Caleb's Song

by Kathleen Ryder

  The walk home was silent, surprising Gabby. Although she enjoyed quiet companionship, she knew that not many other people did. The twins met them at the door, bombarding Gabby with news of their day, informing her that they were going to eat outside, ushering them both through the house and out onto the patio. Gabby’s father had lit several lanterns, a large picnic rug spread out beneath the peppercorn tree. Gabby’s mother appeared in the doorway, holding a tray laden down with breads and fillings, Caleb rushing to take it from her, carrying it over to the rug as she instructed. Dinner was a perfect Italian feast, as it usually was in the Bianchi household. Lucia and Sofia were besides themselves, both having helped to prepare and plan the picnic. Gabby was happy to see chilled bottles of Chianti Classico amongst the rustic breads and antipasto platters, it wasn’t often that she had the chance to enjoy a glass of wine, but when she did, Chianti Classico was her go to drink of choice.

  The meal passed too quickly, Gabby stretched out, her feet in front of her, and looked around their little group. They were transplants as her mother called them. Diehard Italians who had emigrated to Australia in search of a better life for their children. They had settled in Queensland’s capital, the premier city of Brisbane, and soon after had welcomed Gabby, and then a year later, her sister, Valentina. The girls had grown up in a mostly Italian neighbourhood, surrounded by noisy, Italian culture. Gabby had loved it, the sense of belonging, of community. Valentina had not. Her teenage years had been plagued by incidents of shoplifting and wagging school. In a last-ditch effort to steer their youngest away from bad influences, Maria and Nico had sold up and moved their family to Beryl Creek to start afresh. It had not been an easy adjustment, for any of them.

  Maria and Nico had lost their large circle of friends, their community, and while they had adapted quickly and made new friends here, Nico and Maria remained the only Italian family in Beryl Creek. Valentina had thrived, commanding a large group of friends wherever she went, although she never did stop shoplifting, she just made sure that she and her friends travelled to a neighbouring town to do it, that was all. As for Gabby, she never really fit in. Studious, rather than social, she adjusted, but when it was time for her to go off to university, she wasn’t especially heartbroken to leave Beryl Creek. She certainly never imagined that she would be voluntarily returning only a few short years later, that she would ever make this town her forever home. It was amazing, she thought, looking around the small gathering, just what it was that people would do for family.

  Sofia and Lucia had brought out their portable CD player, had tuned the radio to a local pop station, excited gushing over each song in the top forty countdown. The squeals were deafening for the number one song, Shade, by The Three Odd Lizards. Gabby was pulled up onto the make-believe stage by Lucia and Sofia, for an impromptu performance, Gabby sometimes forgot how much fun it was to be silly.

  “Do you want to tell me why oh oh oh oh oh oh ooooh,” the three of the crooned into an invisible microphone. “You never looked at me, that way before, mm mm mm mm mm mmmm, and here I ammmm, seeing you a-gain, in a new-ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew, shade!” As the song ended, the three giggling girls fell to the ground, a tangle of limbs and laughter, missing Caleb’s pale face and guilty expression.

  With the moon high in the sky, and Lucia and Sofia unable to hide their yawns any longer, Gabby declared it bedtime, seconded by Maria, who offered to read the girls a bedtime story. The girls knew that this meant at least another half an hour, that they could easily wheedle at least two stories from Maria, and happily said good night and followed her inside.

  “I think I will turn in for the night as well,” Nico spoke. “You two stay and finish the Chianti Classico,” he suggested to Caleb and Gabby.

  “Come on papa, I’ll take you upstairs,” Gabby stood, stretching.

  “You’ll come back though, right?” Nico urged. Gabby looked down at Caleb on the picnic rug, a predatory glint in his eyes. Every fibre in her being buzzed, he was nectar, and very, very dangerous. If she was sensible, she would stay inside, guard her heart and never see him again. And yet, there was something magnetic about the way she felt pulled towards him.

  “Yes papa, I will come back downstairs.”

  Gabby had always loved this big old peppercorn tree, even as a child. It had been her secret retreat, a place to fume over her sisters antics, to cry over her mother’s blatant favouritism and double standards, and to immerse herself in her latest novel.

  “What is the difference between Chianti and Chianti Classico?” Caleb mused aloud. Gabby and Caleb had cleared the picnic rug, were now stretched out on their backs beneath the peppercorn tree, gazing up at the night sky, finishing the Chianti Classico, talking of everything and of nothing.

  “The region in Italy that the grapes are grown,” Gabby answered, remembering the time that she had asked her father the very same question. She had been treated to an hour long lesson in Chianti, what made it so earthy and rustic, why it was high in tannins, the reason it dried your mouth out, how much acidity there was in the Chianti, why it tasted like strawberries and cherries, and the fact that is was so versatile that it went with not only classic Italian dishes but that it also worked perfectly well with pizza or grilled cheese.

  “My parents took me there when I was fifteen, hopefully one day I will be able to take the girls there for a holiday, they should see their heritage.”

  “Were you born in Italy?”

  “No, Australia, but I’m proud to be an Italian Australia,” Gabby smiled. “I get the best of both worlds.”

  “In what way?”

  “Being Australian gives me the freedom to live in the best country in the world, to dress how I like, to say what I want without fear of appraisal. Being Italian,” she smiled broadly, “is what gives me heart. Being Italian is more than just getting olive skin and a love of pasta. It means appreciating the little things, the colour of the sky, the curve of the mountain, the smell of the orange blossoms. It is experiencing the innocence of a child, and the loyalty of a dog. It is taking care of your family first, no matter what. It is making things by hand, for me, it is baking. It is being generous, stubborn, and proud of your heritage. Above all else, being Italian means people stick to their word. La parole é sagral.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means ‘the word is blood’, so don’t ever cross us.” She grinned.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Why aren’t you married?” Caleb blurted out, watching Gabby lazily.

  “Excuse me?!” Gabby snorted indelicately. “What makes you think that I’m not married?”

  “I just, I mean...” Caleb trailed off. “The girls never mention their dad, you don’t either, I guess I just took that to mean that you were no longer married.”

  “I’ve never been married, oh, don’t look so shocked.”

  “Not shocked, more like surprised. Your mum seems so traditional, I guess I just thought that you would be married when you had kids.”

  “There was a time I thought so too.” A wishful sigh. “The girls aren’t biologically mine; they are my sister’s children.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, they call you mum, I just figured...”

  “Gosh, no, don’t be sorry. I adopted them when they were only a few weeks old, I’m the only mum they have ever known.”

  “Wow, that’s huge. What happened to your sister if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Absolutely nothing happened to Valentina. She always had tickets on herself, she was never satisfied with anything she had. She worked our mother to the bone, always getting her to make her a fancy ball gown or buy her something that she just had to have,” Gabby could no more keep the bitterness from her voice as she could have stopped the moon from shining. “The last time Valentina was caught shoplifting, our parents moved us here, they hoped it would help her.”

  “But it didn’t.” Caleb surmised.

  “No. The thing you need to understand about my sister is that she was
always effervescent. People were drawn to her magnetism. She was always able to get what she wanted without lifting a finger. So, she found a new group of friends to hang out with and they were always in and out of trouble. By the time she was off to university, she had a large group of friends with benefits, or screw buddies as she called them. The made it very clear that if she were ever to fall pregnant, she would never tell anyone, she would simply have a termination and move on.”

  “What changed?”

  “We live in a very small town,” Gabby laughed. “Valentina came home for semester break, she purchased a pregnancy test from the pharmacy one town over, his wife is best friends with the lady who owns the newsagency here, and her brother plays cards with dad. So, yeah, they knew before she had walked back through the door. She had no way out; my parents are very conservative. The pregnancy had been the result of a consensual act, and therefore, was to be cherished. I was studying abroad; I received a call in the middle of the night telling me that I was needed at home. By the time Michael and I got back to town-”

  “Woah, who’s Michael?”

  “Michael was my fiancé at the time,” Gabby brushed his question aside. She was not going to think of Michael, especially not now, after all of this time. “When we got back to town, I was presented with two baby girls and adoption papers drawn up in my name only. Valentina graduated the following semester. She’s a partner in a law firm now, last I heard she had cemented her position by marrying the boss’s son.” Gabby shrugged nonchalantly.

  “She was always going to have an exit plan, of course, she never took responsibility for something if she could get someone else to do it for her. It was cunning really, if she was going to be made to do something she didn’t want to do, then so was I.” Gabby took a long sip from her glass. “She told our parents that she would place the girls for adoption, my parents begged her, pleaded with her to give the girls to them, but she refused. In the end, they struck up a deal. My parents agreed that I would adopt the girls, and in return they would pay Valentina two hundred thousand dollars, which worked out to be her university fees and enough money to put a deposit on an inner-city apartment. That is what I returned home to.”

  “She sold her own children?” Caleb was dumbfounded, what sort of person would do that?

  “They were never more than leverage to her.”

  “And you just went along with their deal?” It was obvious to Caleb that Gabby was a perfectionist, he wondered if she knew.

  “What else could I have done Caleb? Refusing would have torn my family apart and driven the wedge even deeper between my parents and I.” Gabby shook her head irritably, dislodging the hurt simmering just beneath the surface.

  “You didn’t get along with your parents? You seem so close now.”

  “Mm hmm,” Gabby was non-committal. “I guess it does seem that way, doesn’t it? Not everything is as it seems, Caleb. Do I get along with them? On some level, yes. There is also a lot of resentment there. I would like to say that it is fading over time, but the truth is, it is only now becoming apparent to me. My parents bent over backwards to cater to my sister and her whims, at the expense of me. It was always simply expected that I would go along with whatever was required, and I did, to keep the peace. The adoption was the final straw. To not be consulted or even asked, that stung.” She remembered the shock of walking in the house, of seeing the two girls sleeping in her father’s arms, of discovering that her sister had been pregnant, of hearing what her parents had agreed to do on her behalf, the anger that had followed her around like a fog for weeks afterwards.

  “It was not what Michael had signed up for, the fact that I was Italian was more than enough for his wealthy family to have to cope with as it was.”

  “He broke off the engagement?” Caleb surmised.

  “It was just as well,” Gabby nodded, “I found out later that he had been having an affair with someone I considered a friend, one of my fellow students in Paris.”

  “What were you studying?”

  “What? Oh, I was training to become a pastry chef in Paris.”

  “Hence the bakery?”

  “Actually no,” Gabby smiled fondly, “my parents always had the bakery, although it used to do much better. Paying off Valentina nearly bankrupted my parents. When I returned home and found the twins waiting for me, I had no other option of course, I withdrew from my studies in Paris. I started working full time in the bakery, I used to take the girls in with me, we had a portable cot set up in one corner of the kitchen. That all stopped just shy of their first birthday.”

  “Ah, that must have been when you decided to take a break and do something nice for you.” Caleb joked, not imagining for one moment that Gabby would ever voluntarily take a break from the bakery. He tried to picture two little cherubs in a portable cot, gosh she must have been run off her feet. He wondered if her mother had helped in the bakery at all, from what he could tell, she seemed to potter around the house most of the day. Semi-retired maybe?

  “Ha!” Gabby snorted indelicately. “As if!” Gabby knew there were those that thought her weak for putting herself last, but it was her choice...mostly. She knew it stemmed from never doing anything right in the eyes of her mother. For better or for worse, family is first and foremost the most important thing in her life, she is the gel that keeps in contact with all of her extended family, if she didn’t make the time, the effort, then who would? It is why family holidays and birthdays are such a huge part of her life, the reason why she never allows a birthday to go past without a celebration, why she stays up until the wee hours of the morning, just to make sure that there is a special cake and dinner for the person celebrating a birthday. It was doing all the little things that reminded her of sitting in her grandmother’s lap while she fed her bites of her toast dipped in coffee. Gabby would savour the buttery, coffee flavours and the secondary crunch of toast, surrounded by feelings of warmth and love. To this day, that was still the best toast she had ever tasted.

  “It was a horrid time for us. My mother and I were always arguing, about big things, who was actually raising the girls and how, and about the little things like rebranding the bakery, and what to cook for dinner. Honestly,” Gabby shook her head sadly, “it really was just an awful time. Right in the middle of one of our arguments, dad keeled over. He spent months in the hospital in Sydney, recovering from a severe stroke. It is why he is in a wheelchair.”

  “Gabby, I don’t know what to say, that’s awful!” Caleb reached for Gabby’s hand instinctively, entwining his fingers with hers, a warmth spreading through him when she didn’t resist or pull away. “Will he ever fully recover?”

  “The doctors aren’t sure; it is quite simply a waiting game.”

  “It must be so hard for him, for all of you.”

  “It has been especially hard for mum, she is unable to help out much, physically at least, and dad is easily frustrated by his limitations. Mostly, I think he is embarrassed at not being able to provide for his family, at having to depend on me for the simple act of getting up and down the stairs.” She sighed deeply.

  “You carry him up and down the stairs?!”

  “It’s more like a piggyback really,” she chuckled, “seriously, he doesn’t weigh very much, and we don’t have the money to install a stair lift, so...” she shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “That’s a lot on your plate Gabby, isn’t there anyone else who can help out?” Caleb felt uneasy, it wasn’t often that he thought about money, or anything really. If he wanted something, he merely had to voice his desire and it was delivered to him without him ever needing to lift a finger. He was starting to see how entitled that must look to others, a realisation that did not sit well with Caleb.

  “Half the town would help, and they do in their own ways, but my mother is a very private person, she would rather struggle in silence than let anyone know how she was really doing. Sometimes I worry that she will never recover, emotionally, I mean. If we lose the bakery, wel
l...Who knows.”

  “It sounds like you need a miracle,” Caleb mused aloud.

  “Or maybe just a little magic from great great great grandmother Beryl.” Gabby grinned.

  Laughter drifted up on the breeze, bringing a smile to Nico’s face. It had been so long, too long, since he had heard Gabby laugh like that. It made his heart happy, not that his wife, Maria, would see it that way. With a deep sigh, he tugged the rope that would pull his window closed, cutting off the sound, once again plunging his bedroom into endless silence as thick as sludge. He wished there was a way to get through to Maria, he wished she weren’t so harsh with Gabby. If only the harshness came out of a place of worry or concern, but Nico was forced to admit that it did not. Maria had always been this way with Gabby, but things had become a lot worse after Valentina was born. Their youngest daughter had always been very...Nico gave himself a mental shake. No, he would not make excuses for her. Valentina was selfish, that was what she was, and she always had been. Nothing was every good enough for her, no matter how much of a strain it had put on Nico or Maria. It was a price Nico and Maria paid willingly, as parents always did, but it had been Gabby who had suffered the most, always playing second fiddle to her younger sibling, always biting her tongue lest she upset her unwillingly, so unstable was Valentina’s emotions.

  The eldest, Gabby was as different from Valentina as night was from day. As first-time parents, Nico and Maria used to joke that Gabby had been born an old soul, a trait that soon became a hindrance. Gabby was always the good girl, the one to toe the line and never make any trouble. When Nico and Maria missed her school performances because Valentina insisted they both attend her weekly swimming lessons, Gabby didn’t object. Nico knew that he and Maria had taken advantage of that. Oh, they hadn’t wanted to, it was just easier, knowing that Gabby would happily accommodate whatever Valentina needed, happily and without any fuss. He regretted it now, not doing more to help her find her voice. Maybe if he had, Maria and Gabby would have a more amicable relationship, instead of the often strained one that they currently had. Nico adored his wife, Maria had been his first love and he knew she would be his only love, but there were times when he had turned a blind eye when he should have spoken out.