Cross My Heart

by Pamela Cook

  Heading back outside to the studio, where everything was buzzing and lively, was the perfect cure for the melancholy the conversation had induced. Grace was working quietly on some sort of sea creature, looking at ease. Almost like a normal little girl. Despite there being nothing normal about her situation, she did seem to be enjoying herself. Skye must have seen it, too, which is why she had caved in to Grace’s request to join the class.

  The question was, why had she stopped coming?

  Tess laid a hand on Jules’s arm, drawing her attention away from the group. ‘If Grace liked the class so much, why didn’t Skye bring her back?’

  Jules shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I never got the chance to ask.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Probably a couple of months ago. Or more. I hardly saw her after that.’

  It was almost the end of July now, so a couple of months ago would have been the middle of May, not long after Skye had found the newspaper article and written those words across the copy she’d made. Were the two things connected?

  There had been more papers inside that envelope, inside the box, inside the wardrobe, but opening that door again would be like opening an old wound, one that had festered for too long before it had scarred. She needed to bury Skye and deal with Grace. Right now, digging up the past was not something she could even contemplate.

  One by one, the children were collected by their mothers. Fresh-faced women in a standard uniform of worn jeans and jacket, who took their kids by the hand and smiled as they said goodbye. Before long only Grace and a boy around the same age were left, both of them happily helping to clean up. Grace was right at home, packing away the various art-and-craft supplies. Jules shared a joke with the boy, who threw his head back and laughed, flicking long strands of fair hair from his face. Rushed footsteps sounded outside and a man appeared at the door.

  ‘Sorry, Jules, I was doing some shoeing for Bill McKenzie. Took longer than I expected.’

  ‘No problem at all. These two are doing a fantastic job, so you can’t have him yet anyway.’ A paint pot in each hand, Jules waved her arms like one of the octopi her students had been creating. ‘Tess, meet Mitch Farmer.’ She nodded towards her helper. ‘And this larrikin is Toby.’

  The boy held up his paint-covered hands and flashed a cheeky grin, before returning to wipe down the table.

  The man, Mitch, reached out his hand then quickly pulled it back to wipe his palm down the leg of his jeans. ‘Sorry.’ He gave her an awkward smile. ‘I’m a bit grubby.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ She wasn’t much of a hand-shaker and he wasn’t exactly clean.

  ‘Are you a blow-in?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘New to the town.’

  ‘Oh … yes, I am. Grace isn’t … it’s complicated.’

  He nodded slowly, even though the expression on his face was one of total confusion. He had a windswept look about him, salt-and-pepper stubble covering his chin and a light sprinkling of grey through his dark-brown hair. Definitely an outdoorsy type.

  ‘Did you say you were shoeing?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Shoeing what?’

  He frowned, pinned his eyes on her as if trying to work out whether she was serious or making a joke. ‘A horse.’

  ‘Right.’ She nodded. What an idiot!

  ‘I take it you’re not a country girl.’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  The lines around his eyes crinkled like cellophane. Toby barrelled into him and grabbed him around the waist, burying his face into his father’s belly. Mitch rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘Easy on, mate.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Toby’s grin faded as he looked up into the man’s face, desperate for approval.

  ‘That’s okay.’ He roughed the boy’s mop of hair. ‘We’d better head home. Your mum will be wondering where we are. Might see you around town sometime, Tess.’

  ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘See ya, Jules, bye, Grace.’

  Grace stood beside the table, hands hanging by her sides, watching Toby closely. He gave her a half-smile and lifted his hand to wave and she mirrored both his expression and action.

  Jules turned towards her, hands on hips. ‘So, Missy, will I see you here again next week?’

  Grace’s mouth drooped a little as she watched Toby leave, but she nodded a mildly enthusiastic reply. It was a good sign. She was interested in something, seemed happy about the idea of coming back. Perhaps she’d even made a new friend today?

  Perhaps they both had. Thinking of Jules as competition for Grace’s affection had been a ridiculous notion. They were on the same team, Team Grace, and with what lay ahead, Tess could certainly use an ally.

  Fourteen

  One tug on the curtain and Tess could watch the sunrise without getting out of bed. Beneath the silvery morning sky a soft blush dusted the hills, marking the outline of the distant ridge in a faint tinge of lavender. Yesterday’s mist had returned, draping itself over the paddocks like a cloak, and another gossamer frost coated the tufts of grass closer to the house. The velvet throw rug she’d brought along for extra warmth was gentle and comforting, like the blanket she’d had as a child. Whenever she was sad or afraid she would snuggle into it and almost instantly she would feel safe and secure. The way Skye had wanted Grace to feel. It should have been so perfect, living a peaceful life out here, surrounded by paddocks and trees. All this space; all this beauty. Perhaps for a while it was, until the past had chased her down, chewing at her heels like a rabid dog.

  A shrill cry sounded, high up. Tess shifted closer to the window. One solitary bird wheeled across the brightening sky. The night had been long, relentless. Lying there in the dark with everything red and black: the bleeding rat; those words flashing like a siren behind her eyelids. He has a daughter. Even when she tried silently singing to herself, she couldn’t drown out Skye’s voice saying it over and over with that same sense of shock she must have felt when she’d found the report in the newspaper. A Melbourne paper. How had she found it? And why had she kept it?

  The second question was one Tess wasn’t sure she wanted answered. A headache was already niggling. Not the best way to start the day, especially when she would no doubt be called on for classroom duty. To be fair, Grace was pretty self-sufficient, probably following the routine her mother had set up. How either of them stood the monotony of doing the same thing day in, day out was the question. As good as Skye’s intentions had been, Jules was right, the child needed company, not to mention a decent teacher.

  A new noise, like the tinkling of a bell, floated in from the living room. Time to get up and investigate. The welcome smell of burning wood greeted her as she stepped through the doorway and belted up her dressing gown. They had this fire thing nailed. Grace was sitting at the piano, her left hand resting on the keys, her right hand playing some high notes at the treble end. It was a beautiful instrument, an antique upright, in pristine condition, a lighter shade of walnut than the wardrobe. It looked familiar, but where would she have seen it before? Of course! It had belonged to Skye’s grandmother. How was it only just occurring to her that the house was full of Jean’s furniture: the wardrobe; the dresser in the kitchen with the leadlight doors; the double bed with its intricate wrought-iron bedhead; all of it had been in the house she’d spent so much time in while she was growing up.

  Grace played on, both hands now on the keys, as she began to sing. The very first word stopped Tess mid-step. Her heart pounded out an erratic beat, like an overwound metronome, as she pictured the rainbow. Jean had sung the same song to Skye, and to her, when they were kids, the two of them crammed onto the armchair, watching the older woman’s fingers caress the keys, the veins and brown spots patterning the back of her hands like the rivers and valleys of a foreign landscape. The rendition Grace was playing now was simpler, picked out mainly with her right hand with only the occasional chord added in the bass, but her voice, the sweet fragility of it, was achin
gly beautiful. Tess hugged herself tight at the mention of dreams and lullabies, bracing herself for the final line and the bluebirds flying away.

  Finished now, Grace rested her hands on her lap, head bowed, like one of the porcelain ornaments her great-grandmother might have had on her mantelpiece.

  ‘That was lovely.’ Her own voice sounded like a croak in the silence of the room.

  Grace turned around, her face the colour of the clouds in the winter sky. She stared into the distance, as if at someone else, someone standing at the far end of the room, but then turned to look at Tess. ‘Do you think that’s where she is? Over the rainbow.’

  ‘Your mum?’

  Grace nodded.

  Tess stuck her hands in her pockets. Death was a subject she’d always tried to avoid. She had to come up with something and Eleanor had assured her she would be fine if she followed her instincts. She walked over and crouched down beside Grace. ‘My nonna died when I was about your age. I was very sad. My dad took me outside and told me to look up and search for the brightest star.’ Her father’s hands were firm and strong on her shoulders, the endless sky sprinkled with light. ‘It was a clear night, and there were thousands of stars out, and there was one shining so brightly I knew it had to be her. All these years later, whenever I look up and see a really brilliant star I know she’s there.’ She was fudging a bit, had in fact totally forgotten that story until she’d started speaking, but even if she didn’t believe it now that she was a rationally thinking adult, it had given her solace as a child. ‘So, I think when we lose someone we love they stay with us, always.’ Somehow, she sounded like she was making sense.

  ‘But where is her actual body?’

  And just like that the small shred of self-satisfaction vanished. Tess dropped to her knees, steadying herself with one hand on the piano stool. How could she tell an orphaned child that her mother was still in storage at an undertaker’s?

  ‘We found a bird one time and it was sick, so we put it in a box, but it died in the night-time. We dug a hole and buried it. Is that what they did with Mumma?’

  Grace had barely uttered more than a sentence at a time in the last ten days and now she’d decided to start talking with a whole lot of way-too-hard questions. Her voice was clear, her eyes alert. She needed answers, like any kid, so the best thing Tess could do was to just lay out the facts. Carefully. ‘Well … when she died they took her to a hospital.’

  ‘So they could make her better?’

  ‘No, sweetie. There was nothing they could do for her by then. When someone dies … they like to find out why that happened. And because I was away overseas, and then meeting you, your mum hasn’t been buried yet.’

  ‘Is she still in the hospital?’

  Tess swallowed. ‘Yes.’ It wasn’t the strict truth, but there was no way she was about to explain the concept of a mortuary. ‘And now that we’re back here and things have settled down, we need to have a funeral for your mum.’

  ‘Will she be put in the ground like the bird?’

  An image of a broken, featherless wren flashed through Tess’s brain and she blinked it away. Skye had specified her wishes in a handwritten will and they would have to be followed. How to explain cremation to a child?

  Tess took her hand and Grace didn’t resist. ‘Do you know what a soul is, Grace?’

  ‘Mmm-hmm. It’s the invisible part inside that makes you who you are.’ Her face lit up for just a few seconds. ‘Mumma told me that when I was born I was an old soul. Like I knew things other babies didn’t.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Tess’s eyes burned. She managed a faint smile and a pat of Grace’s hand. ‘Well, when a person dies their soul goes somewhere else … over the rainbow, or up into the stars, wherever they dreamed of being. Their body gets left behind, only they’re not in it anymore. It’s like that bird you were talking about, the bones and feathers were still there, but the part that sang and chirped was gone. People choose to either be buried or cremated, which is …’ She took another deep breath, a fish out of water gulping for air. ‘It’s when the body is put in a fire and turned into ash and then the ashes are either buried in the ground or scattered somewhere special, somewhere the person loved.’

  ‘Mummy loved being here the most.’ Grace spoke in a low whisper.

  ‘I know.’ The title of the book Grace had spirited away from Eleanor’s office suddenly made sense. All the Places to Love. She waited until she was sure the traitorous quiver lurking in her throat was under control. ‘That’s why Skye—your mum—left a letter asking to be cremated and have her ashes scattered into the creek right here at home.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This Friday.’

  The curiosity that had animated Grace’s eyes for a brief time disappeared. It was as if a shutter had been pulled down across her face and locked firmly at her lips. She jerked her hand away and turned back to the piano.

  Tess pushed herself upright. Sunlight spilled through the windows, glinting off the silver cutlery of the mobile hanging outside, a kaleidoscope of light dancing on the grey timbers of the verandah. Grace started back on the same melody, but this time without the singing. She couldn’t know it was the song her mother had requested be played at her farewell, couldn’t know that each clear chiming note was cleaving Tess’s heart in two.

  Organising a funeral, it turned out, was as easy as making a few phone calls. One to the morgue asking them to release the body and have it transported back to Weerilla. A second to the undertaker, who offered to sort out the cremation. A third to a local celebrant suggested by Jules. Then there was the matter of the guest list, but that too was regretfully simple. Apart from Grace, Jules and Tess, there was no one to invite. It seemed wrong to have such a small group to say goodbye. Josh was still in Europe at his software conference, but there was one other person who had known Skye and who might agree to come.

  Merely looking at the name and number in her contacts list made Tess jittery. She and her mother hadn’t spoken since the christening, but one of them had to be the bigger person. And tradition dictated it to be Tess.

  The phone rang once, twice, three times. ‘Hello, Tessa.’ Her mother’s voice, cool as a southerly buster, came on the other end of the line.

  ‘Hi, Mum. How are you?’ She was upbeat and cheery, keeping it light.

  ‘Apart from the fact I’ve been worried sick about you, I’m just fine.’

  The guilt trip was nothing less than she’d expected. Riding it out rather than fighting back usually worked, especially when she was the one who wanted the favour.

  She moved the phone slightly away from her ear as the rant continued. ‘When I couldn’t get onto you I called Josh and he told me you’d taken Grace back home. I know you didn’t like me saying what I did, but the least you could have done was let me know what was going on.’

  Time had not dulled her mother’s wrath. ‘I’m sorry.’ It wasn’t entirely true, but it was the best way of soothing the wild beast.

  As Tess listened, a magpie landed on the grass, striding towards the verandah, where Grace was sitting in the sun reading yet another book in the C.S. Lewis series. As soon as she spotted the bird she jumped up and ran inside.

  ‘Grace?’ This wasn’t about the bird conversation they’d had, was it?

  ‘Tessa, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, I’m here. Things have been pretty crazy.’

  The silence on the other end of the line held every syllable of ‘I told you so’. Her shoulders tensed, as they always did when she and her mother were having a ‘moment’. Or moments. Grace reappeared and sat on the top step. The magpie tipped its head to one side, fixing a beady eye on the bowl in the girl’s hand. She plucked out a clump of meat, from the look of it the mince Tess had bought to make bolognaise sauce, and held it out towards the bird, who hopped forward and plucked it from between Grace’s fingertips, throwing back its head and gobbling down the treat.

  ‘Oh my God.’ A laugh bubbled out as Tess watched
the show. She’d had a phobia about birds ever since she’d seen the old Hitchcock film, but this was too cute for words.

  ‘Tessa?’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ That word again. ‘I’m just watching Grace feed a magpie.’ Her mother gave a gruff snort. ‘Anyway, I was ringing to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Go on.’

  She stood and walked to the other end of the verandah, out of Grace’s earshot. The poor girl had been utterly miserable since their earlier discussion, hadn’t said a word. ‘I’ve organised the funeral. There’s only Grace, myself, and another friend from the town. It doesn’t seem right.’ She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and looked out across the garden, squinting into the glare. ‘I was wondering if you and Dad might come up.’ Not that she had a clue where she would put them, but she would worry about the practicalities later.

  ‘When is it?’ Her mother’s tone was suddenly more conciliatory. She was always good in a crisis. The ones she didn’t help create.

  ‘Friday.’ Two days’ time. ‘You could come up and stay for the weekend.’

  ‘Your father has a golf jaunt booked down the coast.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Tess kicked at a nail poking out of the decking.

  ‘But I could come if you like.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You don’t have to sound so surprised, Tessa. I do have a heart.’

  ‘I know you do, Mum.’

  ‘Is there anything you want me to bring up for you?’

  She turned back just as the bird swallowed the last of its meal and flew away, leaving Grace to escape back into the pages of her book.

  ‘A magic wand to make everything right for Grace again?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re doing perfectly well without one.’

  Was that her mother’s roundabout way of saying she thought Tess was up for the task of being a parent? That she was actually capable? The same feeling she’d had when she rode her bike without training wheels for the first time rushed through her veins. And the same goofy smile plastered itself across her face. ‘Thanks, Mum. I’ll text you the address.’