Isla's Inheritance

by Cassandra Page

Our nana arrived the next day.

  Her flight was scheduled to touch down from Sydney—the final, mercifully short, domestic leg of a long international journey—late in the afternoon, and Aunt Elizabeth drove the three of us into a frenzy of last-minute cleaning. I moved my bedding and some clothes into Sarah’s room. None of us had seen Nana since we were small. I couldn’t remember her very well, and my aunt’s panicked cleaning had us alarmed that Nana would be a neat freak. Why else would we be cleaning the grout in the shower and dusting the tops of bookshelves that were impossible to see without a stepladder?

  Half an hour before we left for the airport, Aunt Elizabeth stalked around the house, conducting a final inspection a drill sergeant would be proud of. Her agitation was palpable. Sarah, Ryan and I stood in the lounge room, exchanging confused looks.

  “Passable,” she said when she came back into the room. She relaxed visibly and smiled as though she hadn’t dared to believe it.

  “Are you kidding?” Sarah said. “This place has never been so spotless.”

  “Well, no, but she doesn’t need to know that,” Aunt Elizabeth replied, winking. “Now go and get changed. There’s room in the car for two of you to come to the airport. Mum will be delighted to have a welcoming committee.”

  “I’ve got work soon,” Ryan said, glancing at his watch. “I’d better go get ready.”

  “Don’t mess anything up,” Aunt Elizabeth called after him.

  “I won’t.” His exasperated reply came from deeper in the house.

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Guess that means it’s you and me, Isla.”

  Wanting to make a good impression, I changed into one of my few pairs of black slacks and a black tank top under a loose lilac shirt. A pair of strappy shoes and a quick run of the brush through the tangled hair at the end of my ponytail and I was ready to go.

  Sarah came out of her room dressed in her neatest pair of dark blue jeans and a green scoop-neck shirt with a matching malachite necklace and earrings. The colour brought out the emerald flecks in her eyes, like a cat’s.

  “Good.” Aunt Elizabeth nodded approvingly.

  Sarah called shotgun so I sat in the back, trying not to fidget. Sarah, Ryan and I received birthday cards from our grandmother every year, without fail, and we all signed the family Christmas card, but other than that we didn’t correspond with Nana. She didn’t have an email or social media account, and—although she sent Aunt Elizabeth long, handwritten letters several times a year, which I presumed my aunt replied to in the same fashion—my cousins and I didn’t know her well. Or at all, really.

  I twisted my hands together in my lap, staring out the window at the passing scenery. Dad didn’t correspond with his mother either. How would he feel to wake up and find her standing over his bed? Had they had a falling out at some point? Or was my father just an unreliable pen pal?

  A more exciting idea made me sit up straighter in my seat. What did Nana know about my mother? Would she be willing to talk about it?

  We arrived at the airport only to discover Nana’s flight was running late. Sarah and I wandered up and down the length of the terminal, flicking through a magazine at the newsagent and stopping to get overpriced soft drinks. Aunt Elizabeth waited by the arrival gate, near the luggage carousel.

  We headed back to the gate when the arrivals monitor said the plane had landed, hanging back as a flood of businesspeople poured from the entryway. One weary-looking man in rumpled jeans and a T-shirt was greeted by a pair of exuberant girls. A beaming woman watched on as the man scooped the two children up and smothered them with kisses. Sarah and I smiled, exchanging a glance.

  When she appeared, one of the last out of the gate, our nana looked similarly weary but less rumpled. I wondered how she’d managed it, given the flight from London to Sydney was about twenty-two hours. She was a small woman, about my height. Her hair was silvery white, pulled back from her face, and her eyes were blue, framed by neat glasses. She spotted us through the milling crowd around the carousel and came over, smiling.

  Aunt Elizabeth enveloped her in a hug. “Mum! Welcome to Australia.”

  “It’s good to be here,” Nana replied with a Queen’s English accent that reminded me of Dad’s. My heart ached, but I forced a smile as she turned to regard Sarah and I. “And this must be Sarah,” she said after a moment, kissing my cousin on the cheek. “How tall you’ve grown. You remind me of your grandfather. His height and his fiery hair.”

  “Hi,” Sarah said, awkwardly hugging the smaller woman back.

  “And this is Isla,” Aunt Elizabeth said, indicating me.

  “Yes,” Nana studied me with less enthusiasm. She didn’t say anything, but I was sure she was comparing me to my long-gone mother.

  My heart sank, but I stood up straighter. If she was going to judge me because of something I couldn’t control, then … I wasn’t sure what. I tried not to scowl.

  I suddenly hated the idea of her staying in my bedroom.

  Nana broke the awkward tableau first, giving me a brief embrace. She smelled like breath mints and lavender. “I’m sorry about your father, Isla,” she said. “Perhaps you will take me to see him tomorrow?”

  “Okay, sure,” I mumbled.

  A siren sounded a warning exactly like the evacuation alarm at school, and the luggage carousel rumbled to life. Aunt Elizabeth went with Nana to look for her bags. Sarah ignored her mother’s significant look and stepped closer to me to murmur, “Was it just me or was that a bit awkward?”

  “It wasn’t just you.”