by Trish Morey
Hannah pulled her into a hug. ‘You carried that burden for too long. It’s about time you had some fun. Sorry I gave you such a rough time in hospital over it.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Thank you for badgering me the way you did. Somebody had to knock some sense into me. Who better than my older sister.’
Hannah smiled. ‘Only by ten minutes.’
Beth frowned as they separated. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is everything all right?’
She stiffened. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, but you just look a bit tired lately and you seem a bit withdrawn. We hardly ever get to see you these days.’
‘I’m busy,’ she said, and it was the God-honest truth, even if the bags under her eyes were the result of a far different reason.
‘I know, but you’d tell us if there was something wrong?’
She gave her sister another hug. ‘Of course I would,’ she said brightly before waving goodbye. ‘See you!’
It didn’t make her feel good to lie to her sister, but there was no point trawling over the coals of her failed relationship, now. Declan was history.
Which is why, when she got to work the next morning, it thrilled her no end to see he was down as the last appointment for the day.
Crap.
She spent the day in a state of dread, never more aware of the clock and its changing hands, and the growing ball of anxiety rolling around in her gut. If the joey had a problem, it had to be treated. She just didn’t want to see him.
Finally it was time. She ushered the penultimate client out the door with her two yapping chihuahuas and barely had a chance to steel herself against seeing Declan again before he was there, filling her space with his wild Atlantic eyes and his wide dimpled mouth.
‘Hello, Hannah,’ he said, and the sound of his voice stroked down her spine.
She stiffened it and tried not to look anywhere near his sorrowful eyes. ‘Declan,’ she said, matter-of-factly. ‘What’s wrong with Ella?’ She could see by the size of the pouch he had slung over his shoulder that the joey had grown in the weeks since she’d last seen it.
He gently coaxed the joey to put out her head and Hannah almost melted to see her sweet face again. ‘She’s pining.’
Hannah took the joey’s small head in her hands and looked into her big dark eyes, wishing away the beguiling scent of a man she’d tried fruitlessly to forget.
‘She’s missing you. As am I. Why don’t you return my calls?’
She looked up at him, at his whiskery face and his wilder-than-she-remembered hair, and her heart went out to him, but that couldn’t change anything.
‘Why did you say no, Hannah. Why did you leave?’
She sighed, as she finished a rudimentary examination of the joey. ‘Ella is fine. I think you’re worrying about nothing.’
‘Hannah, I love you.’
‘It was a mistake,’ she said with a lightness she didn’t feel, stroking the soft fur of the joey and knowing it might be the last time she did. ‘I’m not the woman for you.’
‘Why not?’ he demanded, his frustration clear in his rising tone.
And she knew that if she didn’t tell him, he’d be back. ‘I’m sorry, Declan. Maybe I should have laid my cards on the table from day one, but then you kind of crept up on me. And then the longer it went, the more I thought, at least I hoped that I might never have to tell you.’ She dragged in a breath, concentrating on the joey so she didn’t have to look at the man whose gaze she could feel searching her face.
‘You see, I can’t have children. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I couldn’t. I was afraid to tell you the truth because I feared this might happen.’
‘But why?’ he said. ‘There must be a way. You’re young, and there’re all kinds of amazing things they can do these days. There’s IVF—’
‘No,’ she said, cutting him off. ‘Not in my case. There’s no way I can ever have children, not of my own.’ Not now. ‘You need to find a woman who can give you children.’
The joey fidgeted and twitched under her hands, as if picking up on the discomfiting vibe in the room. Hannah soothed it with her hands, pressed her lips to its pretty head, saying one final goodbye.
‘Hannah—’
‘I’m so sorry, Declan. Look after Ella here, won’t you?’ She let go of the joey and turned to fill in her notes. ‘You’ve done an incredible job with her,’ she said, a solitary tear falling on her notes. ‘There’s no charge for today.’
He didn’t budge. ‘That day when you told me about your sisters being pregnant, I thought you were a bit sad because you wanted children yourself. I’m sorry, Hannah.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, when she heard the door softly close behind him. ‘Me too.’
It wasn’t until she knew Declan had left the surgery that Hannah allowed herself to slump into the corner chair, her heart in tatters. It was done.
She reached for her phone, found the number she wanted and dialled. It answered on the second ring. ‘Hi, Beth,’ she said, pinching her nose, ‘you know how you asked me to tell you if there was something wrong?’
Half an hour later they met at Nick’s place to save Sophie from travelling. The three of them sat outside under the pergola, the glory vine leaves turned gold and red, the occasional leaf fluttering down on the soft breeze. Sophie had made tea and a batch of Anzac cookies, and Beth had brought a bottle of Clare Valley Riesling in case Hannah needed something stronger.
Hannah told them about Declan and the orphaned joey, and how one thing had led to another, culminating in him asking her to marry him.
Beth turned to Sophie and said, ‘Did you know about any of this?’
Sophie began to shake her head, before her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I knew something was up, though. You seemed happy. That was because of him?’
Hannah nodded glumly. There was no feeling happy, now. She’d been living in a bubble, a perfect, blissful orb filled with happiness and love. But that was the trouble with bubbles, they were fragile. Easily popped, only to disappear into nothing, like they’d never been there.
‘So why did you say no? He sounds wonderful, and if he made you feel happy like that?’
‘He’s older,’ she said, feeling numb, operating on autopilot. ‘Forty-three this year, and his first marriage ended before they had any children. He wants to have a child.’
‘So?’
She looked bleakly at her sisters. ‘When I was at uni in Perth, there was this boy—James. We hung out together, a lot. He said he loved me. I thought I loved him.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, you both know how the old story goes. I ended up pregnant.’
Both of her sisters gasped. ‘You never told us that!’
She shook her head. ‘I never told anyone. Dad had died the year before and it was just after Joe had been killed. We’d all had enough grief, I couldn’t do that to everyone.’
‘And so you …’
Hannah sucked in air. ‘So I had an abortion. I’m not particularly proud of the fact, but I could see no other way. Not without abandoning my studies and coming home. And James said he wanted to marry me, but the time wasn’t right. He agreed with me, said it was for the best, and I believed him. But don’t think I’m blaming him. It was my choice. I was a mess. I wouldn’t have coped.
‘And for a while afterwards it was fine, until I started having pain and cramps and I thought I must be dying. Instead, I was diagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease. They told me the scarring to my uterus was so bad, I’d never have another baby.’ She dropped her head. ‘I’m infertile.’
‘Oh, Han,’ said Beth, putting her arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to go through all that on your own.’
‘How could I tell you when you’d just lost Joe? You had more than enough on your plate. Everyone here did.’
‘Does it have to mean the end with Declan, though?’ asked Sophie. ‘Surely he’ll understand.’
‘He wants a child,’ sa
id Hannah. ‘I can’t give him one. It’s pointless.’
‘Why couldn’t you adopt?’
Hannah sniffed. ‘I looked it up. It’s next to useless even applying. The process can take years and there are no guarantees.’
‘Maybe he’ll wait—’
Hannah slowly shook her head. ‘You should have seen his face when I told him. He said nothing. He just walked away. And the sad thing was, I knew he would.’
‘How could you know that?’ said Beth.
Hannah gave a bitter laugh. ‘Because after I got sick and I discovered I could never have children, James dumped me for a mutual friend. Last I heard, they’re happily married and living in the Perth wheat-belt with three kids and another on the way.’ Her face crumpled, her shoulders caved in. ‘I knew Declan would leave me, too.’
‘He’s an idiot, that’s what he is,’ said Beth, gathering Hannah into her arms to rock her from side to side while she sobbed.
‘What a family,’ Beth said a few minutes later, as Sophie brought out a fresh pot of tea, ‘with our secrets and our guilt.’ She looked over to their youngest sister as she poured them all a fresh cup. ‘Please tell us you don’t have any other secrets, Sophie?’
Sophie glanced towards the house and almost looked like she was about to say something, when she shook her head. ‘Sorry, guys, I’m all out of secrets right now.’
62
Nick
The valley was changing. The heat of summer had given way to the glorious colours of autumn. Now, it was leaves that twirled and spun on the breeze, rather than dust, and rains had soaked into the sun-parched earth and made everything look and smell fresh and clean.
It was Nick’s favourite time of year. It was also the most labour intensive. But the Golden Delicious and the Galas were in, and soon it would be the turn of the Pink Ladies. It was a good season.
Min came running down from the house, calling him. ‘We made pasghetti again and dinner’s nearly ready.’
‘Yeah?’ he said, pulling the hat from his head and wiping his brow. ‘I better come wash up.’
‘And I made the dough again. Sophie said I was a natural.’
‘That good, eh?’ He smiled at his daughter, letting her small hand slip into his as they walked up the slope to the house. ‘I get the impression you like having Sophie around.’
Min skipped alongside him. ‘I do. Penelope’s still saying mean things about her. She says she’ll soon come to her senses.’ She looked up at her father. ‘What does she mean?’
‘I guess she means Sophie will leave, like Penelope did.’
‘But you don’t want Sophie to go, do you? You want Sophie to stay?’
Nick didn’t know what to say to that. ‘I guess, in the end it’s up to Sophie. But yeah, it’s really nice having her around.’
They got inside and he hung his hat, before heading to the bathroom to wash the dust off his arms and face. When he fronted up to the kitchen, Sophie looked up from the stove and smiled; she was wearing that frilly pinny again, her hair tied up in a ponytail with the loose ends swinging free around her face like a halo, and he thought, yeah, it was a very good season, indeed.
Sophie was in that blissful place where nothing on earth could touch her. She had her head on Nick’s shoulder, one of her legs curved over his, and her belly nestled up against his side, and that was as far as her world needed to go. She had everything she needed right here. She felt safe with his arms wrapped around her. Warm. Even loved.
She felt something sizzle down her spine, something that started in shock and ended in a warm bloom of recognition, and she knew she couldn’t be wrong. This deliciousness of being was how love must feel, where nothing mattered outside of being here, in this moment.
So, the phone call was an unwelcome reminder that the rest of the world did exist.
‘I’ll get it,’ Nick said, gently untangling himself from her limbs. She murmured something vague in protest but let him go, missing him already, wanting him back as she resettled herself into the mattress, hoping whoever it was wasn’t going to keep him long.
He wasn’t kept long at all, but he didn’t slide back under the covers like she was hoping. Instead, he threw her robe on the bed. ‘That was Dan,’ he said, already pulling clothes out of drawers. ‘Your nan’s gone missing. I told him we’d join the search.’
The family gathered at Pop’s a few minutes later, all except Beth, who was working, everyone keeping an eye out on the way but with no luck. ‘I’ve checked outside and the chook house, and she’s gone all right,’ Dan said. ‘We’ve called the police.’
‘How did she get out?’
Pop sat at the table, looking downcast. ‘I went out to get the paper. Normally, I go out the back and use the gate, but I thought she was asleep so I went the front way. Left the front door unbolted, didn’t I, so I could get back in. I was only going to be out for a minute.’ He dropped his head into his hands. ‘Bloody old fool, I didn’t think.’
Hannah patted Pop’s back. ‘Don’t blame yourself. We’ll find her.’
Sophie chewed her lip, wondering. ‘She was complaining to Lucy and me about being locked up. You don’t think she was waiting for a chance to escape, do you?’
‘Is that possible?’ Nick asked. ‘In her condition?’
‘Would you like being locked up, if most of the time you were perfectly rational? And she was rational that day, wasn’t she, Lucy?’
‘She was good,’ Lucy agreed, her hand rubbing the small of her back, which was no surprise when she was due in a couple of weeks. ‘Sharp as a tack.’
‘Cunning bloody tack,’ grumbled Pop.
Nick nodded. ‘Right. She can’t have gone too far.’
‘Don’t think that,’ Sophie said, ‘because I said the same when we lost her at the beach, so she must have taken off like a rocket to get as far as she had.’
Dan looked at his watch and Sophie knew what he was thinking, that Nan had been gone an hour or more. ‘Tell me we’re not waiting for the police to arrive to start searching,’ she said.
‘No way. Let’s go.’
Hannah stayed with Pop to wait for the police, while Nick and Sophie, and Dan and Lucy set off in opposite directions to check the surrounding streets. And even though they were searching from a vehicle, it was harder than it had been looking for her at the beach. There were gardens and backyards and hidden places they just couldn’t see into. ‘It’s worse than looking for a needle in a haystack,’ Sophie despaired.
‘Hey,’ Nick said, squeezing her hand. ‘We’ll find her.’
And it struck her, with the strength of his warm hand leaching into hers, that he didn’t have to do this. He could have let Dan pick her up on the way and stayed right out of it, but he hadn’t. He’d known what her nan going missing had meant to her and he’d taken her himself. Because he cared? Because of more than that?
Oh boy.
‘Thank you for coming to help look.’
Though his lips were tight, his eyes were filled with warmth and understanding, and they warmed her bone deep until she felt like she was back in that bed and there was only the two of them, before she turned her head to search out her window again.
It was another twenty minutes of fruitless searching before her phone rang and Dan gave her the news she so wanted. ‘We found her. She’s okay.’
‘What a relief,’ Sophie said, flopping back against her seat, as Nick turned the car back towards Summertown. ‘She was halfway along Swamp Road between Uraidla and Piccadilly, can you believe it? What the hell was she doing walking out there?’
There was a police car parked outside her grandparents’ house when they got there. Sophie frowned. ‘I hope Nan’s not in any trouble. It’d kill her if she had to go to a nursing home because of this.’
‘Hey,’ Nick said, ‘thank your lucky stars it’s not an ambulance. She must be exhausted.’
But Nan was as bright as a button and busy in the kitchen making tea and a batch of scones for all h
er unexpected guests, and looking for all the world like they hadn’t all been out searching for her half the morning. Hannah rolled her eyes. ‘I told her not to bother, but she thinks this is some kind of excuse for a family party.’
Meanwhile, Pop was out the back being spoken to by two very stern-looking police.
‘What’s with that?’ asked Sophie, bewildered as she peeked through the screen door and saw one of the officers taking notes. ‘Can they charge Nan with making a nuisance or something?’
‘Not Nan,’ said Hannah, her eyebrows heading north as her face said you’re not going to believe this. ‘It’s Pop. He’s just been busted by the cops.’
Sophie shook her head. ‘For losing Nan? Surely they can’t do that.’
‘Nope,’ said Hannah, blowing on the cup of tea her nan had just handed to her. ‘Of course they can’t, but it seems our dear old pop’s been caught red-handed growing weed.’
‘What?’
But Hannah had swung into action helping their nan. The first batch of scones appeared plump and tall, their tops perfectly golden from the oven, and Nan began fussing over the supply of jam and cream. The police officers brought Pop inside to talk to the family, gently convincing Nan that no, they didn’t need a plate and she should sit down with them at the table. ‘Am I under arrest?’ she asked, looking altogether too thrilled at the prospect for Sophie’s liking.
‘It must have grown by accident,’ Dan said, after the police explained about the plant they’d found growing behind the shed while they were double-checking the premises for any sign of Nan, and how they’d imposed an on-the-spot fine for cultivation of cannabis. ‘Pop would never do such a thing.’
The younger officer coughed. ‘We found a watering system, and Clarence has admitted at length to planting it. He assured us it was for personal use, otherwise it’s a much more serious offence.’
Dan, Sophie and Hannah exchanged glances, while Pop sat disconsolately sipping on his tea. Hannah spoke up first. ‘Surely you can use a bit of discretion here, Officer? It’s only one plant, after all and Pop—Clarry—well, he’s in his eighties and Nan has medical issues. They both have medical issues, for that matter. Can’t you just remove the plant and forget about it?’ She sent a glare in the direction of their grandfather. ‘We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, you can be sure of that.’