by C. Fonseca
“I love what I do,” Lili said. “Growing up, I wanted to be a farmer like Mum and Dad. We’ve always had a vegetable garden and fruit trees.” Lili breathed in deeply, enjoying the mixture of fragrances on the terrace: lavender, the piquant sweetness of oregano, and the sharpness of lemon-scented thyme. “I love having my hands in the dirt. Pulling up potatoes and carrots, and picking fresh silverbeet and green beans. In summer, there was an abundance of berries to make tarts or jam. On weekends, we’d bake a variety of breads and cakes. The house was always filled with the most delicious smells. It wasn’t until my last year at school that I considered a career in cooking. I love experimenting with new ingredients, and we have a wealth of produce right here on the Peninsula.”
“And yet you left to pursue your career elsewhere,” Jess said. “You went to Sydney.”
Lili gathered and stacked their dishes, then refilled their glasses with iced tea. “I had to. It was hard to find the type of restaurant I wanted to work at on the Peninsula, one that would take on a female apprentice. I applied through a rural scheme and was lucky to receive a scholarship to a school in Sydney. And how do you know this about me?” She cast a deliberately playful suspicious glance over at Jess.
“I did look you up on Google.”
“Really? Don’t believe everything you read online.”
“Why not?” Jess shrugged her shoulders. “Your CV reads well. Anyway, you can’t blame me, I knew nothing about you.”
“Okay, then, I have to admit.” Lili bit her lip. “I looked you up too.”
“Then it’s my turn to ask you not to believe everything you read online.” Jess gazed at her tentatively. “I dare say, if you read anything you didn’t like, you wouldn’t have allowed me to stay in your home.”
“It was quite a colourful read. I can say one thing: They love you in the tabloids. And you seem to enjoy the company of glamorous women.”
Jess narrowed her eyes. “I don’t read the gossip columns. Most of it is lies or misconstrued.”
“Not all. I read about your father and his Olympic medals, and about you following in his footsteps.”
“I was never a track cyclist.”
“But you did win medals at more than a couple of road events. At junior and world championships. In Argentina, Italy, and America. Also—”
“Lili, please don’t.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” Jess said. But her tone didn’t sound all that convincing.
“I am sorry about your accident. I can’t imagine how hard it is to come back after something so horrific.”
“Well, I guess I haven’t come back yet.” She grimaced. “At least not into the competitive arena.” Jess’s voice had definitely turned strained.
“But you still ride. I saw your flash bike in the garage.”
“Yes, I still ride. At present, it’s recreational and for rehabilitation.” She rested back in her chair. “And for fitness—to build strength before attempting competition again.”
Lili bit her tongue. She knew from Jess’s demeanour not to recount more.
“So, how about you?” Jess asked. “You’ve collected a couple of trophies of your own and were employed by one of Sydney’s best restaurants.”
Well, at least she seems to be trying to improve the mood. That’s a good sign. And this seemed like safer territory, maybe. “You did read up on me, didn’t you?” She tried smiling, giving her a little cheek. Maybe Jess would laugh. “Yes, I was lucky. Sydney was where I met Ben, you know.” Some positive memories about her brother couldn’t hurt either.
But suddenly Jess was drumming impatiently on her knee with her fingers and draining the last of her tea. “Yeah, about Ben. Listen, should we talk soon about the loan?”
“I have all the paperwork if you—” Lili began but stopped midsentence when Jess held up her hand.
“I have copies. The lawyers provided all the financials.”
“Oh. Okay, then. Right.” Lili stood, picked up the dishes, and headed inside to the kitchen.
“Lili,” Jess called out and followed her.
“Yes?” she asked without turning around. She put on her gloves and turned towards the sink.
“I thought you would want this settled so I can get out of your way.”
“You are right,” Lili said flatly. “I do.” She turned on the tap with full force and gasped as water sprayed her face. Damn.
“Is there a problem?”
Lili tugged off her gloves and wiped her forehead with the palm of her hand. Wasn’t money always a problem? She turned around to face Jess. “No, there’s no problem,” she said woodenly. “I’ll be prepared by the time you’ve sorted through Ben’s stuff.”
Jess stood and walked towards her. “Excellent,” she said. “What about Aruishi? Have you told her that I’m her aunt?”
“No,” Lili snapped, then lowered her voice. “I haven’t.”
“Don’t you want her to know?” Jess pinched the bridge of her nose.
Jess’s obvious distress surprised her. She took a deep breath and steeled herself for what she was about to say. “It’s hard to explain the situation to a four-year-old. I’ll tell her, and then you’ll be gone. I need time to think about the best way to handle it. After Ben died, it was so hard to explain…that he wouldn’t be coming back.” Lili crossed her arms.
Jess held up her hand. “I understand.”
But she looked suddenly distant. Or something. Something not good.
Great, Lili thought. She’d alienated her yet again. “Well, good,” she said. “We should probably get going. Ru will be back at the house soon.”
“Right.” Jess’s voice sounded stiff. “We should.”
Lili bustled around the room for another minute, adjusting a stack of paper serviettes on the bench, avoiding Jess’s gaze and trying not to look too eager to escape the whole money conversation. She picked up her keys and shook them as a wordless signal to Jess, then walked briskly towards the door. Jess, of course, had no choice but to follow. In the midst of this chaotic, tense situation between them, Lili took some dark comfort in that.
Chapter 6
Lili entered her kitchen to find Jess at the dining table, bent over a thick folder of papers. As she leafed through the pile, she sipped from a small espresso cup. Jess’s dark hair, twisted into a single braid, was draped over her shoulder. She placed the coffee cup on the table and twirled the end of the braid through her fingers.
She was smarting from their argument yesterday. But Jess—in her brightly coloured, snug-fit cycling jersey and bib shorts—still got her attention. The woman could easily grace the cover of Sports Illustrated or LOTL—in fact, she probably did. Or something British like Diva or Sports Monthly. Those thick-framed reading glasses just made her more…interesting.
She stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes. “Good morning, Jess. The coffee smells good.”
Jess sat upright. “Good morning.” She held up her cup in one hand. Her gaze seemed to be inspecting Lili. Testing the waters, perhaps? They hadn’t talked to each other since yesterday afternoon at the restaurant. “I hope you don’t mind, I helped myself to your espresso machine.”
“No, of course not.” Lili moved in behind the kitchen-island bench and reached for the bag of Ethiopian blend. Strong. Just what she needed. “You don’t have to ask.”
“Well, I didn’t.” Jess looked up and stared at her intently. “Is that okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “I just said you don’t have to ask.”
When Jess arched her eyebrow, Lili sighed. “Oh, never mind.” She flopped into a chair across from Jess. “Looks like you’ve been out this morning.”
“No, not yet.” A flash of pleasure briefly lit her brown eyes before the mask came down.
Lili noticed the slight flutter at the corner
of Jess’s eye and the way she tapped her fingers on her thigh, but nothing in her voice betrayed what she was thinking.
“I would like to go to Ben’s house this morning,” Jess said abruptly. “Helen left me a note to say you’d arrange my visit with the housemate.”
“I’ve done it. Nathan, the tenant, is away on a job for a couple of days, but he knows you want to access the house. The key is under the Buddha statue on the front porch.” What would Jess do with Ben’s house in the long term? She knew Nathan was keen to keep renting it, but Lili doubted Jess would hold on to the property.
“Thank you for that.” Jess stood and placed her papers neatly into the folder. “I’ll make my way to the house later this morning.”
“I’ll prepare you some breakfast before you go.”
Jess shook her head dismissively. “No thanks. Coffee is all I have in the morning.”
“Haven’t you heard breakfast is the most important meal of the day?”
From the look on Jess’s face, she didn’t care. “Not for me,” she said, turning to walk away.
She wasn’t about to argue with Jess. Lili stood still for a moment, her arms braced on the edge of the bench. Then a pang of guilt changed her mind. “Jess.”
Jess halted and turned back to Lili. “Yes?”
“I could go with you, if you’d like?”
“I’m sure you have a lot to get done here, with the restaurant opening soon. I’ll be fine.” She continued towards her room.
“That’s that, I guess,” she said to herself. Lili reached overhead and removed a cereal bowl from the cupboard. “Well, I’m going to have breakfast.” She stubbed her toe on the edge of the skirting board and swore loudly. When will you learn? She doesn’t want your help.
After two espressos and a large helping of granola, yoghurt, and fruit, Lili threw her nightshirt into the laundry basket and turned on the shower. Her mother had telephoned fifteen minutes earlier and offered to keep Aruishi occupied for the rest of the morning. She was a lifesaver.
After she had stepped out of the shower and grabbed her towel, Lili patted her face dry and glanced in the mirror. I look a wreck. Was she imagining it, or were the tension lines around her eyes more visible today?
The papers that seemed to occupy Jess this morning were presumably about Ben’s estate and the loan. She didn’t want to pry, and she’d been in no shape to discuss the matter then, but Lili wished she’d been brave enough to ask how soon Jess expected to be paid.
Lili reached for the aspirin high up in the medicine cabinet. She needed to cement a plan, and she’d like to do it quickly without jeopardising her staff or the restaurant. She didn’t have a business loan with the bank, so she’d have to borrow additional funds on her existing home loan. And because she was essentially self-employed, Lili would need evidence of her assets and earnings for the last few years.
Her first step would be to make an appointment with the bank manager; it was long overdue.
Jess glanced in the rear-vision mirror, took her foot off the brake, and reversed back to the entrance of the property. She’d been thinking about Lili’s dishevelled appearance in the kitchen earlier that morning as she’d tugged self-consciously at the hem of her nightshirt and ran her hands through her short, tousled hair—and, of course, she overshot the driveway.
The house, partly hidden by a stand of scrubby trees, had a rusted galvanised iron roof. She manoeuvred the car down the bumpy driveway, parked in front of the garage beside the deck of the timber shack, exited, and climbed the stairs to the small porch. She pushed her sunglasses up to her forehead and checked out her surroundings. This was the place Ben had called home.
Why had it taken so long for her to come back to Australia—to her brother? Jess sighed deeply and extracted the small key from underneath the statue, relieved it was exactly where Lili had advised. She turned the key in the door and ducked under a row of colourful Tibetan prayer flags, then walked straight into a living room and was assaulted by a mixture of smells. A woodsy, earthy odour mixed with petroleum and some kind of resin. It was musty. The house itself—with timber floor boards, white cabinetry, and a sparse scattering of furniture—was surprisingly tidy. A large mounted photograph above the fireplace, of a surfer and his board suspended in mid-air, dominated the space. It must have been Hawaii or another South Pacific island, because the combination of the light, of giant emerald-green waves, and of high mountain peaks was breathtakingly beautiful. Jess stepped closer. Lean and muscled, Ben arched above the wave. She was mesmerised by the image, the sublime stillness and physical beauty captured by the camera. This was her brother, and yet he was a stranger.
Jess wrenched herself away from the photograph. Was her brother’s bedroom the one on the left or the one on the right? She opened the door on the left. Oops, wrong room. Luckily, Nathan wasn’t home. She opened the door on the right. A large bed consumed the midsized room, and one wall was lined with a stack of brown boxes, each labelled by black marker. She counted—how could the life of a man in his thirties be packed into twenty-two boxes? Jess was faced with the unbearable task of sorting Ben’s belongings. She sat down heavily on the end of the bed. Combing through his personal effects seemed too intrusive right now.
She should have taken Lili up on her offer to help, but Jess couldn’t deal with the look of sympathy in Lili’s big blue eyes, and her obvious determination to get things done and make everything right.
Without allowing herself another moment for reflection, Jess scanned the labels and put aside three boxes, labelled photos and stuff, documents and letters, and family. She would no doubt learn a lot about Ben and their past from the contents of these boxes—when she was ready.
Jess lifted the three large cartons and carried them to the car one at a time. It was more than the physical weight of the things inside that made her journey back and forth to the Mini agonisingly slow.
After she’d loaded the boxes, Jess wandered the short distance down a shale path, over the dunes, and down to the water’s edge. She kicked off her running shoes and enjoyed the damp sand and cool seawater washing between her toes. The beach was deserted except for the screeches and flaps of seagulls hopping along the strip of pale-gold sand.
She sheltered her eyes and gazed back towards the shack. Ben’s home was small but well located, so near to 13th Beach, popular with surfers and only four kilometres from the seaside village of Barwon Heads.
She understood why Ben chose to live here, in this peaceful coastal environment—he’d grab his board and be in the waves in five minutes. It was also only a thirty-five-minute drive away from the McAllister farm and his daughter. From Lili’s description, Ben’s involvement had been purely altruistic. Having relinquished all parental obligations, Ben had obviously wanted to be simply near Aruishi—he was interested in her welfare and in her future. Although Ben travelled widely and worked in many cities across Australia, it seemed significant that his main place of residence was here, close to his daughter.
Sadness welled up inside her. The beach was bathed in sunlight, and a gentle wind lifted loose strands of hair from her face. She collected her shoes from the sand and slowly made her way back to the shack.
Jess re-entered the house and stood before the image of her brother. Ben’s joyful face and the huge wave and the shimmering silver light evinced a timeless, ethereal tranquillity to the photograph. She wanted to remember him like this.
Chapter 7
Jess reached out and grasped at nothing.
The thrust of an enormous roaring wave sent the ghostly figures of Ben and her mother catapulting into the air. A scream stuck in her throat. Paralysed by her inability to stop the inevitable, a dread washed over her.
Sweat rolled into Jess’s eyes as she blinked them open. She sat up and swung her legs off the bed as a strong cramp knotted in her calf. She winced, limped to the window, stared into the darkness, an
d placed the length of her trembling body against the cold glass. Beyond the tree line, shadows painted the night and fed her terrors.
“Jess?” Lili called out from behind the door. Her knock had been soft but persistent, and Jess could no longer ignore her presence.
“I’m okay. Please go away.”
“Can I come in?” Her tone had shifted from tentative to firm.
The door slid open, and light from the hallway streamed into the room. Lili stood silhouetted in the doorframe.
“I’m okay,” Jess repeated in a choked voice. She tightened her arms around her torso and stared, momentarily transfixed by the shimmer of light around Lili’s head.
Lili strode into the room, grabbed the blanket at the end of the bed, and wrapped it tightly around Jess’s body. It was comforting yet smothering at the same time.
“Thank you.” She pulled the blanket high around her shoulders, aware her tank top was damp and clinging to her body.
“You’re shivering.” Lili rubbed her hands up and down Jess’s arms. “Let’s sit down.” She placed her arm around Jess’s shoulder and helped her move to the edge of the bed. “I heard you—”
Jess flinched as Lili sat down beside her and lowered her gaze to where Lili’s hand rested on her thigh, near the edge of her sleep shorts. What was she doing?
“I heard you scream. I’m a light sleeper. Probably a mother thing,” Lili said in a slow, steady voice. “My room is at the other end of the deck, and sound travels through the open windows.”
She wasn’t flirting, was she? Despite Lili’s touch, she was just being a nice person, Jess thought.
“I’m sorry I woke you.” Jess loosened the throw around her shoulders. “I hope I didn’t wake Aruishi,” she said. “I am okay. Please check on your daughter and return to bed.”
“Don’t worry about Ru. She sleeps through almost anything.” Lili had removed her hand from Jess’s leg, but her proximity was disconcerting.
“I am really tired.” It was a genuine struggle to keep her eyes open.
