Red Dirt Heart 3 (6 page)

She laughed quietly. “Maybe later.”

I left them and went back to the dining room and took my usual seat. It felt wrong having an empty seat beside me. In all the years I’d sat at that table, George was always there right beside me. His quiet, unassuming, stronger-than-hell presence wasn’t there.

Suddenly, I wasn’t too sure I felt like eating, but Travis put a plate in front of me. He threw on some bread and sliced meat, and before I could shake my head, he hooked his foot around mine under the table.

Like an anchor or a saving grace, he grounded me. I don’t know how he knew, but he always seemed to do, say, be just what I needed. Without a word, he was telling me to stay put and stay strong.

I nodded and looked over at Bacon. “How’s the roof going?”

And so the conversation started. Until all the food was gone, we talked about what had been done and what needed doing still. I suggested everyone leave what they were doing and help get the roofing done. I knew it was Travis’s project, and he and Bacon would get it done in good time, but I didn’t want the house to be losing heat while Ma was in bed sick.

They all understood.

“I don’t know how long she’ll be off work,” I told them. “Could be two days, could be a week or longer. But until then, we all do everything we can to cover her.” Everyone nodded. “I don’t want her to add feelin’ guilty to her troubles, okay?”

Nara poked her head around the door, the corner of her mouth pulling down in an unsure kind of sorry.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

She showed me a wriggling blue beanie and a small bottle of milk. Oh shit, I’d forgotten about him.

Nara’s voice was quiet. “He won’t feed again.”

I waved her over. “Bring him in,” I said, taking the wombat from her and quickly shoving the bottle teat in his fussing mouth. Then while Nara was still in the room, I continued talking. “We’ll have to take it in shifts for cooking,” I said. “I know it’s not what you’re all employed to do, and believe me, no one here wants to eat what I cook, but we need to chip in.”

Nara collected a tray off the table. “Um…” She started to say something, but then stopped. Everyone was watching her, and she looked like as nervous as I’d seen her. “Nah, it’s nothing.” She took a backward step toward the door.

“Nara,” I said, stopping her. “Please, say what you wanted to say. Your opinion matters as much as any of ours.”

She blinked quickly. “I was just gonna say”—she spoke to the floor—“that I can do the cooking.” When I didn’t answer, she added, “I help Ma all this time and she teached me what to do. I know I won’t be as good as what she does, but I used to cook for my family as well…”

A slow smile spread across my face. Not because she’d just volunteered to cook so I didn’t have to, but because she found the confidence to speak up.

“Nara, you are more than capable,” I told her. “And I’m very grateful.”

“But?” she asked.

“But nothing,” I said. “You just scored yourself the job.”

Man, her smile was huge. Billy’s smile was just as big. Travis’s foot nudged mine, he squeezed my knee, and he was starin’ at me with that you’re-something-kinda-wonderful look in his eye again.

Everyone got up from the table and got busy outside, and after I’d put a now sleeping baby wombat back in his pouch, I helped Nara clean up and took inventory while she organised what we’d be having for dinner. Seeing she obviously didn’t need me for anything, I left her to it.

I found myself back in the lounge room sitting down on the sofa. I had meant to just pick up the scattered clippings and I was going to put them away. I dunno how long I sat there, and it wasn’t until Travis came in and knelt in front of me that I even realised I’d been reading them over again. I’d even put them in some kind of chronological order.

“Charlie,” Trav said softly. “Whatcha got there?”

I handed them over, the birth notice on top. I watched as he read through them, seeing a reoccurring name, looking at grainy, dated newspaper photographs of some kid I’d never seen before.

“Who is this Samuel Jennings?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

His brow creased as he knelt back, thinkin’. Then he simply got up. “Come on,” he said, walking out of the room. I followed him into my office, where he stood at my desk and opened my laptop.

“What are you doing?”

“See if you can Google any information on this guy,” he said, holding up the newspaper clippings.

I took the small papers from him and slowly put them on the desk. “I’m, um…” My voice was quiet. “I’m not sure I want to.”

Travis sighed. It wasn’t an all-out-of-patience sigh. It was an I’m-sorry-I-rushed-you sound. He put his hand to my face and gently kissed my cheekbone. “I should have asked, sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” I told him. We still stood so close, so close I could have kissed him if I wanted. But I wanted something else a whole lot more. I dropped my forehead onto his shoulder and leaned into him, waiting for him to put his arm around me. It didn’t take long. I breathed him in and let my breath out in a rush, feeling my worries leave me as I did.

He rubbed his hands over my back, spreading his warmth into my body. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

“I am now,” I answered. “You have some weird magic power to make everything less heavy.”

His voice was close to my ear. “Less heavy?”

I didn’t explain what I meant, I just nodded against him. “Yep.”

He chuckled, the sound all warm and rumbly. He kissed the side of my head and pulled back. “I’d suggest you come help us out there on the roof, since doin’ something manual might clear your mind. But Bacon’s telling Trudy that she’s not getting on any damn roof and she’s calling him a bunch of four-letter words, so if you value your sanity, stay in here,” he said with a smile. “Stay close to Ma. I know you’re worried about her.”

“I am.” I nodded. “But thanks for the heads-up on Trudy and Bacon.”

Travis chuckled. “It’s all good, Charlie. They’re fine. Nothing for you to stress over, okay? You have enough to worry about right now.”

I leaned up, just a fraction, and pressed my lips to his just as there was a thumping on the roof. “Charlie,” Ernie called out. “You’ve got company. There’s a car coming.”

“Expecting someone?” Travis asked.

I shook my head. We were too remote to have anyone turn up out of the blue. If someone did come out here, it was usually because someone asked ’em to.

As I walked out into the hall, I almost ran into George. He must have heard what Ernie said. “Expecting someone?” I asked him.

“Nope. You?”

“No.” I gave a nod toward his bedroom. “How’s Ma?”

“Sound asleep,” he said. Then he gave me a bit of a smile. “She’ll be fine. You know how she is.”

The sound of the approaching vehicle got closer, so we walked out the front door to see who it was. They were driving slow. Like real slow. An uncertain kind of slow. “Might be lost,” I offered.

“Could be,” George said.

The car, a late model Subaru, crawled toward the house, eventually stopping about twenty metres away. If they were expecting to find an empty house, they were wrong. Three men on the roof, one woman holding a ladder at the side of the house, and three men on the veranda stopped and stared.

No one got out of the car.

Travis, being Travis, walked down the steps with a welcoming grin and headed toward them. He leaned his hands on the top of the car and the driver’s window opened a few inches so he could see inside.

Travis took a reflexive step back, his eyes were a disbelieving kind of wide, and my instinct was to go to him. I didn’t know what was wrong, who was in the car, or what they’d done to scare him, but I leapt off the veranda. “Travis?”

The car door opened slowly, and a woman got out.

I heard George mumble behind me. “Oh my God.”

I turned around, wondering if something was wrong with Ma, but he was staring at the woman. Travis took quick strides to stand in front of me.

“What’s going on?”I asked him. His eyes were full of worry. “How do you know her, Trav?”

“Charlie?” the stranger whispered, almost like she couldn’t believe what she saw. She put her hand to her heart. “Coming here was a mistake, sorry,” she said, opening her car door as if to leave.

“Wait!” I called out to her, looking around Travis, who was still in front of me, like he was putting himself between me and this stranger. The woman seemed to stop, so I looked at Travis. “What did you see?”

“You,” he whispered, swallowing hard. “All I saw was her eyes. She has your eyes. Charlie, I swear it was you looking back at me.”

‘Awkward’ was probably a good word to describe it. Some might call it uncomfortable, drawn-out, painful, or even torturous. Quite frankly, I enjoyed watching her, this stranger, look as out-of-place and outnumbered as she possibly could.

I heard her mutter the word ‘mother’ like it meant something. Even though she’d said it, there really wasn’t a need to.

I’d stood out front of my house, dumbstruck and dazed, as Travis’s words told me what I think I probably already knew. At least George had the manners to walk over to her and invite her inside.

There was no doubt about it. This lady, this somewhat familiar stranger that George called Laura, was the woman who gave birth to me.

She wasn’t as I remembered.

Not that I remembered much about her at all, if I was truthful. All I could recall was brown hair, and now age and time had changed even that. Her hair was straight, cut-off at her shoulders and greying around her face. She had wrinkles at her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She was well-dressed, looked a little too proper, and she wore a wedding ring.

Travis had been shocked at the likeness of me and this Laura, but I didn’t see it.

I sat on the sofa near the door, and Travis stood leaning against the wall beside me with his arms folded across his chest. George sat on the seat closest to the fireplace, and this uninvited woman, Laura, sat on the three-seater sofa by herself. She looked nervous, wringing her hands the way she did and not knowing where to look or what to say.

George spoke first. “Katie would have liked to have seen you,” he said. “But she’s unwell today. She’s sleeping right now.” It took me a little while to remember Ma’s proper first name. I hadn’t heard it years. Katie…

Laura frowned immediately. “Oh, is everything okay?”

“Ma’s fine,” I answered quickly. I didn’t like the way she thought she could act concerned about my Ma. And that’s what Ma was. She was
my
Ma. The woman that raised me. The only mother I’d ever known.

Laura smiled tightly at me, then looked back to the floor and went back to wringing her hands.

“She’s just having a few days’ rest, is all,” George added, probably trying to ease the tension in the room.

Laura took a deep breath and looked around the room. “This place is just as I remembered,” she said with a smile, more to herself than to any of us.

That was hardly the truth, because really, so very much had changed.

When I still didn’t speak, she took another nervous breath, and it was then she noticed the boxes on the floor in front her where I’d left them. I regretted not moving them at first, that she might see what was in them, but when I saw how she reacted, I was glad they were there. The stupid teddy bear was stuffed on top of the bigger box, and I watched as she recognised it: she looked at it, then looked again, blinking as if her memories didn’t quite seem real.

“Oh,” she whispered. Her eyes shot to mine, confused.

“Found it this morning,” I said casually. “Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? Dad must have put it in the roof.” She looked at me for a long, searching moment, and I tilted my head and smiled. “I don’t remember the teddy bear at all.”

Then I watched as it clicked. She got it. She understood. It wasn’t the stupid toy I couldn’t remember.

It was her.

She looked at the floor again and seemed just about to say something, when Nara stood at the door. She was holding Nugget and his feeding bottle. “Sorry,” she interrupted quietly. “I keep tryin’, but he won’t take it.”

“It’s okay,” I said, standing up and taking him from her. “I’ve got him, thanks.” I sat back down and shoved the teat in the little wombat’s hungry mouth, looking up at Laura just in time to see her smile at me.

Travis groaned beside me, like he was strugglin’ to bite back words. When I looked up at him, he was still standing with his arms crossed, but his jaw was clenched to near teeth-crackin’ levels. “You okay?” I asked him, not caring if Laura heard or what she thought.

“Yeah,” he grunted, which clearly meant no, he really wasn’t.

I patted the arm of the sofa, indicating he should take a seat, which he did, crossing his long legs at the ankle. I knew Laura was looking at us a bit funny, but I offered no explanation.

I had no reason to. I didn’t owe her anything.

Nugget pushed the bottle away, and I sat him up. He looked around, shaking his head. I put him down on the floor, letting him stretch his short, stubby legs. The little guy started to sniff and wander gingerly around our feet, and I let him.

“He’s very cute,” Laura said with a smile.

“He’s a pain in the arse,” I told her, not apologising for my language. I had no intention of being someone I wasn’t and that included who I was with Travis.

He had his hands folded in front of him like he didn’t know what to do with them. I pulled on his arm, the one closest to me, and took hold of his hand. I gave his fingers a squeeze and looked at Laura then, waiting,
waiting, wanting
, for her to say something about it.

She didn’t. She looked at her lap and kind of smiled.

I was almost disappointed. I’d have preferred a reaction so I could throw her out, but she seemed to smile genuinely. Not that I’d strictly know. I didn’t know her at all. She was now looking at Travis. “Did I detect an accent?” she asked him.

I didn’t really like the idea of her talking to him either. “So,” I interrupted, looking at her expectantly. She took the hint that the time for small talk was over.