Birthright

by Fiona Lowe

  ‘Mum says hot sweet tea’s good for shock.’ Luke was back again, this time holding a mug.

  ‘Whiskey’s better.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m all out.’ He glanced at the white cabinet on the wall. ‘Do they have brandy in the first aid kit?’

  Her wobbly mouth managed a smile. ‘Tea is fine.’

  She sipped it under his watchful gaze, feeling the glucose streaking into her cells, firming up her concentration and strengthening her limbs. She noticed he was wearing an icepack on his shoulder, there was blood on his lip and a lurid bruise was rising on his cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry. I have a hard head. You look like you’ve been bashed.’

  ‘Please don’t apologise. I deserve it for being such a bloody idiot. I can’t believe I did something a stupid teenager would do.’ He gave her a rueful smile. ‘The problem is, when I’m around you, I feel like that teenager. I promise I’ll never sneak up on you again.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You did warn me you were hard work but you never mentioned you were lethal.’ His smile took any sting from the words. ‘In the future, whenever I’m behind you, we need a safe word.’

  She laughed but tears fell too. She’d wrenched his shoulder, cut his lip and likely given him a black eye, but instead of blaming her, he was cracking jokes. ‘I understand if you want out.’

  ‘No chance. I very much want in.’ He hesitated, clearly weighing his next words. ‘Is there a particular reason you learned how to do the move that felled me?’

  She didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to relive it. She’d worked hard to leave all the ugly behind a long time ago, so she gave him a partial and sanitised version.

  ‘Safety. I met a guy who, over the course of a year, changed from charming and exciting to controlling and terrifying. I never wanted to feel that vulnerable again so I took up martial arts and learned a few skills.’

  His nostrils flared. ‘He hit you?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘Bastard! I hate that he did that to you.’

  She blocked the rising memory of how she’d been in too deep and isolated from her friends before she realised Ryan was Jekyll and Hyde. ‘As horrifying as this sounds, that hit was the best thing that happened. I’d been constantly doubting myself for months, lost in a mire of emotional abuse. The punch freed me.’

  Luke’s breathing was hard and heavy.

  She put her hand out and touched him. ‘Don’t. It’s over.’

  He covered her hand with his. ‘But not forgotten, right?’

  ‘Actually, I got some professional help and I don’t think about Ryan at all any more.’ Even if it wasn’t her entire story, that part was true. She convinced herself it was enough.

  He shot her a questioning look. ‘Are you sure? It’s just sometimes when I touch you, you flinch. When that happens, it kills me.’

  Guilt and shame twirled their damaging dance and she fought the pull. ‘Surprise touches make me jump.’

  ‘But I’m not that bastard.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jeez, Ellie. Can you sound a little more confident? I want you to trust me.’

  She reached out and brushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘You need a haircut.’

  ‘You’re changing the subject.’

  Why did Luke have to be the only guy on the planet who wanted to talk about feelings? ‘Luke, please believe me. I already trust you more than I’ve trusted any man since—’ No! ‘In a long time. I’m sorry you’re the guinea pig for my first real attempt at a relationship in over a decade. I’m not sure you deserve it. Or that I deserve you.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ He stared at his hands. ‘How can I fix this?’

  The past battered her and she held onto everything she’d learned, trying to believe. ‘I don’t need fixing.’

  Bewilderment emanated from him and he raised his hands in surrender. ‘I didn’t say you. I said this. I need some help here. I come from a physically demonstrative family. I’m a hugger. It’s automatic for me to reach out and brush your shoulder or stroke your face. I want to be able to touch you without you flinching. I want you to touch me. It’s what people do when they’re attracted to each other.’

  ‘I want that too,’ she said softly.

  ‘Awesome. Okay, well, um … Obviously, I’ll never ever touch you again from behind as much as for my safety as for your peace of mind.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But do I need to give you a warning for other stuff like, I dunno? “Incoming hug”?’

  Her heart wobbled. ‘“Incoming hug” sounds great.’

  He opened his arms wide. ‘Incoming hug.’ He held her tightly and she lay her head against his shoulder, breathing him in.

  ‘Incoming kiss,’ he announced loudly.

  Laughing, she tilted her head, opened her mouth and welcomed him in.

  CHAPTER

  16

  The winter school holidays found Sarah and Noah spending two hours of each day playing a game called ‘What’s this?’ It featured taking Mill House apart room by room, opening every cupboard and drawer, and seeking behind every book, nook and cranny. Noah’s favourite job was pulling the entire contents of cupboards onto the floor. He wasn’t as keen about putting it all back. When he lost interest, he played with his Lego, chattering away to Sarah as she pushed on with the search for evidence that her mother’s state of mind had been failing for months.

  Sarah had contacted Alzheimer’s Australia and spoken with a very helpful woman before downloading and reading all their information brochures. Apparently, people with dementia lived in survival mode and often hoarded or hid things of value. So far, Sarah had photographed money hidden in a tin in the bathroom and jewellery hidden in the pantry, although she wasn’t convinced that was enough to prove pre-stroke dementia. She’d been known to hide things of value in her own pantry when they went on holidays but the fifteen bottles of vodka her mother had stashed all over the house were another matter. Margaret enjoyed a drink and she’d never hidden that from them, which is why so many secreted bottles raised a flag. Some bottles were open but most still had intact seals, as if she considered them something precious she must protect.

  The state of her mother’s dressing room was a shock. Margaret treated her clothes with meticulous care and normally this room could be photographed at a moment’s notice and featured in a storage system commercial. Now clothes spilled wildly from drawers, hung precariously from hangers and were even thrown in piles on the floor. If Sarah hadn’t known better, she’d have been on the phone to the police telling them a burglar had ransacked the place.

  ‘Boo!’

  Noah’s game of hide and seek came with prompts, reminding Sarah to seek, otherwise she got distracted and forgot to look for him. She was pleased he’d suggested the game, because it meant he was happy to go into all the rooms of the house. The week before, after they’d opened the windows and doors and shooed out all the ‘bad air’, he’d finally relaxed.

  She was still trying to find a good time to discuss this crazy room ban thing with Ellie. She’d intended to tackle the topic the night she’d learned about it but when her sister had arrived home uncharacteristically happy and glowing, Sarah had hesitated, not wanting to burst her balloon. At least, that’s what she told herself. In more honest moments, she knew she was stalling in case Ellie got snippy, told her she was interfering and no longer wanted Sarah to mind Noah during the holidays. Either way, Sarah was enjoying this new and slightly less strained relationship with her younger sister. She’d hardly call her and Ellie close, but there was a definite shift between them. It was an improvement she didn’t want to lose.

  ‘Boo!’

  Sarah realised she’d been too slow to react the first time so she jumped and pressed her hand to her chest, feigning fright. ‘Noah! You tricker.’ She spun around but she couldn’t see him. ‘Where are you?’

  There was no reply so she pretended to look for him in the drawers while she searched for—wh
at exactly? She didn’t really know.

  ‘Perhaps you’re on the shelf.’

  She heard a giggle but ignored it and got up on the step stool anyway. She looked under cashmere jumpers, hats and handbags. She found a couple of wrapped Christmas presents but again, she’d been guilty of hiding gifts and forgetting all about them.

  ‘Nope, you didn’t magic yourself up here.’ Hopping down, she kneeled and peered into the dark. ‘Are you hiding in a forest of shoe boxes?’

  Noah giggled again. She pulled out box upon box until she felt a bony knee.

  ‘Gotcha!’

  He scrambled out from the back of the wardrobe and into her lap, giving her a hug. Missing Gus, she squeezed him back. God, she loved how affectionate little boys could be before hormones hit, complicating everything.

  ‘Why does Gran keep books with her shoes?’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ He shot back under the clothes before returning with an ageing book.

  Sarah wiped away the grey film of dust, exposing her mother’s name embossed in gold on a green leather cover. Opening the book, she recognised Margaret’s distinctive script crawling over the first page. Was it a journal? The title read My Year in Mingunyah and it was dated to 1969, the year her mother arrived from Melbourne to work at the high school. The early pages contained witty descriptions of Margaret’s first impressions of the town and the people, and her father’s name was underlined twice. Her mother had always told her that when Kevin walked into a room, every woman stopped talking and turned to admire him. Obviously, her mother was smitten at first glance. Sarah paged through a bit further but the writing stopped and the rest of the book was blank. Life must have got too busy for journaling.

  A newspaper article, yellow with age, slipped out from between the leaves. It thrilled Sarah to see a photograph of the grandmother she never knew looking exceedingly stylish in a fur-trimmed hat and coat and with the famous diamond brooch glinting on the lapel.

  ‘Are there more books in there, Noah?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Let’s use a torch and look.’ She touched the torch app on her phone and crawled in after him. Dust bunnies and dead insects dominated. The light caught the edge of something bulky—an old and battered leather hat box in the far corner. ‘Can you pull that out for me, please, Noah?’

  Her little helper dragged the hat box into the centre of the room. Fearing a rush of silverfish and spiders, Sarah hesitantly lifted the lid. Thankfully, nothing live leaped out. Inside were piles of crystals—the remains of decomposed mothballs—along with neat bundles of letters tied in a variety of coloured ribbons. She picked up the top bundle. The stationery was heavy-weight cream paper and the envelopes had neither a stamp nor an address written on them, only the word ‘Margaret’ in black ink. The penmanship was beautiful. Despite not having seen the familiar writing in decades, a lump rose in her throat. Her parents had shared nineteen years of marriage and, twenty-six years after her father’s death, her mother still kept his love letters. Letters he must have written to her when, exactly? Trips to Sydney and Canberra for work?

  That seemed unlikely but then again, she was holding her own jaded relationship up against one that had maintained a spark. Sarah remembered receiving funny postcards from her father from time to time. Perhaps he’d saved postage and put the letter to Margaret and the postcard inside the same envelope. Had she and Alex ever written to each other? No. They’d met at university, got married young and been together ever since—or had been. With each passing day, the idea of being together again felt increasingly unlikely. Their ‘letter writing’ consisted of prosaic instructions on Post-it notes: Pick up kids from tennis. Out of coffee. In recent years, the Post-its were increasingly replaced by texts: Gone riding. Back by 3. Sarah added emojis to her texts and Alex signed off with Ax but, now that she thought about it, the x had gone AWOL a few months earlier.

  The envelope felt heavy in her palm and she wondered at its age, guessing it could be anywhere from thirty to forty years old. During her Alzheimer’s research, one article talked about ‘sundowning’; a phenomenon that affected some sufferers in the late afternoon. Margaret was most definitely experiencing it, with increased confusion, anxiety and restlessness. Seeking refuge in her past must be more familiar and secure to her than her present. Sarah was experimenting with different ways to settle her mother and was trying to surround her with familiar things, but she was yet to hit the mark.

  She fingered the blood-red silk ribbon binding the bundle. Would these letters soothe her mother’s late-afternoon anxiety? Would touching them or having them close remind her of Kevin and happier, more secure times?

  ‘Zoom, zoom.’

  Noah drove the ATV Lego toy he’d made up the ‘wall’ of one of three ‘shoebox-skyscrapers’. With him happy and occupied, Sarah undid the bow, turned over the first envelope and pulled out the beautiful, thick paper.

  Darling Mags,

  Thank you for last night. Enjoy the diamonds. Wear them, and them alone, next time we meet.

  Sarah stared at the note, utterly immobilised by the contents and the lack of a signature. Her mother hated being called Maggie or Mags. The only person she’d ever allowed to call her those names was Grandpa, and Sarah had always assumed the reason was because he’d given her Grandma’s diamond brooch. Was the handwriting familiar because it was her grandfather’s, not her father’s?

  Blood drained from her fingers and she dropped the letter. Her breakfast surged to the back of her throat. Surely Margaret hadn’t slept with Grandpa?

  You’re being ridiculous.

  With a shaking hand, she opened another envelope. And another, and another. It took eight letters before she found a signature and even then, it was only an initial: R. It had a bold swirl at the top and a flourish on the tail. She’d seen it before, but where? Her grandfather’s name was George Joseph Jamieson and her father was Kevin Henry Jamieson, so the R couldn’t have belonged to either of them. Unless it was a nickname, but to her knowledge her mother only ever called them George and Kevin, refusing point blank to use Kev, which the townsfolk always used. Sarah spun the paper in her hand, studying the R from different angles and, as she righted it, she gasped, knowing exactly where she’d seen it before. The initial didn’t belong to her father or her grandfather. It belonged to Robert Horton, Dan’s deceased father. Their family’s solicitor, dear family friend, and now it appeared, her mother’s very married lover.

  I’m having more sex now your father’s dead than I ever had when he was alive.

  Her mother had stunned her with that little titbit. At the time, she’d assumed Margaret must have meant a widowed friend she’d kept hidden. Now Sarah knew exactly who she’d kept hidden and why. She could barely wrap her head around it and yet so many things fell into place. Robert’s solicitude for Margaret when Kevin died. Why her mother became so hideously rude to Mary Horton after Robert’s death.

  Like a knife plunging into her flesh all the way to the hilt, an awful thought stabbed her. She rifled through more letters, urgently seeking a reference she could use to date them. Robert had been a very good friend of her father’s. They’d played golf each week. They’d served on the hospital board together. Surely the affair started after her father’s death? She pulled out letter after letter with frantic fingers, paper fluttering around her as she scanned the mostly short, but occasionally longer, correspondence.

  I was stunned speechless when Kevin asked me to be Ellie’s godfather. Oh, the irony. You could have warned me!

  The words swam and her mouth dried. Her mother, Mingunyah’s paragon of virtue, professional widow and social commentator on the sanctity of marriage, was screwing her father’s best friend—a married man—when she was still very much a married woman. Sarah eyes raced across the page so quickly she was reading forward before she’d absorbed every word.

  I discussed it with Mary and she wholeheartedly approves. Said she thought it was a fitting connection betwee
n the two families. Hah! I almost had apoplexy trying not to laugh. Was it your idea, you clever thing? Can’t wait to see you; it’s been far too long. I’ve booked the Windsor under the name of Lewis and ordered room service for lunch at noon.

  Bastard! Bitch! Sarah didn’t know if she wanted to throw up, lie down, or both. Her legs quivered and her head spun. Her mother and Robert had betrayed her father in the worst way and going by this correspondence, they got their rocks off over their duplicity. Anguish twisted her gut and she ached for her darling father. Oh, Dad. I hope you didn’t know about their treachery. But she couldn’t help wondering if his world had fallen apart just like her own. If the affair had started soon after Ellie was born, surely he would have twigged something was going on? Hell, she’d caught Alex and Kelly out after only after a few weeks. If her father knew, why hadn’t he left his traitorous wife? Especially as divorce was increasingly common in the early eighties. Or had he known and stayed, sacrificing his own happiness for her, Cameron and Ellie?

  Either way, Sarah’s heart broke for her wonderful father. She reread the letter, slowly this time, and when she got to you clever thing she realised her eyes had completely missed a line.

  Me being her godfather is the perfect way to hide our beautiful little mistake in plain sight.

  Sarah gagged. Her fist rose, pressing hard into her mouth, and her heart jittered like it did after a caffeine hit. Did this mean what she thought it meant? No! No way! Surely the affair was the mistake? And yet ‘our beautiful little mistake’ made a certain calamitous sense. Ellie was as blonde as the rest of the family was dark. It certainly threw a light on the huge age gap between Cameron and Ellie, especially when Sarah considered Margaret’s oft-quoted, ‘Thank God I stopped at two’—words hurled at her and Cameron for years whenever they got into trouble.

  It also answered the question that had dogged and diminished Sarah growing up: Why, when Ellie was a daughter too, had her mother loved and doted on her in ways she never had with Sarah? Well, doted on her right up until Ellie hit her teenage years. But the clincher that Robert Horton was very possibly Ellie’s biological father was how very different in personality Ellie was from her and Cameron. As a teenager, Ellie had rejected everything Sarah and Cameron valued.