What Matters Most

by Dianne Maguire

  ‘Ben, will you go and tell Rachel Dr Sandhurst is here, please?’ Annie said reaching up for coloured coffee mugs, which she set out on the bench.

  Ben immediately jumped off the stool he had been occupying at the breakfast bar and ran to the passage. ‘Rachel, Dr Sandhurst is here,’ he yelled.

  Annie smiled and looked at Mia, rolling her eyes. ‘I assume you’re up for a coffee after your long drive,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you are visiting. Rachel seems a lot brighter since you rang. You’ve done a lot for my children, Mia,’ she added. ‘I don’t know the details and I probably don’t want to,’ she said, smiling, ‘but Tim told me you helped him sort out a problem that had been bothering him for a while.’

  ‘I have a son a little younger than Tim who is interstate. I really miss him, so I was glad to be able to help. Where is Tim, by the way? I was hoping to say hello,’ Mia said.

  ‘He has a part-time job with the carpenter at Ackland Point,’ Annie said, carefully pouring water into the mugs. ‘This has all very difficult for Tim as well. And more recently he’s had another hit below the belt when a lovely nurse called Ellen, who he met at the hospital … well, she dumped him after one date. She’s gone back to her old boyfriend. Poor Tim … ah, here she is,’ Annie said in a cheerier tone turning towards Rachel who walked self-consciously into the room wearing jeans and a red windcheater.

  Mia’s smile came naturally given her pleasure at seeing Rachel again, but also as a means of disguising her shock at being reminded of her alarming weight loss. She made a mental note to phone Declan, anxious to ensure he was on top of diagnosing and treating the teen’s eating disorder. Rachel spontaneously returned Mia’s smile, but with minimal enthusiasm.

  ‘Now, Rachel and Mia, I’ve made coffee and biscuits for you to have on the front verandah while you talk,’ Annie bustled, as she picked up the tray and led the way from the room.

  ‘Yum, peanut butter cookies,’ Ben said, dancing along behind Annie with delight while Mia gathered her bag and smiled at Rachel who made a face at Ben and rolled her eyes the way only 15 year olds can do.

  ‘No, Ben. These are for Dr Sandhurst and your sister. They need privacy while they talk on the verandah.’

  ‘Why does everyone want privacy all the time?’ Ben muttered as Mia took the tray from Annie before she and Rachel wordlessly moved along the dim corridor towards the sun shining through the open door at the end.

  ‘Are you finding your meetings with Declan helpful?’ Mia asked once they faced each other at a timber outdoor setting on the verandah, more perplexed than ever now she could seen Rachel’s lifeless eyes and transparent skin in full daylight.

  Rachel shrugged. ‘A bit.’

  ‘Has he sent you to see a dietician yet?’ Mia asked in her doctor’s voice.

  Rachel shot her a look, which was fleetingly brief and totally unfathomable to Mia. ‘It’s only because I care Rachel,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘I want you to make a full recovery.’ But she decided to drop it, rather than push Rachel for an answer. ‘Now …’ she said genuinely excited. She gently placed her mug down on the timber table and shuffled in her seat, producing the folder from her bag with an exaggerated flourish. ‘This is your folder of information. I promise it will totally demystify your entry to med school — should you choose that pathway, of course,’ she added with an exuberant smile. ‘It will make the entire process of applying for university, choosing your courses and thinking about your preferred specialties in medicine seem simpler and a lot more fun.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rachel said politely, taking the pink folder and laying it on the table unopened.

  ‘Of course, you may not be ready to look at it just yet Rachel,’ Mia continued, aware she was babbling. ‘And in the meantime, there is a lot you have to deal with. But remember you have an entire year before you have to make a decision. No need to feel pressured. And Mrs Carmichael said you’re still ahead of the other kids with your schoolwork, so …’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Rachel said leaning forward with what was close to a delighted expression. ‘Mrs Carmichael said that?’

  ‘Yes, she told me personally.’

  ‘I thought I would be totally behind everyone else in the class.’

  ‘I think you underestimate yourself in lots of ways,’ Mia said, sliding a cookie with the circumference of a teacup from the plate and snapping it in half. Her mouth watered at the delightful aroma of peanut butter and crushed nuts. She glanced down at the pink folder. ‘Anyway … just keep it for when you are ready to have a look.’ She bit into the cookie and chewed. Made a face. ‘These biscuits are really good.’ She rolled her eyes at Rachel and smiled, taking another bite.

  ‘Mrs Carmichael made them. We’ve just found out that she’s also Tim’s stepmother,’ Rachel said taking a sip of coffee, as though talking about something as mundane as the weather. ‘Tim didn’t know until Mum told him last weekend.’

  The face of Jack Carmichael presented itself to Mia with startling clarity, but she was finding it difficult to reconcile that with Rachel’s news. She was pleased for Tim, especially in view of his concerns about what he may or may not have inherited from Peter, but she also knew how unsettling it must be for him to learn such vital information about his identity as a bolt from the blue and at an age when it is so much more difficult to take on board.

  ‘I feel sorry for Tim,’ Rachel said. ‘He really likes Mr Carmichael, but it must be confusing. I mean it’s almost like growing up and then finding out you’re adopted. Mum should have told him when he was little so he could grow up with the right idea about himself.’ She looked down and picked at her cuticles. ‘It’s not fair when adults expect you to tell the truth all the time when they can’t even practise what they preach.’

  In the silence that followed Mia watched a flock of rosellas land only metres from them and graze, adding splurges of brilliant colour across the green lawn. ‘Hey,’ Mia said, suddenly remembering, ‘I have a dog now.’

  ‘How come?’ Rachel said only slightly impressed. Probably because Rachel was far more enthused by horses than dogs, Mia thought. But she persisted and watched Rachel’s interest mount as she told the entire story of how she and Molly had met.

  ‘I heard about that car accident,’ Rachel said. ‘I used to see the man in the street sometimes, dressed in bowling clothes. He was really old. And he always had a dog with him. It used to sit for ages outside the shops while he was in there. And it would always walk beside him, even though it would take them an hour to walk past four shops.’

  ‘Well, that’s my Molly,’ Mia said, thoroughly delighted at yet another aspect of Molly’s previous life unfolding. ‘Her first owner called her Dolly.’

  Rachel screwed up her face. ‘Molly is a much cooler name,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘Where is she?’

  Mia grinned when, as if on cue, Molly’s bobbing head and lolling tongue suddenly appeared in the side window when they made their way down the front steps and approached the car.

  Rachel tapped on the glass and Molly licked its surface. Whined and hopped around the back seat anxious for the release that would enable her to explore beyond the confines of the car. ‘Let’s take her for a walk. I’ll show you Monnie’s stable,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Sometimes I walk down here when I feel really bad,’ Rachel said to Mia while they sauntered towards the stable yard, Molly and the red kelpies running and sniffing ahead. ‘It feels like I’m visiting her, even though I know she’s gone.’

  ‘It must be tough for you knowing you have to leave your home — and Monnie,’ Mia said softly.

  ‘I’m glad we’re moving from here. I never wanted to be a farmer anyway. And as far as Monnie goes — this is where she lived and died. This is where she belongs.’

  ‘Monnie would trot along here whenever we drove past,’ Rachel said moments later, splaying her arms to indicate the length of the fence. They stood and looked out over the paddocks. ‘Her grave is down the bottom of that valley,’
she said pointing. ‘I’ll visit soon — before we sell the farm. Mum said she will ask the new owners if I can come and visit her grave whenever I want.’

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ Mia said, relieved to hear Rachel planning for the future no matter how inconsequential it may seem to an observer.

  ‘I get that you are not sure whether you want to study medicine,’ Mia said when they had turned back towards the house. ‘But next time I’m here I’d like to tell you some of the stories about the kids I’ve looked after. I think that would give you a really good idea of what the work is all about.’

  Apart from a cursory nod of her head, Rachel’s only response to what Mia thought had been a brilliant idea was a thoughtful, ‘mm.’ Despite Rachel’s apparent lack of enthusiasm Mia knew that if she could tell her the stories — put faces to facts and personalise events to convey the richness they held — Rachel may be enticed to once again pick up her dream of studying medicine.

  They eventually reached the house. Sauntered up the stone steps, with Molly close behind not at all perplexed by the kelpies having abandoned her halfway through their walk. ‘So, are you happy with Declan?’ Mia asked as they sat opposite each other again at the timber table on the verandah. ‘Because if you’re not, I’ll have a sharp word with him.’

  ‘He’s nice. We talk about hard stuff that’s a bit deep and meaningful, but I get why we have to do that. He helped me understand that I need to be patient with myself because it’s going to take time. I told him how I always thought I’d be like a different person once Dad stopped doing those things to me. But I don’t. I feel like I’m causing trouble for everyone. Dad is in gaol because of me. And Trevor said I asked him to do it, which I did, because I wanted him to like me.’ Rachel swallowed hard. ‘Dr O’Leary said it was normal for me to feel guilty, but that one day I will realise that Trevor and Dad hurt me. Not the other way around.’

  Mia watched helplessly as large tears slid down Rachel’s cheeks, before she swiped them away with her sleeve and continued: ‘From the time I was little, whenever Dad started doing things, I would imagine a tent over myself. Like we were in two different places. Sometimes I would concentrate really hard on what colour I wanted the tent to be that day. Now, I feel exposed and unprotected without it; even though one part of me knows I don’t need the tent anymore, the other part of me can’t give it up. It sounds weird, but I still need my tent and I don’t know why.’

  The rosellas squabbled and squawked in front of them on the grass. Magpies carolled in the trees. Mia could even hear a swarm of bees buzzing in the distance. But the hush that enveloped her and Rachel at that moment seemed to drown every sound. Mia watched Rachel pick at her cuticles. ‘I can’t imagine how it must feel to have your father break your heart like he did, Rachel,’ she said.

  Rachel nodded, her finger commencing to trace an imaginary pattern over the knee of her tracksuit. ‘People keep saying he should tell me he’s sorry … that it’d help me get closure,’ she said with a deep shuddering breath. ‘I’m trying to imagine how it would feel. And I really don’t think it would make any difference. I don’t think it would be enough to end this. I don’t think there’s such a thing as closure for this, whether he says he is sorry or not.’ She sat up, breathed in deep and straightened her shoulders.

  ‘You are strong, you are intelligent and you are an optimist, Rachel. I think that’s how you have survived the things he’s done to you, when many wouldn’t. And you have a lot of people who love you.’

  ‘I know I have lots of people who are on my side. But I still feel like I’m alone.’ She turned to Mia, as though silently pleading for an answer. But Mia knew there was nothing she could say. There are some questions that simply cannot be answered. And there is no language to describe a betrayal such as Rachel’s.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Pierre swooped and landed on the deck’s railing the moment Mia pulled into the driveway, lifting his head and heralding her arrival with a clamorous burst of melodic warbling. Even on occasions when she had travelled all the way from the city, Pierre would often coordinate his arrival with hers to the exact second. She wondered how he did it and whether this was a trait common to all magpies.

  ‘Bonjour, Pierre,’ she murmured as she passed him, keeping an eye also on Molly, who tore with excited familiarity across the lawn sniffing from one tree or bush to the next. Mia wearily lifted one foot after the other to climb the steps up to the deck and unlocked the front door, balancing her overnight bag and a collection of groceries in her arms, wishing for Pierre’s joie de vivre and Molly’s energy.

  Stepping into her beach house brought the same sense of serenity and comfort as always, but this time Mia felt a tinge of loneliness as well. She slid the bags of groceries onto the kitchen bench and recalled Declan’s numerous requests to join her this weekend, berating herself for her poor judgement and wishing she had invited him after all.

  Now, almost a week since she and Noah had shared what she thought had been a close to perfect lunch at Star of Greece, had cooked together, and sipped wine as they had talked incessantly and learned more about each other that night, she found herself searching deep down for answers as to why he had not contacted her since.

  Later, with her bare feet curled under her on the settee, a chilled glass of Chablis in her hand and Molly snoring softly at her feet, Mia watched the sun sink behind the horizon in a blaze of gold, pink and orange and came to the conclusion that Senior Detective Noah Tamblyn had a commitment phobia and that she was wasting her time lamenting what may or may not have been. Even her novel held little interest and the Brazilian cafe music, which had always captured the seaside ambience and made her feel like dancing, washed over her today without any impact.

  A warm swipe across the cheek brought Mia awake next morning. Molly’s priority for the day was made explicit by her beseeching brown eyes and her soft rapid panting from where she sat on the floor only centimetres from Mia’s face. ‘Good thing you don’t have bad breath, Molly,’ she said climbing from bed and wandering to the bathroom, deliberately avoiding the ‘walk’ word, at least until she had fully woken.

  Ten minutes later, Mia picked her way through the coastal grasses, her mind tuned to Daniel’s warning, her eyes sweeping the sand and grasses for snakes, while Molly ran ahead like a giant rabbit on steroids. By the time Mia had reached the beach Molly and Silver were frolicking together in the sand and Daniel was emerging from the water after his morning swim.

  ‘Morning, Mia,’ he said, rubbing his chest and arms vigorously with his towel and slipping his white tee-shirt over his head.

  ‘Morning, Daniel,’ she said, glimpsing his abdominal muscles tightening with his movement.

  Daniel bent and rubbed his legs unselfconsciously with the towel. ‘I see you still have the dog,’ he said, looking up at her.

  ‘She’s mine now,’ Mia said with a proud smile before relating the story of her contact from the police and her subsequent visit with Claire Barnett. ‘Molly and I are taking a long walk this afternoon,’ she said on the spur of the moment. ‘You and Silver should come with us.’

  Daniel’s face twisted and Mia instantly felt her spirits plummet. ‘That would have been great, Mia. Thanks for the invitation,’ he said, ‘but I have to be back in the city for a family function.’ His tone reflected neither embarrassment nor sympathy, which meant to Mia’s relief that he had not detected her overwhelming sense of disappointment.

  Breakfast was three coffees and a boiled egg on toast which Mia ate slowly over the newspapers. She was halfway through washing the meagre collection of dirty dishes and had decided she would ring Declan after all and allow him to gloat while she ate humble pie, when Molly, who had been snoozing near the table, suddenly sprang to her feet into instant consciousness and Mia had almost dropped a plate in fright. Molly then broke into a furious rage of barking interspersed with deep threatening growls and bounded to the front window, her tail pointing straight behind her. Mia was seriou
sly alarmed, immediately grateful this was at least occurring in daylight hours.

  By the time Mia had speedily crept to the front window to explore, Molly’s desperately sniffing nose was pressed hard up against the crack at the bottom of the door, avidly searching for a scent, her tail waving ecstatically in the air. Three loud thumps on the door immediately brought Mia to a frozen standstill and Molly into rapturous tail-wagging conniptions.

  Unable to see who was on the other side and resolving to get a peephole installed as a priority, Mia tentatively opened the door, her jaw immediately dropping and plunging her into a vacuum of earth-shattering silence.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, beaming.

  With a mind all of their own, Mia’s eyes ran up and down his gold and teal lycra-clad body.

  ‘I just happened to be in your neighbourhood,’ he said smiling.

  ‘How did you know my address?’ she gasped.

  He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I’m a detective remember. Can I come in?’ he said, bending to remove his cycling shoes.

  ‘Molly,’ Mia managed to chide on noticing Noah’s attempts were being thwarted by Molly’s over-exuberant face-licking.

  ‘Hello, Molly. Are you still here?’ he said, patting her before pushing her gently away and finally removing his shoes.

  ‘Yes, she’s still here,’ Mia said, her powers of speech finally restored. ‘It’s a long story. Come in and I’ll make us coffee and tell you all about it,’ she said desperately trying to suppress an overwhelming flood of nervous energy.

  Noah stepped in and kissed her briefly before pulling a backpack from his shoulders and tossing it onto the nearest armchair. He turned to her and smiled wordlessly. Then kissed her again, longer this time. His kisses were even better than Mia had remembered.