Red Dirt Heart 3 (13 page)

“Are you kidding me?” I cut him off before he could apologise. “You were everything I needed last night. It was fucking great, so don’t you dare say you’re sorry.”

He snorted out a laugh. “Right, then. No apology. But if you’re sore…”

“Well, I have an ache in my arse. I can’t decide if it’s an unpleasant ache or an I-need-you-to-do-it-again kinda ache.”

This time he laughed. “You’re starting to sound like me.”

I sighed again, still starin’ at the sky, and my smiled faded. Of course Trav knew something was on my mind. “You wanna talk about whatever’s botherin’ you?” he asked. “You’ve got a lot on your plate right now.”

“I didn’t really mean to say that I was Ma’s son in front of Laura,” I said. “But once I’d kinda realised what I’d said, I was glad I’d said it. Should I feel bad about that? Because I don’t.”

“It was the truth,” Travis replied, looking at me. He was lyin’ down on his side, one arm supporting his head, the other scratching Nugget’s belly. “I was glad you’d said it too.”

“You don’t like her,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

It was his turn to sigh. “I don’t know her, so I can’t say if I do or not. But I don’t like how she thought she could just turn up. I don’t think she realised the ramifications of her actions, and I think that says a lot about her.”

“Such as?”

“She only thought of herself. She didn’t once think ‘what if he doesn’t want to see me?’ or ‘how will this affect him?’. It was more about her needs and wants, not yours. And that doesn’t wash with me.”

I smiled at him, but he didn’t see. He was looking at Nugget, lost in his thoughts.

“I don’t mean to make things difficult, and I don’t want to sway your decision in any way,” he went on to say.

“You won’t.”

“I don’t doubt that she’s had it rough. I know she has,” he said, looking at me now. “She had a terrible time because of your old man, just like you did. I think maybe he pushed her away, just like he did with you. And I should be able to sympathise with that, because I get what you went through, I really do. I’ve seen what rejection can do to kids, Charlie.” He shook his head and frowned. “But I guess I’ll never understand how a mother could leave her kid.”

I thought about that for a little while. “I think you’re right.”

“Which part?” he sat up. “I kinda said more than I probably should’ve.”

“All of it,” I told him. “I think she did have a tough time, and she had another kid to think about too by then. I can’t dismiss that. I know what a bastard my father could be, so I can certainly sympathise with her on that.”

“Do you blame her for leaving you?”

I sighed. “Nope.”

Trav shook his head, the way he did when I made him I-don’t-understand-you mad. “How can you not?”

“Because I don’t remember her. How can I miss something I don’t remember having?” I answered simply. “Anyways, I look at it like this: if she hadn’t have gone and left me, I wouldn’t have had Ma. So really, I should be thankin’ her.”

He sighed, long and loud. Eventually he said, “You know, I appreciate your way of thinking. It’s a point of view I wouldn’t have seen, and I think it makes you a bigger man than me to say that.”

“But?”

“But I swear to God, Charlie. I don’t think I will ever understand you.” He shook his head and his smile faded. He looked at me for another long second. “What else is bothering you? I can tell, you know. You’re not as good at hiding shit from me as you think. I don’t understand you some days, but I can always tell when you’ve got something on your mind.”

That made me chuckle. “I don’t really know, to be honest. I’m not keeping it from you,” I told him. “I just don’t know what to think of it.”

“Think of what?”

“That stuff we found in the roof, the mementos my father kept,” I said. “Well, it made me kind of think maybe he wasn’t so bad, you know? I mean, maybe he just struggled with life and didn’t deal with shit very well, but he kept those things, and he did that interview where he said he was proud of me. It wasn’t just that he said it, it was the fact that he cut it out and kept it.” I shrugged one shoulder. “And just when I thought maybe he wasn’t the bitter, angry man I remember, then along comes my birth mother and we learn all over again that yes, he was just as cruel to her as he was to me.”

“It’s confusing,” Trav agreed. “You wanna know what I think?”

I nodded.

“I think maybe he was cruel on the outside, because he thought that’s how he had to be to survive out there,” he said, pulling at the grass. “I think he struggled with it, but didn’t think he had an option.”

I thought about that, what it meant, not just for my father or for Laura or even for the teenaged version of me that got shipped off to Sydney to learn how to be not-gay, but for the adult version of me. Because if it wasn’t for Travis, I’d be a mirror image of my old man.

I’d be angry and bitter, and very, very much alone.

“You kind of saved me, you know,” I told him quietly. “You bein’ a stubborn arse and refusin’ to get on that plane, stayin’ here and fighting for me, even though I was a jerk. Well, you saved me that day from bein’ just like my father. Did I ever tell you that?”

Trav looked at me for a long few seconds, searchin’ for what, I didn’t know. He eventually smiled, with shy lips and crinkles at his eyes. “No you didn’t, but thank you. I don’t know if that’s exactly true, but thank you for saying it.”

“It’s been a crazy few weeks, hasn’t it?” I asked. “We get back from at week at Kakadu—which was great, by the way—we have that meeting with the biggest supermarket beef buyer in the country, we found that stuff in the roof, Laura turns up, and then Ma gets sick.” I sighed just thinking about it. “No wonder my head’s spinning.”

Trav grinned. “I thought it was my awesome topping skills last night that did that.”

I snorted, and Nugget came barrelling over to me. He headbutted my chest and did his little playful jumpin’ thing, making Trav and me both laugh.

“You ready to go back and see how Ma’s doing?” I asked.

“We’d better get George something to eat,” he added. He started to pack up the bag and asked, “Did you want to go home tonight or tomorrow?”

“How about we see what the doc says,” I said, getting to my feet. I picked up Nugget and tucked him under my arm. “But we should take this little guy back to the motel first.”

* * * *

When we got back to the hospital, Ma was sleeping. Seeing that we’d brought him lunch, George suggested we go to the visitors lounge so as not to wake Ma.

There were rows of chairs, small tables with magazines and a wall-mounted TV, which thankfully was on mute. George sat down, groaning as he did. I figured he hadn’t been this still in forever and his body probably felt like it was seizing up. “The doc came back,” he told us. “Said we was real lucky. The cancer didn’t spread.”

“Oh thank God,” I whispered, more relieved than I ever remember feeling. It was like a weight had been lifted with just a few simple words. “When can she come home?”

He gave me a tired smile. “She’ll be in here a week,” he said. “So I guess I will be too.”

I wouldn’t have expected anything else. “George, you take as much time as you need. I don’t care how long that is, we just need to know she’s okay.”

George ran his worked-hard fingers through his hair. “We’re about to get real busy,” he sighed. “Calving soon, if they haven’t started already, then there’s the—”

I put my hand up to stop him. “George.”

“I can’t leave her,” he said.

I smiled at him. “I would never ask you to.”

Travis handed over the white sandwich bag and juice we brought in for him just as my phone rang.

I’d forgotten to turn it off when we walked in, and I was going to disconnect the call, but then I saw the number. “I probably should take this.”

I left Trav with George and went straight to the men’s room, then answered the call. “Charlie Sutton.”

“Hi, Charlie, it’s Blake Burgess.”

“Blake, how you going?” I asked. “You’ll have to excuse the acoustics.”

“Sounds like you’re in the bathroom,” he said with a laugh. “Need me to call you back?”

I laughed with him. “Nah. I’m at the hospital. Figured if I hid in the bathroom, no nurses could yell at me about bein’ on the phone since they can’t see me.”

“True,” he said. Then he got to the point of his call, the call we’d been waiting for, to see if we could secure a fixed income for a few years. “Charlie, I have a proposition for you.”

* * * *

When I walked back into the visitors lounge, Travis stood up. He looked worried. “Everything okay?”

I grinned, slow and wide. “That was Blake Burgess, the buyer from Woollies.”

Trav’s eyes went wide and he started to smile. “And?”

“And he was impressed. We made the cut.”

Travis threw his arms around me, almost tackling me. “Oh thank God,” he said with a laugh. “Some more good news. First Ma and now this!”

George was standing now, and when Trav let go of me, George shook my hand. He was smiling too, genuine, relieved and even a little bit proud. “That’s real good news, Charlie.”

“Not as good as Ma’s news,” I said. “But good news, nonetheless.”

“What else did he say?” Travis said.

“He’s sending through a proposal,” I told him. “It’ll have all the details, but he’s talking a thousand head of cattle in the first intake.”

Both Travis’s and George’s mouths fell open.

I laughed, still shaking my head at the impossibility of it all. “I can’t believe it. He’s organising for their vet and inspector to come see us when they do the rounds in a week or so. And a contract for our solicitor to look over.”

“Jesus,” Travis mumbled, running his hand through his hair and blowing air through his puffed-out cheeks. “They don’t muck around. We have a lot to get ready between now and then, and you’ve got an assessment due.”

Shit. I’d not given that a second thought. But the last thing I wanted was for George to be stressing, when his priority was not at home. “We don’t have to worry about that right now,” I said to Travis, flickering my eyes toward George.

Trav must have caught on, because he didn’t argue. But George saw it too. “Charlie,” he started.

I shook my head. “George, I need you to be right here.” I put my hand on his arm. “But it does mean me and Trav will have to go home today. I was hoping we could stick around until tomorrow, or even ’til Ma can come home, but we should be goin’ back.”

He nodded. “That’s fair enough. Just wish I could do more. Feel a bit helpless if I was tellin’ the truth.”

I guessed he wasn’t just talking about home, but about being here and not bein’ able to help his wife. “You’ve done more than your share over the years. Let us pick up the slack for a change, huh?”

We went and checked on Ma, but she was still asleep. I told George we’d go pack up our gear at the motel and come back on our way out of town.

It’d been one helluva day.

We packed up the room as quickly as we could, including giving little Nugget a bottle before we left. He sat in his new box bed between me and Trav in the ute, and when we pulled into the car park, Trav moved the box so the entrance hole was facing the roof so Nugget couldn’t climb out.

“So the little shit can’t get into trouble or chew the crap outta anything while we go inside,” Trav explained when I questioned what he was doing.

Nugget grunted and squeaked, not liking this development at all. “We can’t just leave him,” I said. “He can’t get out, he can’t even see!”

Travis raised one you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me eyebrow. “Well, we certainly can’t just carry him into the hospital, Charlie.”

I looked at the backpack full of the wombat’s things. “No, we can’t just
carry
him in,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t mean he can’t still come with us.”

* * * *

Ma was much brighter when we walked back into the hospital. She was at least awake and smiled at us as soon as she saw us. George was happier too. Maybe it was relief, maybe it was pure fucking joy, but the man was looking at Ma like she was the best gift he’d ever been given.

To him, she probably was.

I was wearing the backpack, though it was heavy. And moving. Luckily no one stopped or even questioned us when we walked into the ward. I carefully put the backpack on the bed and kissed Ma’s cheek. “You look so much better,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” she said quietly.

“How are you really?” I asked, giving her the don’t-lie-to-me stare that she’d used on me for years.

She gave me a small smile. “Sore. Tired.”

I squeezed her hand. “Then lucky you’re here to rest.”

Travis leaned over us and kissed her cheek. “Can we get you anything?”

“No, love,” she said. “They’re looking after me.” She was understandably weak. Her blinks were getting a little longer, but she was fighting it. “George was telling me you got some good news from that buyer.”

“We did,” I said with a nod. “It’s great for the station, Ma. But it means we have to go back today.”

“That’s fine, Charlie,” she said. She smiled at me and Trav. “I’m just grateful you boys were here at all.”

“Where else would we be?” I asked, gently putting the backpack on the bed.

Nugget wanted out of the backpack right that moment. Checking there were no nurses in sight, I pulled back the zipper and lifted the little wombat out of the bag.

“Oh, Charlie,” Ma said, half-amused, half-scolding.

At the same time, George said, “Don’t think he’d be on the visitors list, Charlie.”

“Well, I couldn’t just leave him at the ute,” I told them, giving him a scratch under the chin.

“Charlie’s smitten,” Travis said. He sat down in the chair along the back wall of the room. “He won’t admit it, but he is.”

“I’m not
smitten
,” I countered. “He’s just little, cars get hot, and he would’ve been lonely…”

“Mmhmm,” Travis hummed. The three of them were looking at me like I’d lost my freakin’ mind.

“He stayed at the motel with you?” George asked.

“Well, he still won’t feed from anyone but me,” I said, giving Nugget a scratch. “I couldn’t leave the little guy to starve.” When I looked at Travis, he was smiling at me. “Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “It’s your fault for bringin’ him home.”