Our Kind of Love (37 page)

Having children was a dream that had wrapped itself around her heart with such force that letting it go would mean her heart might stop beating.

Anna turned her key and her car engine was silent. It was her turn to check on Nonna but she needed a minute to settle before she went inside. Nonna hadn’t been herself since her friend had died and Anna had begun to wonder if she ever would be again. She was old after all, and maybe just tired of life. Anna understood that emotion better than she should have.

Anna used her own key to let herself in to Nonna’s house and was met with silence.

‘Nonna? It’s me.’ There was no reply and Anna felt her heart beat pick up and she quickened her pace.

‘Nonna?’ She wasn’t in her bedroom or in the kitchen. Nonna’s favourite living room chair, with the lace doily smoothly laid out on the headrest, was empty too. Anna ran through scenarios in her head and fished in her handbag for her phone. She gripped it in her hand as she peered outside to the clothesline.

When she saw her grandmother sitting in the garden, Anna tried to relax. Nonna was sitting quietly on an ornate wrought-iron chair, surveying the space that had once been her pride and joy but which was now brown dirt and weeds. It had once been an abundant vegetable garden, which had fed almost the entire Morelli family. It hadn’t been planted for a couple of years, not since Nonna had begun the slow slide into arthritic fingers and pain. But there she was, surveying her little piece of suburbia. Maybe she was remembering all the harvests and the bottling and the pickling that she’d orchestrated over the years.

Anna held a hand to her chest, allowed her breathing to slow and her heart rate to ease before she pushed open the back door.

At the sound, Nonna turned. ‘
Bella
Anna,’ she said, and held shaky arms out to her oldest granddaughter. Anna went to her and sat down, gratefully accepting the embrace.

‘
Come stai
?’

Nonna shrugged. ‘Eh.’

‘It’s cold out here, Nonna. You should be inside.’

Nonna waved a hand as if to flick away the comment. ‘I sit in there all day.’

‘Can I get you a cup of coffee?’

Nonna shook her head and then took Anna’s hand. There wasn’t much strength left in her fingers, but there was no mistaking her words.

‘I don’t want coffee. I want a happy granddaughter. I want you to be happy before I die.’

Anna’s eyes welled with tears. ‘Nonna …’

‘You make me sad, Anna. Something is wrong and you don’t tell me. It is in here,’ Nonna held a gnarled fist to her chest.

Anna looked into her Nonna’s eyes, small and set back in her tanned and wrinkled face. She’d been a beauty when she was younger, everyone in the family had said. When she’d arrived in Australia as a young woman, she could have had her pick of boys. But she’d remained true to the man who’d left Italy on a boat two years earlier to earn enough to bring her out to the strange place where there were kangaroos and plenty of jobs for industrious migrants who could work the soil.

And now, her Nonna, who’d lived a life of her own, with its own joys and heartbreaks, could see right into her granddaughter’s heart to know that there was something wrong. Her simple words sliced through Anna’s carefully constructed resolve and she felt like weeping.

‘Nonna, please don’t worry about me.’

‘Anna, you should be happy. Not sad, like this.’

Anna had to look away from her grandmother’s searching eyes. She found the old Hills Hoist, planted in the cement pathway that led from the laundry door. Anna remembered Luca climbing to the top of it when they were children, and she and Grace had spun him round and around so fast that he’d fallen off and tumbled onto the lawn. There hadn’t been any backyard gymnastics on it for decades. Once it would have been full to overloaded almost every day with Nonno’s work clothes and children’s school uniforms; freshly washed sheets and linen tablecloths that Nonna had always liked to iron to within an inch of their lives. Now, a couple of forlorn pieces of clothing hung from its wires; a white dressing gown, a towel. Old lady clothes, Anna realised.

‘Did you like having babies?’

Nonna’s eyes shone. ‘I loved my children and now, my children’s children. You, your brother and sister, you are my life. Now Nonno is gone, you are everything. That’s what having babies means. You make
la famiglia
. Your husbands and your friends, they die. But your children and grandchildren, they will always be your family. You should have babies, Anna. You should be making your own family.’

Anna wiped the tears from her eyes and slipped an arm around her grandmother. ‘You’re right, Nonna.’

‘Why are you sad? That man at the party. Did he make you this way?’

Anna couldn’t blame Joe for the way she was feeling. It had been her choice to walk away from him. She knew what she wanted, was prepared to risk everything if it meant giving herself that chance.

‘He’s a nice man, Nonna. A very nice man. But he doesn’t come from a family like ours. It’s different for him.’

Nanna waved a hand. ‘Our family? I came to Australia with no one. It was your Nonno and me. I never saw my mamma or my papa again. But we made
la famiglia
here. This is a family, what we have.’

This is a family
. Anna thought over her Nonna’s words. Her grandparents had started from scratch, two young and lonely people in an alien place, strangers to the culture and the language and the heat. They’d worked together and forged a life. Anna knew she wouldn’t have everything she had, was so lucky to have, if it wasn’t for the sacrifice and bravery and courage of her grandparents, on both sides of her family.

They had made a family with no money but lots of love. People could do that, she had living proof. She’d lived in the embrace of her family, was held tight within it by love as strong and tenacious as the tendrils of a grapevine. Her Middle Point friends had made their own family, too. Ry and Julia, Dan and Lizzie. They were a family. A wonderful family.

And Joe was part of that family.

Anna’s heart thumped back into life. She squeezed her grandmother’s shoulder. ‘Nonna,
ti amo
. You are the smartest woman I know.’ She kissed both her and held her Nonna tight.

There was something she had to tell Joe.

It was the end of Joe’s shift at the pub and Lizzie was waiting for him in her office. He’d told her at lunch that there was something he needed to tell her and he was about to break the news.

Lizzie looked up from her computer screen. ‘Stinkface.’

‘Mosquito.’

‘What’s going on? The suspense has been killing me.’

Joe sat opposite her in the tiny manager’s office. Office was a slight exaggeration. It was more like a broom cupboard with some filing cabinets and an old hat stand leaning to one side in the far corner. He crossed his arms and took a deep breath. Lizzie’s words may have been light but her expression was anything but. She looked tense, nibbling on her bottom lip, and flicking a pen between her fingers so it hit the table with a manic rhythm.

He was used to headlines, knew that beating around the bush was bullshit. And since he’d adopted the no-bullshit policy, he came right out with it.

‘I’m quitting.’ He leaned back in his chair.

Lizzie’s face fell. ‘Oh no. You’re going back to Sydney. You’re leaving home again.’ Lizzie stopped nibbling her lip as both had begun to tremble and she nervously clasped both hands on top of her head.

‘Lizzie, wait—’

‘Oh Joe. I thought you might stay. Thought you might want to keep working here at the pub. Be here with your family.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t work at the pub forever, Lizzie.’

‘What is it? You don’t like having me as your boss?’

‘Settle down. You are a great boss. And I’ve loved it, more than I thought I would. But I’ve got to move on, that’s all. It’s time to get on with my life. Holidays are great, but they have to end sometime.’

‘Shit, Joe.’ Lizzie’s face fell and tears welled in her blue eyes. Joe remembered that expression. She’d looked the exact same way when he’d told her, when he was all of a worldly and authoritative eight years old and she was five, that Father Christmas didn’t exist. That same look on her face now, twenty-seven years later, still sent a pang of guilt and regret through him.

‘Look, we need to work out what to do with the house. I was thinking I could pay you out for your half. I’ve got my share of what’s left after the mortgage from the place in Bronte. The sale went through last week.’

Lizzie’s face became thunderous and she leaned forward in her chair. ‘What did you say?’

‘I want to buy you out.’

‘No freaking way, Jose. There is absolutely no way we’re selling that house.’

‘Sell? I’m not talking about selling it, for fuck’s sake. I want to live in it.’

‘What?’ Lizzie whispered.

And Joe realised he’d committed a mortal sin for a journalist. He’d buried the lead.

‘I’m not going back to Sydney, Lizzie. I want to buy the house and live in it. For good.’

CHAPTER
44

Anna stepped into the pub and was met by near silence. The only sound was the electronic pinging of the cash register but everyone in the place had stopped talking and turned their heads towards the exotic-looking woman who’d just burst through the Middle Point pub’s front door.

She scanned the crowd and the workspace behind the bar but couldn’t see Joe. In her hand, she jangled her car keys and gripped the big red plastic heart key ring. She had to find him. She hadn’t driven down from Adelaide at almost the speed of sound to not see him today. That was not in her game plan. Because she’d had a revelation and she had to share it with him.

She made her way to Lizzie’s office down the narrow corridor, knocked impatiently and then opened the door when she heard Lizzie call out to come in.

‘Hey.’ Dan was leaning against the metal filing cabinet and threw Anna a huge smile when he realised who it was.

‘Anna,’ Lizzie called. ‘What are you doing here?’

Anna glanced between both of them and reached for her St Christopher medal.
Go well
, he whispered to her.

‘Hi you two.’

‘Are you all right?’ Lizzie leaned over her desk and narrowed her eyes at Anna.

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m looking for Joe.’

Anna noticed Dan and Lizzie exchange cautious glances.

‘We thought you two had …’ Dan said, confusion in his voice, ‘… broken up.’

Anna waved a hand. ‘Yes, we did. Ages ago. But that’s not important now.’

‘So you don’t know,’ Lizzie said.

‘What don’t I know?’ Something stirred inside Anna, something that made her heart thump and every nerve ending arc up in panic.

‘Joe doesn’t work here anymore, Anna. He quit a week ago.’

Anna slumped against the door.

‘I’m too late, aren’t I?’ she whispered, almost to herself. She’d tossed and turned for a week, trying to summon up the courage to make this trip to see Joe and now what had she done?

Lizzie grabbed a pen from the mess on her desk and jotted something down on a scrap of paper.

‘Here’s where you’ll find him.’ Anna took the piece of paper and read the address. A smile crept over her face and the feeling of panic subsided into a happy glow. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘Not kidding. It’s for real.’

Anna threw her arms around her friends for a fierce embrace and then bolted.

Dan watched her leave and then turned to Lizzie with a smile. ‘What’s she going to say to Joe when she finds him?’

Lizzie returned the smile and folded her arms. ‘You know her better than anyone. What do you reckon?’

‘She might go all crazy Italian on him.’

‘Maybe.’

‘She might tell him he’s been a bloody idiot for letting her go.’

‘He’s heard that from me a million times already. And he didn’t budge. I don’t think he once got off his arse and even called her.’

‘He’s a fuckwit.’

‘Well, yes, but he is my big brother so I have to pretend to be offended. But when it comes to Anna, I think you’re right.’

Anna drove through Port Elliot and continued along the Adelaide Road to Victor Harbor. At the fourth roundabout she turned left and pulled up in front of an old shopfront. She glanced once more at the address Lizzie had given her. The number was right. She turned off the engine and hopped out. The sign on the verandah of the heritage building said,
Southern Gazette
. When she pushed open the door she realised it was the office of the local newspaper.

She stepped up to an old wooden counter that ran the width of the room. The space was quiet and slightly dark. High ceilings were decorated with fancy plasterwork in a grid of squares and the walls were sparsely decorated with framed front pages from the paper, the headlines plotting the history of the seaside town. There were two desks, each with its own modern computer, and a coffee machine on a wooden cupboard on the rear wall. Someone must have just brewed a cup because the aroma filled the room.

‘Hello, may I help you?’ A young woman with a high ponytail bounced up to the counter with a welcoming smile.

‘Yes, I’m looking for Joe Blake.’

‘I’ll just get him for you. Can I say who it is?’

‘Anna Morelli.’

‘I’ll just be a sec.’

Under Anna’s fingers, the wooden counter felt heavy and worn, marked and pitted in places. To her left sat a pile of the latest edition of the paper and she read the front page. There was a story about a win for the local netball team complete with a shot of the happy players holding a trophy. Underneath, was a reminder about drink driving patrols over the coming weekends as the holiday season hit. She flipped the page over and there, on the left hand side of the second page, was Joe’s face. A headshot of him smiling, wearing an open shirt and a grin.

‘Anna?’

She looked up and there he was in the flesh, at the other end of the room, in the dim light, gazing at her as if she were a mirage. If she didn’t know it wasn’t physically possible, she could have sworn her heart had just skipped a beat.

‘Hi Joe.’

He walked towards her, slowly, his shoes sounding heavily on the polished wooden floor. She took in a deep breath, trying not to react to how handsome he still looked, how much the sight of him jangling every nerve ending. He was wearing a white business shirt, crisp and fresh, with a striped navy and white tie, and suit trousers. Navy and slim-fitting, they hugged his thighs in places she’d once touched. Anna realised with a jolt that it was the suit they’d bought together.