Heart of the Cross

by Emily Madden

  Tam was right about people wanting to chat—no sooner had she finished one conversation, Brie was pulled into another. People who had worked with or for Rosie, charities she had supported, even Rosie’s drycleaner was eager to share his favourite Rosie memory.

  When the crowd thinned, she took a seat and peeled off her shoes.

  ‘You look like you could use one of these.’ Tam appeared with a glass of red and Brie smiled her thanks.

  ‘Excuse me.’ A young woman in her early twenties smiled hesitantly. ‘I’m Sienna Di Norro.’ She offered a hand and Brie stood up to shake it.

  ‘Sorry,’ she gestured to her feet, ‘I’m not used to wearing heels.’

  ‘It’s fine, you’ve been on your feet all day and I know a lot of people wanted to talk to you this evening.’

  ‘How did you know Rosie?’

  ‘I didn’t. My nonno and nonna did. My nonna died before I was born, but my nonno spoke of Rosie often. He died last year.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Thanks. I know that he would’ve wanted me to come and pay my respects, and to give you these.’ Sienna reached into her handbag and retrieved a battered deck of cards.

  Brie took them curiously and it was then she realised they weren’t playing cards, but snap cards.

  ‘Um, thank you,’ Brie said politely.

  ‘They belonged to Rosie’s son; would that be your dad?’

  Curiosity gave way to unease. ‘Rosie didn’t have a son. I’m Maggie’s daughter. Are you sure you have the right Rosie Hart?’

  Sienna looked taken aback. ‘It could be possible that Nonno was confused. Despite coming here in the early fifties, his English wasn’t the best.’

  But there was something in her gut that told Brie this was more than a simple mix-up. ‘Sienna, do you know how Rosie and your nonno knew each other?’

  ‘Nonno and his brother, Giuseppe, had a deli in Kings Cross in the fifties and sixties. Apparently, Rosie was one of their regular customers. She would correct Nonno on his English. They sold it sometime in the early sixties and bought another one in Haberfield. It’s been in the family ever since.’

  Kings Cross. There it was again. When did Rosie say she arrived in Australia—1962? Or was it 1963? Her mother was born in 1968, so it had to be before then, but how much longer before then? And if Sienna’s family sold their deli in the early sixties … something wasn’t adding up. If Rosie had lived in Rose Bay since arriving in Australia, why would she travel to Kings Cross to shop at a deli? Surely there would’ve been one closer.

  ‘What was the deli in Kings Cross called?’

  ‘I’m not sure, sorry,’ Sienna said. ‘Nonno always referred to it as the “Kings Cross deli”. My dad might know more details. My parents are in Europe, but they’re due back next month. I can get him to contact you if you’d like?’

  Brie fingered the faded rust-coloured cards. ‘Yes, that would be great, thank you.’ The longer she spoke to Sienna, the more convinced she was that the cards she held were another part of the jigsaw of secrets Rosie had kept.

  ‘I’m sorry—I’ve upset you,’ Sienna said.

  ‘No, it’s just been a long and tiring day.’

  ‘Of course, that’s understandable. It was nice to meet you, Brie, and I’m sorry for your loss.’

  Before Sienna walked away, Brie said, ‘I’m sorry, I never asked. What were your grandparents’ names? Maybe that would trigger my memory. Rosie met so many amazing people over the years.’

  ‘Alberto and Rubina, but we all knew them as Albi and Ruby. Which funnily enough is the name of this café! What are the chances?’

  As Sienna walked away, Brie lowered herself into the chair.

  Albi and Ruby.

  Alberto and Rubina Di Norro.

  What was the probability? Her gut was telling her the chances were high.

  ‘Brie, are you okay?’ Tam’s voice was threaded with concern. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  No, she hadn’t seen a ghost, but a ghost had left secrets, secrets that she was determined to uncover.

  Ten

  Brianna

  After she returned home from Rosie’s wake, Brie turned on her laptop for the first time since she arrived. There was a message from Seb touching base to see how she was going. She shot back a reply filling him in on what she’d discovered since arriving. He came back with:

  Does that mean you’ll be in Sydney for a while?

  She looked at the question and replied with the only answer she knew for now.

  I don’t know.

  She flipped the lid down and headed up to shower, hoping that by the time she was finished she had answers. Except it wasn’t Seb she thought of as the warm water sluiced her face. It was Josh.

  Shit. She scowled, shaking her head as if getting rid of him would be that easy. Why was it that even though she hadn’t thought of him in years, the moment she saw him, he could make her feel like that teenage girl who had left him behind to travel the world?

  ‘It’s not like that, Josh. I’m not leaving you—I’m leaving to find me.’

  He didn’t get it—how could he? Josh Cooper had known all his life who he was and where he had come from. It still bugged her that he’d been there today, although she hadn’t seen him at the wake. Probably needed to get home to his perfectly domesticated stay-at-home wife and their perfect two-point-four kids. He probably had a dog—a Pomeranian named Coco and a fluffy white cat named Bella.

  Argh! Damn you, Josh Cooper.

  At least the likelihood of running into him again after today was slim to none. Their lives were in such different spheres. Worlds apart—they always had been. Wasn’t that the problem from the very beginning? Abigail, his mum, knew that. She’d never warmed to Brie or Rosie. Abigail Cooper considered the Harts unconventional and couldn’t understand why Rosie needed to support so many ‘willy-nilly’ charities. The truth was, Abigail Cooper was an Eastern Suburbs snob, and no matter how successful Rosie was, she never would have thought them good enough.

  Brie towelled her hair then padded back downstairs. She poured a massive glass of wine and sank into a chair. She sent Seb a more detailed message. She told him that she’d been left with some unexpected legal and property issues to deal with, that it would take at least two weeks, maybe longer, to sort out. At least that much was the truth. His response was almost instant—asking her to keep him updated and what did she want to do with her camera?

  Shit. Brie had totally forgotten she had left her stuff with him. She’d left in such a hurry she hadn’t thought it through properly. The company she was freelancing for had given her a fortnight off. Brie had assumed she would be back in Tokyo by then, but now it looked unlikely. She replied that it was best if he sent the equipment to her—just in case. Seb’s reply was short and sweet.

  OK.

  Seb was a nice guy, too nice really. He’d make some girl happy one day, just not her. Maybe Brie was never destined to find her one. She couldn’t decide where she belonged, let alone having someone to belong to. Brie sighed. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on the mess of her life, so she focused on searching for Sienna Di Norro. She wasn’t hard to find so she sent her a message, thanking her for coming today and reminding her that she would love to meet her father when he was back in the country.

  She sipped her wine and resisted searching for Josh Cooper. It was late, she was tired and emotional, what good could come out of it? Her resolve crumbled somewhere between the last gulp and refilling her wine. Her fingers were typing his name before she could stop them. Then she hit ‘enter’ and waited. The best scenario was for the internet to crash right about now, but it didn’t. Instead, pages and pages worth of Josh Coopers filled her screen; it didn’t take long to find the one she was looking for.

  She clicked on his page, and immediately she could tell he wasn’t very active. Only one profile shot of him and a dog, not a Pomeranian as she fictitiously had assumed, but a chocolate Lab. That
was it. No wife, no children. Nothing.

  Huh. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t married, or had a partner, or girlfriend. He probably was one of those people who set up a profile and forgot all about it. She clicked through his friends list—there were only fifty-two of them (which backed up her inactivity theory), and seven of them were mutual friends.

  Did that mean he’d had access to her life all these years? How had she not searched for him before now? If he wasn’t active on Facebook, was he on Twitter? Instagram? Snapchat? Tumblr? LinkedIn? Tinder?

  I wonder if he has the same profile shot on Tinder? I bet the girls go gaga over that cute dog. Okay, now you’re just plain crazy.

  Flipping the laptop closed before she could social-media stalk him any further, she drained the last of her wine and went to bed.

  * * *

  Brie spent most of Sunday packing Rosie’s things. She had discovered from the real estate agent that settlement was in a few weeks, so she figured she would take that time to carefully go through Rosie’s things in search of clues. What exactly she was looking for, she had no idea, but she was hoping that when she found it, she would know. She had found one more clue: initials written on the back of what seemed the cover of the snap cards—JF. Who or what JF was she didn’t know, but she was going to find out.

  By late Sunday afternoon, her neck and arms ached from lifting, sorting, packing and shuffling boxes. She hadn’t made a dent in what needed to be done, but so far she hadn’t uncovered anything further about whatever Rosie had been keeping from her.

  Her phone buzzed as she made what seemed like the hundredth trip down the stairs. With her arms full, she waited until she could safely place the box down to answer the call.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Tam. What are you doing?’

  ‘Packing.’

  ‘What have you been doing all day?’

  ‘Packing.’

  ‘Then it’s time for a break. I’m picking you up in half an hour; you’re coming to dinner.’

  Tam hung up before Brie could protest. Brie messaged back that she couldn’t possibly come to dinner. She didn’t want to impose on Tam’s family, and besides, she needed to wash her hair.

  Tam responded right away.

  You have forty minutes.

  * * *

  Dinner was at Adele’s place, Tam’s mum, and Brie quickly cottoned on that it was a weekly Sunday-night affair. Normally, Tam’s brother, Colin, and her gran would be there, too, but apparently, Colin was on a work trip and Tam’s gran was somewhere in the Pacific on a seniors’ cruise.

  ‘I wonder what shenanigans Gran’s getting up to this time,’ Tam mused as she expertly set the table with Iris hanging off her hip. Brie had offered to help, but was instead handed Kai, who was currently ploughing through something that resembled smashed arrowroot biscuits.

  ‘Argh, I don’t want to even think about it,’ Adele groaned.

  Tam giggled. ‘The last time she went on one of these “cruises”,’ she explained to Brie, using her fingers as quotation marks, ‘she came back with an STI.’

  Brie felt her eyes bulge out of their sockets. ‘Pardon?’ she asked, thinking she perhaps had misheard.

  Adele rolled her eyes. ‘She came home with chlamydia. Apparently, the Sailing Seniors tour is well known for being a bit of a … how should we put it? A bonk fest.’

  Tam was in hysterics. ‘More like Slutty Seniors,’ she managed in between belly laughs.

  Brie bit down on her lip, trying hard not to crack.

  ‘Do you know how embarrassing it is taking your eighty-one-year-old mother to have a vaginal swab?’ Adele lamented, clearly finding far less humour in the whole situation than her daughter.

  ‘Oh come on, Mum, how was Gran supposed to know that all her symptoms were because she was having unprotected sex? The poor dear thought she just had another bladder infection.’

  ‘That poor dear didn’t come down in the last shower. Just because she’s way, way past falling pregnant doesn’t mean she’s immune to catching a disease that at her age could kill her! I mean, it’s bad enough that she’s having sex.’ Adele shuddered.

  ‘Well, you’ll be pleased to know that I made sure I packed enough condoms in her suitcase, and I gave her a demonstration of how to put one on.’

  Adele shuddered once again and Tam laughed so hard, tears were leaking out of her eyes.

  Tears formed in Brie’s eyes, but for different reasons. Rosie had been a wonderful grandmother. When her mother died, Gran had become a sole parent, too, and though Gran had loved her dearly, Brie never felt fulfilled. Not knowing who her father was had been a huge gap in her life, not only growing up, but now, also. However, she would never know who he was—her mother was gone long before Brie had been old enough to realise she didn’t have a father so she was never able to ask, and Rosie didn’t know either, so the brutal fact that there was a whole genetic path, a whole part of her she would never know, ate at her.

  ‘Honey, are you okay?’ Adele’s concerned voice pulled Brie out of her reverie.

  Blinking away her unshed tears, Brie let out a shaky breath. ‘Yes, it’s just hit me … Rosie’s gone and she’s all I had left.’

  ‘Aww, honey.’ Adele wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her tight. ‘I know this has been really hard on you, but don’t you worry, we can adopt you and you can be part of the Sloane-Kelly clan.’

  ‘We’re a bit crazy, just so you know,’ Tam warned.

  ‘Hey, who’re you calling crazy?’ John protested as he opened a bottle of red and poured three generous glasses. ‘There are no crazies in the Sloane family, all the lunacy comes from the Kellys.’

  ‘Ha!’ Adele gave a short laugh. ‘That’s what you think. Every family has a little crazy. I say there are three things that every family has—secrets, scandals and loose screws.’

  Brie knew her family had secrets, and maybe the fact that there were skeletons in the closet also meant there were scandals.

  Tam settled the kids before they all sat down for dinner. Brie couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a roast dinner; in fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had been round to someone’s house for a home-cooked meal. Actually, it probably was at Josh’s house and the vibe and conversation had been nothing like this.

  Thankfully, talk moved away from families and secrets and onto Brie’s life working overseas. Particularly what it had been like to cover the Japanese tsunami, witnessing the sheer devastation caused not only by the killer wave but also by the post-disaster health conditions, and visiting the deserted towns evacuated due to the damaged nuclear reactor plants. She told them that the town that had struck a chord and stayed with her years afterwards was the tiny fishing village of Minamisanriku, one of the hardest-hit areas.

  ‘Before the tsunami struck, there was a handful of photos on the internet. Now there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of images, and they all show the same thing—a vast expanse of mud and wreckage where a town once stood.’

  Brie pulled out her phone and showed some comparison shots of the village. The others’ gasps were collective.

  ‘Goodness,’ Adele murmured.

  ‘Did you take these photos?’ Tam asked in awe. ‘The devastation is mind blowing.’

  ‘Aha.’ Brie nodded. ‘Ninety-five per cent of the town’s buildings were completely destroyed and they lost half of their population. It was one of the most heart-wrenching assignments I’ve had.’

  ‘You read disaster stories, but the images are the ones that hit home. You forget that someone who is as shocked as you had to go there, often risking their life to take the photo. No wonder Rosie was so proud of you,’ Tam said.

  ‘She often spoke about you, her brave Brianna,’ John said as he started to clear the table. Brie went to help him, but he stopped her. ‘Sit and relax. Actually, that goes for you two as well.’ He motioned to Adele and Tam. ‘I’m going to bring out a new dessert that I whipped up this arvo. I’ll use you
guys as my test crew before I decide if we’ll have it in the café.’

  ‘Oh, I love being a guinea pig!’ Tam exclaimed.

  ‘And I love you, my little piggy.’ John dropped an affectionate kiss on top of his wife’s head.

  ‘Hey.’ Tam furrowed her brows and took a swipe at John as he walked away. ‘Who are you calling a piggy?’

  ‘Tam and John told me St Pat’s was standing room only,’ Adele said, refilling her wineglass.

  ‘And I’d say we had nearly everyone back at Albi & Ruby’s for the wake,’ Tam added.

  ‘Not everyone, thank God,’ Brie muttered as she took a sip from her glass.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tam cocked her head to the side. ‘Was there someone there who upset you?’

  Brie sighed. ‘Josh Cooper, a former boyfriend, was at the church and the cemetery, but thankfully not at the wake.’

  ‘Josh Cooper …’ Tam narrowed her eyes. ‘Why does that name sound familiar?’

  ‘Abigail, his mother, is big in the Eastern Suburbs socialite scene; you may have met her—rail-thin wasp of a woman with beady eyes and a mouth that resembles a cat’s bum.’

  ‘No, it’s not her, although thanks for the heads-up. It’s the name Josh Cooper that rings a bell. John might know.’

  ‘John might know what?’ John breezed into the room, expertly carrying three plates. Once he’d served them all, he sat back down next to Tam.

  ‘Josh Cooper, where do we know that name from?’

  ‘Josh Cooper?’ John mused for a moment before the penny dropped. ‘Hey, isn’t he the guy who’s leasing Rosie’s café in Kings Cross?’

  Brie felt winded and light-headed at the same time. Rosie didn’t have a café in Kings Cross. Not that she knew of anyway. Was this yet another one of Rosie’s secrets? And if so, how and why had Josh become involved?

  ‘Is the café on Victoria Street?’ she asked John.

  ‘Yeah, it’s meant to be amazing. I’ve been meaning to check it out.’

  Brie forked her cake, her hand pausing midair as she tried to make sense of the jumble of emotions crowding her brain—disbelief, betrayal, hurt. ‘I’ll let you know,’ she said drily, ‘I’m heading there tomorrow.’