by Trish Morey
She glanced towards the picture she’d been avoiding all morning, of Caleb looking magnificent all spread out on her bed, and felt a stab of pain in her heart so sharp, it made her catch her breath. She moved towards it numbly, drawn to it. Alongside it was pinned the cutting from the newspaper.
“Very good,” she said softly, drinking in his perfect form with her eyes, wanting to reach out and touch his skin and feel his warmth again.
“Will you tell him?”
“Who?” she said, wondering at the pain inside her, this pain that wouldn’t go away, that left her numb and listless and puffy-eyed come morning.
“Caleb Knight, your model.”
She snapped her eyes away. “Oh. Look, he’d probably love to hear it from you. Why don’t you give the station a call?”
She left a quizzical looking Evan in her wake, together with a phone number to call the marketing director of the Department of Agriculture and a reminder to find herself an agent. Still buzzing with the good news, Ava stopped on the way home to pick up her mail from the local post office. As usual, there wasn’t much, a couple of window envelopes from the bank, another from her energy provider, but there was one in a fancy white envelope, her name and address type written on the envelope, while the stamp said it was from Singapore.
She slit it open and a notecard slid out of a folded paper.
And what she saw on the notecard turned her blood cold.
Her name, in her mother’s handwriting.
She recognised it even now, even eighteen years on, it was still enough to put a shiver down her spine.
What the hell did her mother want? Now? After all these years?
She put it back down and circled it for a while. She poured herself a glass of wine and sipped at it while she stared from all angles at the envelope and the note card sitting alone on the bench top. Her mother had abandoned her to hell. And even when Ava had reached out, her mother had told her there was no choice.
Like an unexploded bomb, it sat there. And in the end she couldn’t bear it. She had to reach for it and rip it open. She unfolded the small notecard determined to tear it in tiny pieces if it dared begin with “Darling daughter” or even “Dearest Ava”. But it started with neither. It began with two other little words. “I’m sorry”.
And Ava’s knees buckled and she collapsed onto the sofa.
‘I cheered for you the day we heard you had escaped.’ it read. ‘I wished you wings to fly. I wished you the freedom I had never been strong enough to seek or to fight for. I wished you the happiness that was stolen from you. I wished you love.
‘I hope you have found all of these things, and more.’
Ava blinked as she read the words her mother had committed to paper, of how she had watched her career blossom from afar and how she’d provided for her, and instructed her lawyers to send this letter, after her death.
‘I know I will never have your forgiveness,’ her mother had written in conclusion, ‘and neither do I deserve it, but wanted you to know, I’m so very proud of you, Ava.
‘I wish, I so wish things could have been different.’
For a long while Ava sat there, holding the letter, the words blurring in her mind, as she thought back, searching for a hint that she’d missed, a clue that her mother had felt something for her.
And all she could find was the memory of being rocked in her mother’s arms, being told not to cry, that tears made eyes puffy and men liked their women to look happy and beautiful, and Ava didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. Not when she could see tears welling in her mother’s eyes too.
She put a hand to her mouth. Because there too was the memory of her mother taking her out one day, shopping, she’d told her husband, and Ava had imagined coming home with new gowns and underwear and designer shoes in preparation for another party and another man, only for her mother to take her to the zoo of all places, and they’d wandered around the grounds, looking at all the animals and eating ice cream and laughing, and it had been so unexpected and joyous.
And she remembered her mother brushing her hair, the long brush strokes through her hair like a caress, when Ava had fallen and sprained a wrist.
Tiny glimpses of kindness amongst the dark, and none of it had made sense.
Her eyes fell on the abandoned envelope, the letter still folded inside. She reached for it, unfolding it, the black legalese print stark on the white page. Her mother had provided for her, it said, and there was a number, an unimaginable number attached to that clause. Her money now.
Ava sucked in a breath, and took herself to the windows overlooking the gorge and beyond and put her hand upon the glass, solid and yet invisible, like the ties that bind people together, even when you she couldn’t see them, even when you she thought they were severed and cast away.
The ties that bind you forever.
And the air shifted around her as the heat haze shimmered over the horizon and the cold, withered heart inside her chest started beating again, and nothing was how it was before.
Because the freedom her mother wished for Ava and that she’d thought she’d found was another kind of prison, but this time self-imposed. She hadn’t embraced her freedom. She’d become trapped inside it, afraid to live. Afraid to love.
Lights flashed along a road in the suburbs below, red and blue speeding out of sight as soon as they’d appeared, and a stab of pain in her chest made her gasp.
Caleb, she thought, her fingers curling on the glass, before she pushed herself away and headed for her studio.
She found her sketch book where she’d left it in the studio, while pencilling some herbs, a bunch of basil and coriander and rosemary she’d picked from her herb garden. She flicked through the pages until she found them, the original sketches she’d made of Caleb, the first right here in this studio, of him pulling on a shirt, in the shower with the water cascading down his corded throat and over his muscled chest and sprawled on her unmade bed.
She collapsed onto her sofa, her fingers tracing over the lines, wishing it was his body under her fingertips, wishing for his heat and his strength and the warm masculine scent of him, the sense of loss growing until it threatened to swallow her whole.
Caleb, whose only crime was that he loved her.
Because she’d been too stupid to realise what was staring her in the face the whole time. That she loved him too.
She flung the book aside and put her head in her hands.
What the hell had she done?
Chapter Twelve
Caleb was back working nights, the February fire a thing of the past, and everyone hoping that summer had thrown its worst at them, when the incident came in at four in the morning. A string of brush fence fires in the leafy eastern foothill suburbs, disturbingly close to the Uriarra Gorge.
All available units were called out, the high winds and tinder dry conditions pushing panic buttons all over the emergency services, none pressed harder than Caleb’s.
His appliance screamed its way to their callout, arriving to find his worst fears realised, the residents in the street were all out desperately trying to wet down their houses with garden hoses because what had been started as a malicious prank by some idiot, was already spreading fast through the bush of a neighbouring picnic area. Some of the crews got to work on getting the residents clear and ensuring the houses were safe while more chased the fire in the trees that was being fanned by the wind and heading directly towards the gorge.
The crews fought desperately to get a handle on the fire, to control it before it could get into the gorge, everyone knowing that if it got there, into the steep and heavily wooded terrain, it would be impossible to stop.
As the battle progressed, Caleb’s gut knotted tighter and tighter. It was a race against time, a race against a fire rapidly gaining the ascendancy and heading for the gorge, the flames metres high above the treetops, dancing from tree to tree, to a soundtrack of crackling roaring fire. He pulled out his phone, not caring if Ava never want
ed to hear from him again, she was going to.
There was no answer. He knew the emergency services would be sending out warning messages to everyone in the area but that didn’t stop him from sending off his own text. Fire coming. Get out now!, before he got back to work.
When it was clear there was no stopping it this end, they sent crews around the flanks, bouncing up the rough fire tracks around the gorge to try to get any residents in its path out of the way. Caleb’s appliance was one of them, climbing about the burning valley below, grey and white smoke billowing upwards in massive clouds, turning the dawn to dusk. But, from his vantage point here, he could see the path the fire would take, and knew there was no way it could miss her.
He could just about make it out, a ridge or two away, the low stone house set into the side of the hill, the big rain water tank on the side. Had she activated the sprinkler system yet? Did she know what was coming? “There’s Ava’s house,” he called. “Let’s get her out.”
They were through one rocky dip in the track and over the next ridge, when Richo said, “Shit,” pulling the truck to a sudden halt.
Before them a massive gum tree had fallen across the track, the diameter of its trunk a couple of metres at least. No way around it, and no job for a mere chainsaw when there was fire raging through the gorge.
“We can’t get through this way. We’ll have to go back.”
“No!”
“Caleb, there’s no way. We have to turn around and try to find a track in from the top.”
Which was when Caleb had jumped out of the truck.
“What are you doing?” yelled Richo.
“Go,” Caleb yelled back, already scrambling his way over the fallen tree. Because he knew a way that didn’t rely on the roundabout fire tracks. He knew it from what felt like a hundred years ago when he’d played amongst these hills and gorges with his brother, and he knew that even on foot he could make it this way before the fire front when a vehicle never could make it all the way around in time.
And because now that he was this close, he wasn’t about to leave Ava stranded.
“You’re bloody mad, you know that!” Richo called after him, even as he was reversing the big truck around. “They’ll chuck you out of the service for this dumbass stunt, if you bloody survive, that is.”
Caleb just waved them away, already finding the path through the bush that he’d once known so well. Richo was probably right, but right now he Caleb didn’t care about the job. All he cared about was getting to Ava. And getting there in time.
The path was overgrown from how he’d remembered it, there were more fallen trees to clamber over and inside his suit he was a soggy, sweaty mess. But below him the flames lapped at the edges of the gorge and he kept right on going.
She woke to the smell of smoke. Fire. Outside her windows the view had turned grey. Fear clenched her gut. She found her phone, realised it was still switched off for her session at the gallery yesterday – so stupid – and flicked it on. Meanwhile she sprinted to the pump box on the side of the house to get the sprinklers working, messages pinging into her phone one after the other, telling her to activate her emergency fire plan or get out from the emergency services, one from Caleb telling her the same.
The wild winds whipped at her hair, the smoke was terrifying, ashes already falling from the massive dark clouds belching from the gorge, the noise fearful, roaring and crackling. The fire was enormous. She was no hero. She’d never planned to stay and defend on her own. She’d turn on the sprinklers and get the hell out and if the house was still standing when she got back, well and good.
A new message popped in then, another one from the emergency services, telling her it was now too late to evacuate, and to activate her survival plan.
Oh, god.
“Stay calm,” she told herself, her heart racing, her fingers tangling, fumbling with the key to the pump, one eye on the monstrous orange glow from below, the roar of the fire making her want to get in her car and go, and not stand here trying to get this damned pump to work.
It took her three attempts but finally it started, the pump kicking in and sending water cascading over the roof and under the eaves. Would it be enough though, given what was coming? She slammed the pump door shut and turned, just as something emerged through the smoky haze. A figure in yellow and running, trying to shout something over the roar of the fire. She narrowed her eyes, when a sizzle of recognition zipped down her spine.
Caleb!
He glanced over his shoulder at the gorge below, at the flames now visible in the treetops across the gorge and yelled at her to get inside. But she was already heading towards him, she wasn’t going anywhere without him. He caught her up and got her by the hand and tugged her forcibly through the wall of water and inside the studio. “Get to the safe room,” he ordered, as he pulled away anything flammable from near the windows. “Now!”
She managed to grab her sketchbook on the way and another small canvas she’d been tinkering with.
“What about that one?” Caleb asked behind her as they rushed past the mad painting of herself as a teenager on the bed.
“Leave it,” she said, and they fled into the tiny retreat room at the back of the house and slammed the door, huddling down near the floor. It was dark, the power gone, and there was no way to know what was happening outside, no way to know anything other than Caleb was here.
And it felt like her heart was beating a thousand times a minute, she was so terrified, but she had Caleb’s chest for a pillow and his arms to hold her safe and she hung onto him for dear life.
The noise intensified, like a jet flying directly overhead, the temperature in the tiny room soared, and she buried her face in his chest and swore that if she ever got out of here alive, she was never going to send this man away again. From somewhere outside came the sound of smashing glass and she jerked in his arms. He squeezed her tighter, but that wasn’t what forced the tears from her eyes as the noise retreated, the roar abating.
“You came for me,” she said, trembling in his arms, clinging to him, as the enormity of all that had happened in the space of just a few minutes set in. “You risked your life for me.”
“I had to,” he said gruffly, still panting from his exertions.
“I love you,” she said.
He stilled. “What did you say?”
“I said, I love you.”
“Jeezus, Ava, you sure pick your moments,” he said, but there was a chuckle underlying his words. He lifted her hand in his glove and kissed the back of it. “I love you too. Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”
The fire front had passed, but not the danger, and together they worked for two hours in the blackened exterior, putting out spot fires and watching for flare ups. Her car was a burnt out mess, and she shivered when she thought about how close she’d come to getting in and driving away. But the house had survived, the sudden drenching protecting it from the fire, the only damage to the house was the glass wall of her studio and the contents lying scorched and broken on the floor.
She looked at what was left of the picture of her lying on the bed, nothing more now than a charred canvas painted by fire, and she was glad.
Caleb put his hand on her shoulder as she stared down at it. “We could have saved it.”
She shook her head. “That frightened girl is gone,” she said. “She turned one prison into another, locking herself away. I’m never going to allow myself to be frightened again.”
She turned to him and took his hands in hers. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see what was right there all the time. I fell in love with you, Caleb, without even realising it. I’m sorry I sent you away. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“And here was me, thinking I must have imagined you saying those words while we were stuck in there.”
She shook her head. “No, you didn’t imagine it. I worked it out yesterday.” And she told him of the note from her mother, written long ago, and that she could never ask for forgiveness,
but wishing Ava freedom and happiness and love. She told him of the scattered fragments of memories, of kindnesses she’d buried so not to disrupt the perfection of her dark past.
He listened to it all, and he pressed his lips to her forehead, smelling of smoke and ash, his face grimy, “I love you,” he said.
“I thought nobody would, if they knew the truth. And I was too afraid to believe it could be true.”
“Believe it,” he said, a finger under her chin, angling her for his kiss. “It’s true.”
“I love you, Caleb.”
And he pressed his lips to hers and he tasted of ash and fire and the flames of love he had stoked in her heart.
They were outside, Caleb taking an axe to some burnt saplings, when the truck pulled into the driveway.
“Bloody hell,” Richo said, climbing down from the cab to slap his mate on the back. “Are you a sight for sore eyes?”
“What were you worried about?” he lied. “I had heaps of time.”
The relief on his crew’s faces was palpable, and it was a very celebratory reunion as Richo radioed in to tell base they’d found Caleb safe and well.
“So what’s the latest with the fire?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the smoke cloud that seemed to be growing smaller by the minute. “Did it get anywhere near Reynolds Ridge?”
Richo took off his helmet and wiped his grimy forehead with the sleeve of his jacket, leaving another smear of grime in its place. “Nah, not even close. It’s caught up with the February fire ground and run out of fuel way short. Lucky, eh? A bit like you.”
And Caleb sighed with relief. This day could not get any better, unless...
He pulled Ava against him and kissed her brow, before he took her hand in his and ducked down on bended knee. “Ava, I love you. Will you marry me?”
“What?” Richo said, looking on. “Get out of here.”
“Shut up,” Tina said, with an elbow to Richo’s ribs.
Ava blinked down at Caleb. “You’re not serious?”