Return to Totara Park

by Shirley Wine

  For long moments they just stood there looking at each other, Jared’s grip on her hand tightened then he let her go and raked a hand through his hair leaving it standing on end.

  Once she’d found that sort of dishevelment boyish and adorable, now it filled her with resentment. She didn’t want to be attracted to Jared. But her instinctive responses to him were not so easily controlled.

  “No we only thought we knew each other,” he said bitterly. “I thought you could tell me anything. That’s what families do when there are problems, Winsome, they discuss them and find solutions.”

  “Were you wanting solutions? As long as I warmed your bed and provided babies on demand, you—” she broke off as she saw his expression.

  “Don’t say it. Don’t you dare demean what we shared.”

  Winsome looked at him. “What did we share, Jared?”

  “I loved you,” he said fiercely. “From the moment we met, there has never been anyone else for me. And fool that I am, there probably never will be.”

  Her momentary pleasure evaporated. Why did she think this sounded like a post mortem?

  “Sure I knew my parents wanted me to marry someone else.” He spread his hands in a wide expressive gesture. “Sure I knew there would be some flack. That’s why I presented them with my bride, a wife in every sense of the word. But you’re wrong about my reasons.”

  “Am I?” she asked in an aching whisper.

  His anger was under control but his brooding expression made her more nervous than she liked to admit.

  “I knew you were young and insecure but I wanted to spare you,” he shrugged and spread his hands again, his broad shoulders sagging. “I knew mother could be daunting, but I thought that being my wife would be protection enough.”

  “And you have the nerve to accuse me of being naïve.”

  “How could I know that the kindest mother in the world would turn into a monster behind my back?” He walked back across the carpet with short agitated steps. “How could I know she was torturing my wife and harbouring evil designs on my child? Your silence ensured I didn’t know and couldn’t act to protect either of you.”

  Guilt, corrosive and energy sapping, rocked her back on her heels.

  He paused and looked at her, his eyes those of a man in torment.

  You have a measure of responsibility for this tragedy, Winsome. Dr Cartwright’s gruff voice reverberated through her mind. Your silence enabled Gaelen to take greater risks, until she had you so cowed that she could literally get away with murder.

  “I loved you, with everything that I had. And it wasn’t enough. You didn’t trust me and you didn’t trust my love. Had I known, had even the slightest inkling, I would have stopped it.” He snapped his fingers the noise loud in the tension filled room. “Like that.”

  “Your father knew and said nothing.”

  “I am not my father.” That proud chin rose a notch. “One word Winsome. That’s all it would have taken.”

  “Would it?” she asked bleakly shaking her head at the sad futility of it all. “I have my doubts that you would have listened to me. You would have gone to your mother…” she cut the words off. “When have you trusted me as a wife or as a mother?”

  Jared’s expression grew bleak. “We both made mistakes. I should have tried harder to understand.”

  Guilt rode hard on her shoulder. She too shared a measure of responsibility for their lack of understanding and if Jared was ever to understand, she had to find the words to explain.

  “You don’t understand,” she said in a despairing whisper.

  Jared stopped pacing coming to stand in front of her his face furrowed with a frown. “What don’t I understand, Winsome?”

  The gentle question gave her the impetus to at least try.

  “I have never been able to talk about anything that frightened me.”

  “Why?”

  “After seeing my parents die….” her voice faded and she turned away unable to continue. It was too difficult.

  When she remained silent Jared bent and put some more logs on the fire, brushing sawdust off his hands, then turned and looked at her.

  “I know you’re hurt, angry, and feel betrayed.” He spread his hands. “But you’re not alone. I loved you, I would lay down my life for you and I can’t believe that you didn’t know it, that you didn’t know you could talk to me about anything.”

  He looked at her shaking his head. Winsome swallowed trying to dislodge the lump choking her.

  “You thought my love was so shallow, so trivial that discovering something no reasonable person could ever hold against you, was enough for me to stop loving you,” Jared shook his head in disbelief. “How could you, Winsome?”

  She stared at him for a few moments in stricken silence and then shook her head.

  “For someone who professes to love me like that you have a very funny way of showing it, Jared. Had you loved me as you claim, you would have come after me, talked to me and tried to find out why I’d left.”

  “You left me Winsome.”

  She saw the unforgiving glint in his eye and her heart plunged.

  “No,” she explained with a sad gentleness. “I didn’t leave you, Jared. I left to protect my unborn baby. You wouldn’t or couldn’t protect us so I was forced to make that decision. My baby’s welfare had to come first. Lacey had no-one to protect her, except me.”

  Shock wiped Jared’s expression clean.

  He went so white that for one terrible moment she thought he was going to faint. He slumped down in the chair and buried his face in his hands.

  Unable to bear looking at him a moment longer, she turned on her heel and walked out. At she reached the door, Jared spoke in a ragged whisper, “Forgive me, Winsome.”

  She turned and looked him and shook her head.

  Those words were just too easy to say. They did nothing to heal the hurt in her heart.

  For a long time she stood by the window staring out into the cold moonlit expanse of the garden trying to calm her agitated emotions.

  But it was no use.

  Everywhere she looked, every breath she took was filled with bitter memories. Unutterably weary she undressed and climbed into bed. For a long time she stared at the dark shadows the nightlight in Lacey’s room cast on the ceiling.

  Was Jared coming to bed or was he going to find somewhere else to sleep? Winsome was afraid of losing this last tenuous contact. Only when they shared this bed did they connect. Only in the night when Jared reached for her with passion and kindness did she feel any of the closeness that had existed between them during the years of their brief, failed marriage.

  Winsome sighed softly. Jared had been burnt just as much as she’d been.

  Her lack of trust in his love had delivered his pride and his honour a crushing blow. With the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, she realised she had inadvertently trampled something very precious.

  Would he ever be able to forgive her for her failings? And would she ever be able to forgive him for failing her, for not trusting her? At last sleep overwhelmed her weary mind, but offered no peace.

  Too many painful memories prowled her subconscious waiting just for such a night to re-visit her…

  Chapter Fifteen

  Winsome was in bed when Mummy kissed her cheek.

  She had her going out smell.

  After she was gone, the storm came closer and Winsome burrowed under the blankets. She didn’t cry. Mummy wouldn’t come and she didn’t want Daddy. His breath made her eyes want to cry.

  When he yelled, her tummy got all hot and tight.

  A dreadful noise woke her. Was the storm inside the house? She sat up trembling.

  Daddy was shouting and Mummy yelling

  Her tummy was hot and hurting. The yelling sort of changed and, fearful, she slid out of bed and opened the door a crack. A naked man ran down the passage. At the front door, he pulled on his pants and ran out into the storm.

  Mummy was crying. Winsome c
rept along the passage and peeped through the open door. Daddy was holding Mummy down on the bed.

  “I warned you Eve.”

  Her father’s voice made her tummy hurt.

  “No Paul, don’t.”

  Mummy sobbed but he took no notice and Winsome knew he was hurting Mummy. She didn’t want to watch but she couldn’t go away.

  Mummy screamed and Winsome pushed the door wider.

  Daddy sat on top of Mummy his hand above his head, something bright in his hand. Mummy groaned.

  The awful noise made her tummy hurt more.

  Daddy lifted his hand again and. Winsome heard a thud. She stood there unable to move, her eyes so wide open they hurt too.

  Daddy pulled his hand up and something spurted upwards. Drops of it hit the front of Winsome’s white gown, growing larger as she watched.

  She gave a choked cry.

  Daddy saw her, leaped off the bed and came towards her, a big knife in his upraised hand. Blood ran down his arm.

  When he looked at her with un-childlike knowledge she knew he was going to kill her.

  “Please, Daddy,” she begged. “I don’t want to die.”

  He hesitated, knife lifted to strike, blood all over him.

  “Don’t, Daddy. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

  The knife fell onto the floor. He just looked at her, and then ran down the passage, into his study and shut the door.

  She heard a loud noise and tried to open the door but it was stuck.

  She looked up the passage and in a flash of lightning, saw Mummy, covered in blood, crawling towards her.

  She ran out the open front door screaming. The house filled with people, a big policeman gathered her in his arms and took her away, still sobbing in terror.

  “Winsome. Winsome. Wake up. It’s only a dream. You must wake up.” The man’s face above her in the darkness, lit only by the glow of the nightlight gave him an unfamiliar look.

  Dream and reality merged and she gave a terrified cry.

  “No. I don’t want to die. I won’t tell, promise...” the choking sound of hysterical sobs ricocheted around the darkened room.

  “Winsome, it’s Jared. You’re safe, wake up, it’s only a dream.”

  The hands on her shoulders tightened as someone gave her a little shake, the movement enough for her to get a grip on reality.

  Her breath caught on a strangled sob as she flung herself into Jared’s arms.

  Slowly the fear faded replaced by warmth. Jared had come to bed.

  “Are you okay now?”

  “Yes. I must have dropped off to sleep.”

  “Certainly not a restful one,” he murmured, leaning back against the pillows, settling her in the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder. “That nightmare must have been a doozy. I’ve never heard you cry out like that.”

  “I haven’t had it in years.” She shivered trying to push the indelible memories away but they were persistent.

  “You’ve had an upsetting day. Do you want to talk about it?” The darkness couldn’t disguise the weariness in his voice.

  She’d never talked about that night. Until Dr Cartwright dragged it out of her, she’d kept that promise. That man had wormed his way into every secret in her mind.

  “Was it about your father?” Jared stroked her hair.

  She nodded, a shudder shook her. Would she never forget that awful night?

  “How old were you?” His voice was so very soft, just a whisper in the night.

  “Didn’t Quentin tell you?”

  “No.” He sighed softly. “I could have dug into your past as Mother and Quentin did, but I never wanted to.”

  This admission was so unlike the man she knew. He hated mysteries and always delved until he found an answer. The gentle hand on her hair was so comforting. “Why was that?”

  “I knew you’d had a major trauma in your life. But I wanted you to learn to trust me enough to share it when you were ready.”

  That admission moved Winsome to the brink of tears. She buried her face against him clinging to him. She recalled his assertions that she hadn’t trusted his love. Sorrow for so many lost opportunities filled her with regret.

  When he never made any effort to question her, she knew he wasn’t about to press for details. Despite Quentin’s revelations Jared wanted her to share her memories with him.

  She’d made so many mistakes.

  It was too late to rectify those mistakes, but it wasn’t too late to share the horrors of her past with him now, willingly. With shocking clarity she knew she’d blamed Jared for years for not knowing things he’d had no way of knowing, because she lacked the courage to tell him.

  Not anymore.

  “I was nearly four, not quite as old as Lacey,” she said, struggling to find words to adequately convey the horror. “One night, in a thunder storm, I woke to hear my parents fighting.”

  Softly, hesitantly she confided the whole terrifying ordeal. Jared let her talk prompting her occasionally when her voice petered out.

  “You poor little kid,” he murmured.

  “Dr Cartwright…”she broke off unsure of his reaction or how much he knew.

  “Who was he?”

  “The psychiatrist Harvey found for me.” She twisted a lock of his chest hair around a nervous finger. “Just before Lacey was born…”

  Jared laid a finger over her lips. “Quentin told me.”

  Winsome nodded, not surprised but suddenly she no longer wanted to hide. Her life was studded with tragedies springing from secrets, too well kept.

  “The Court insisted I could only keep Lacey if I had psychiatric treatment and agreed to her having a guardian,” she said quietly. “Harvey stepped forward as I had no relatives. Dr Cartwright helped me so much. He helped me deal with Matthew’s death, my suicide attempt and sought out the police files on my parents’ deaths. We read them together.”

  She looked up at Jared.

  “I grew up thinking that whole tragedy was my fault. I thought if I didn’t talk about it no one could blame me.” She took a shuddering breath. “I’m grateful to Harvey for finding someone I could trust.”

  That quiet admission hung in the intimate silence.

  “It’s so difficult, Jared,” she said in a burst of honesty that surprised them both. “I see the good he did but I can’t reconcile it with the bad. Nor do I understand why he left me a half-share in Totara Park.”

  Jared stiffened and then gave a heavy sigh. “The answer to that Winsome is one word. Guilt.”

  The silence that ensued was suddenly filled with tension.

  Guilt.

  Winsome was very familiar with the sting of guilt. It was a burden they all carried.

  Jared rolled away and switched on the bedside lamp and she blinked owlishly in the bright light. He rolled back towards her resting up on one elbow and looking down at her his expression very serious.

  “You, probably more than anyone else, must realise how indelible childhood memories are.”

  Winsome nodded, her eyes still shadowed from the remnants of her nightmare.

  “We have to try and put Matthew’s death behind us.” He reached across and stroked an ebony curl off her face. “I’m not saying it will be easy because it won’t. Lacey confided in Caroline that she’s scared when we argue at night and she hears us.”

  She lifted a hand to her throat her eyes widening with distress. “She told Caroline that?”

  Jared nodded his expression sombre.

  “And that’s why you said that earlier?”

  He gave a slight shrug. “Don’t think I’m blaming you for losing your temper. If anyone has just cause to be angry and bitter, you have.”

  “Oh Jared,” she breathed distressed. “I never realised she was that upset.”

  “Children are very sensitive to atmosphere. Even if we don’t yell and shout at each other she’s been picking up on our underlying dissention. And that’s not good for her.”

  “No.” She gave hi
m a helpless look filled with frustration. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “I’m not suggesting that you forget Matthew, Winsome. No one has the right to ask any mother to forget a dearly loved child. We can’t go back and change the past and, as we’ve done everything possible to safeguard our future, what do you say we call a truce?”

  It was a reasonable suggestion, she thought chewing on her under-lip. Being stressed out and at each other’s throats wasn’t achieving anything.

  Jared held out his hand and with a slow, tentative movement she put hers in it.

  “Truce.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Their truce developed from a wary unease to quiet camaraderie.

  Jared and Winsome worked together through the rest of the winter months, through frosts and freezing temperatures that gave way to rain and mud. They break-fed autumn saved grass and hay to the heifers.

  As the days lengthened and periods of warmth were interspersed with the cold, the first spring bulbs flowered bravely defying the fickle weather.

  “Spring is coming fast.” Jared sipped coffee as he watched Winsome arrange jonquils in a vase. “They look cheerful and smell good too.”

  Winsome inhaled and the sharp sweet scent teased her senses. With a deft movement, she swept the debris off the table and into the rubbish for the compost stepping around Casper as the cat twined around her ankles.

  “It can’t get here soon enough,” she said with a grimace. “It will be a treat to be able to hang out the washing and know it’ll get dry.”

  “You’ve got a dryer.”

  “I know but call me old fashioned, I much prefer my clothes dried in the fresh air.” She glanced at Jared, wondering what he was thinking.

  Since the night they’d had that terrible fight there had been a distance, a coolness between them that she couldn’t, or more correctly, wouldn’t try and surmount.

  “What is it?” she asked glancing down at her clothes wondering what he was staring at. Had she spilt food down her front or something?