then pointed to her blanket on the verandah. Bossy happily obeyed, walking around in circles before settling herself down for the night, her eyes shut in seconds. Wearily, Dylan removed his wide-brimmed hat as he stepped through the flyscreen door, yawning as he hung it on the horseshoe hook Shelley and Annie had handmade especially for it. He couldn’t wait to have a hot shower and then sit down at the table to enjoy a Sunday night roast with his two favourite girls. After spending a full day out in the saddle and then having to run in to town to grab a few things and check on Shelley’s uncle Ted, he was absolutely buggered. Ted had insisted upon going to the pub for a quick one, and he couldn’t say no to a recently widowed seventy-eight-year-old man. The poor old bugger was so heartbroken at losing his one and only love he didn’t know what to do with himself. Dylan could only imagine the loss he was feeling. His life would be hollow without Shelley.
The house was unusually quiet and dark. The smell of something burning in the oven wafted through, a mixture of rosemary and charred meat. It was very unlike Shelley to forget about dinner cooking. Unease kicked in.
‘Anyone home?’ His voice was a whisper, fear ridding him of vigour.
There was no reply.
His skin prickling, Dylan sensed something wrong. Why hadn’t Annie run out to greet him, like she usually did? Taking hurried steps, he rushed down the dark hallway.
‘Shelley? Annie? Where are you two?’ He half expected them to jump out and scare him, giggling.
A loud sob reached him from the bathroom, and then a cry for help. ‘Daddy! Hurry! Please! Mummy’s fallen and hurt herself, and I can’t wake her up!’
His feet pounding the timber floorboards, Dylan bolted for the bathroom. Time slowed down, the world stopped spinning, his heart was in his throat. Annie’s sobbing got louder. He opened the bathroom door and his eyes came to rest on a sight that brought him crashing to his knees. He reached out for Annie and pulled her into him protectively, his hand resting on the back of her head as he gently pushed her face into his chest. Annie clutched him, weeping, crying out for her mummy. Shelley was motionless on the floor, deathly pale and lying in a pool of blood.
In a daze he cried out Shelley’s name, over and over, but there was no reply. He reached out and touched her hand, recoiling from the sensation. She was stone cold. Her eyes were open and soulless, and her beautiful face lifeless. His instincts told him she was gone, but he didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t. This wasn’t happening.
No, please God; you can’t take her from us.
This was his wife, Annie’s mother, the woman they both loved so deeply, the woman he’d planned to grow old with. She couldn’t be dead. And his poor darling Annie, how long had she been lying on the floor beside her mother, holding her hand, trying to wake her up?
Nausea washed over him with the thought of her being a witness to something so devastatingly heartbreaking. This was all his fault. He should have been home earlier.
Something wet pressed against his palm and he yanked it out in front of him. His fingers were covered with blood, the blood that had soaked Annie’s hair. He quickly checked her over, making sure she wasn’t injured. Although her eyes were wide with fear, and her face stained from crying, Annie told him she wasn’t hurt. Her pyjamas were covered in her mother’s blood too. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see what was in front of him—hardly believing it—involuntary sobs escaping him as his reality shattered into shards around him. Being the man of the house, he was meant to protect the ones he loved. He’d failed.
Finally he got to his feet, still clutching Annie, and carried her into the lounge room. Gently placing her down on the couch, his arm still wrapped around her, he pulled his mobile from his pocket and called an ambulance. He knew it was too late, but part of him prayed to God for a miracle. The operator tried to keep him on the line, but he told her he had to go and take care of his daughter. Annie needed him like she’d never needed him before. And by hell he was going to
try and shield her from what was about to unfold.
He cupped Annie’s cheeks, his eyes gripping hers. ‘Sweetheart, I have to go and check on Mummy. How about I let Bossy in and you can sit with her and watch cartoons while I do, okay? And I’ll ring Grammy and ask her to come over too.’ Every word cut like a knife. How was he going to explain to a little girl that she was never going to see her mummy again? His already broken heart squeezed painfully with the thought of it.
Sobs wracking her, Annie nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Please make Mummy better, Daddy. Maybe put a Band-aid on her sore head and then she’ll be okay again.’
His throat constricted so much that Dylan found it almost impossible to answer. ‘I’ll do my best, sweetheart.’
Ripping himself away from her, Dylan ran for the front door, called Bossy in, and made her sit beside Annie on the couch before switching on the telly. The Muppet Show was on, Annie’s favourite, but the distraction did nothing. Annie wrapped her arms around her pooch, burying her head into Bossy’s neck as she wept. Dylan fought to keep it together. He wanted to stay here and hold Annie to him, but he needed to cover his wife’s naked body before the ambulance officers turned up. Even in death she deserved some dignity. He didn’t want strangers seeing her exposed.
Heading back towards the bathroom, Dylan rang his mother’s granny flat down the back of the cottage, the words that spilled from him sounding like they were coming from another’s lips. After breaking down and quickly recomposing herself, his mum assured him she’d be there in two minutes.
Dylan sucked in a few deep breaths. Surely this was all just a bad dream, and he was going to wake up any minute now. This, right here, wasn’t his real life. It couldn’t be. Things like this didn’t happen to him.
Stepping through the bathroom door, reality punched him in the chest once again and his legs gave way. He crumpled to the floor beside Shelley. Tenderly pushing the hair from her face, he leant in and kissed her cheeks repeatedly as he slipped his arms around her limp body. Blood stained her beautiful blonde hair and soaked through his shirt, the sensation of it against his skin crushing his soul. It was then he spotted what had killed her; the entirety of the back of her head was caved in. It looked like she had stepped from the bath, and while reaching for the towel she had slipped and hit her head on the bathroom sink. A simple accident, a devastating outcome, three lives changed in an instant, forever. He could now hear his mum consoling Annie in the lounge room, his little girl’s sobs crushing him even more. How were they going to survive this?
Sobbing to the point he could barely breathe, Dylan placed a towel over his wife, lay back down beside her and hugged her to him, telling her over and over how much he loved her, and how he couldn’t imagine his life without her. This was it. She was gone. He was never going to get to kiss her lips, laugh with her, cuddle her or make love to her, ever again. His earthly angel was now flying with the angels in heaven.
Gasping for air, Dylan sat bolt upright, his sheets in disarray around him and his doona in a pile on the floor. Although it was cool with the ceiling fan going, sweat covered his body and his cotton boxers stuck uncomfortably to his skin. He took a few wheezy breaths, trying to stop his heart from bolting like a startled horse. Calmly grabbing his inhaler from the bedside table, he drew in the lifesaving medicine, his constricted airways opening up in seconds.
Having suffered with it for most of his life, asthma didn’t faze him—he’d learnt to live with it. What did scare him, though, was that Annie suffered from it too, at times quite badly, especially if she was anywhere near tobacco smoke, cats or musty mouldy places. By using a specially designed spacer along with her daily preventer they’d at least got it under control, but it didn’t lessen the risk of a bad attack if something set her asthma off.
It was a never-ending job reminding her to take her inhaler with her wherever she went—a major reason he’d decided to buy her a locator watch for her upcoming birthday, along with the inflatable bouncing house and backyard waterslide she’d been begging him for. The watch looked pretty as a picture with a pink band and a fairy themed face—so Annie would love wearing it. It worked off GPS—and thankfully Opals Ridge had great coverage in most areas other than the showgrounds and the national park, so if she ever found herself in trouble, all she had to do was push a button on the side and it would notify him by text so then he could use the locator’s special map application on his iPhone to get to her. It at least gave him a little reprieve from his worry. If only he could get her to wear something like that when she became a teenager—he imagined that would make his life a hell of a lot easier.
Now able to draw a decent lungful of oxygen, he willed his heart to relax by taking a few deep breaths. Then, when his breathing was back to normal, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and hung his head in his hands.
When were the nightmares going to stop? He had relived Shelley’s death over and over, at least once a week since she had passed almost three years ago, and still it shattered him every time. He couldn’t go on like this. It made him dread going to sleep, for fear of having to go through it all again. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept through the night and woken refreshed. Maybe he should listen to his mum’s advice and go to the shrink in town. He had to do something. He needed peace. This wasn’t living—it was barely surviving. He wanted his life back, his happiness back. Shelley would forever live in his heart, but he needed to get on with his life, especially for Annie’s sake.
The bedroom door flew open and Annie stood in the doorway with a plate in her hands, her Minnie Mouse pyjamas covered in spots of what looked like Vegemite, and with purple mulberry juice stains on her hands, lips and face. She had obviously been feasting from the laden mulberry tree in the backyard.
‘Morning, Daddy. Grammy and I made you some toast.’ She walked over and placed the plate on the end of the bed, beaming proudly. Two bits of toast were thickly spread with Vegemite, and a few squashed mulberries sat beside them.
Dylan smiled from the heart as he stood and strolled over to her, kissing her on the cheek as he ruffled her dishevelled hair. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you and Grammy are so thoughtful. Thanks.’ Taking the piece of toast with almost half a jar of Vegemite smeared on it, Dylan took a bite, making sure to leave traces of it around his mouth. He beamed a tooth-filled grin, his teeth also covered in the Aussie staple. ‘Mmm, yummy!’
Annie giggled, her missing front tooth making her even cuter, if that was possible. ‘Daddy! It’s all over your face, you grommit.’
‘Hey, what do you mean I’m a grommit? That’s your nickname when it comes to getting food all over the place.’ Dylan playfully tried to lick it from the corner of his mouth, while pulling a stupid face. ‘Did I get it?’
Annie shook her head, still giggling, her eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘No, silly. I think you might need Grammy to wipe your face with the dishcloth, like she wipes mine. But I gotta warn you, it’s a little annoying.’
Dylan wriggled his eyebrows. ‘Nah, I reckon I know what I can do.’ He scooped his daughter up from the floor and buried his face in her already Vegemite-stained pyjama top as he tickled her ribs. Annie’s raucous laughter was contagious, and his aching heart momentarily mended.
Annie snorted with merriment while trying to wriggle from his grasp. ‘Daddy, stop it. Your prickly face is tickling me.’ She could barely talk through her giggling.
A curvy figure appeared at the door, a heartfelt smile on her face, her veiny weathered hands holding a steaming cup of coffee. ‘What are you two scoundrels doing in here? I can hear you laughing all the way from the kitchen.’
Dylan turned to face his mum, grinning like a mischievous schoolboy. ‘I’m using Annie as a dishcloth. Apparently I’m a grommit because I got Vegemite all over my face. Go figure!’
Claire Anderson smiled fondly as she fleetingly assessed Dylan’s face, and then peered at Annie’s top with raised eyebrows. ‘Well, it looks like it worked.’ Wandering o
ver to the dressing table, she placed the cuppa down beside the dusty bottles of perfume and jars of face creams.
Dylan spotted her brief frown as she scanned Shelley’s personal effects still neatly arranged on the dresser before bringing her gaze back to him and Annie. She smiled sadly at him, so much passing between them without a word being said. She had told him on a number of occasions that it was time they put Shelley’s things away, wholeheartedly believing it would help him heal. He knew, deep down, that she was right. He had tried a few times to pack it up, but had failed every time. It was his way of pretending Shelley was away on holidays somewhere, and would one day come walking through the front door, announcing she was back. In his eyes, packing up her things would be a final goodbye. And that would hurt. Tremendously. But he knew he had to find a way to finally let her go.
‘Annie and I are going into town to grab a few things for her birthday party tomorrow afternoon. I need to drop the decorations and cake off to the pub so Lorraine and Rex can set up the kids’ play area in the morning. They’ve even managed to organise a clown.’ Claire winked at Annie, her kind face lined with the many years of hardship she’d suffered at the hands of Dylan’s alcoholic father. ‘Do you need anything while we’re in there, love?’
Annie squealed, clapping her hands. ‘Oh my goodness, a clown! I can’t wait, it’s going to be so much fun.’
Dylan smiled at Annie’s enthusiasm. It was beautifully addictive. ‘You know what? I think I might come with you both. I need to grab a few things from the hardware store. And if Rex is about I want to ask if he’s heard of anyone looking for some casual hired help. Maybe we could all have a counter meal for lunch while we’re in there too. Sound good?’
Annie’s face lit up even more brightly. ‘That would be fantabulous, Daddy! Yay!’ She jumped from Dylan’s arms and ran off down the hallway, shouting back to them excitedly. ‘I’m going to pick a pretty dress for lunch, and I’m going to wear my shiny clip-clop shoes too.’