by Ryn Shell
“The primary school is about to finish. Some of the searchers just left to pick up their children.” Linton’s expression pleaded. “We’ve got what?” He searched the faces of the search team leaders. “Two hours of daylight left at most?”
“The mountain shadow means it gets dark fast in the hills,” a searcher said.
A senior police officer pressed forward and stood beside Rose. “Official quitting time is in an hour and a half, although I for one will not leave until we find the boy.”
The room buzzed with agreeing voices.
“Quiet,” Rose clutched at Linton’s arm. “What do you want to do?”
“You, Trevor and me. Let’s get to the school gate fast and get as many parents with little children as possible to come and have picnic tea beside the dam.”
Mainly quizzical faces greeted Linton’s suggestion.
Rose’s face lit up with joy. “Yes!”
Trevor’s voice drowned out the protests and complaints. “Right, I want all adults aside from young women like Rose…” he grasped her hand, “off of my property—or at least out of sight, here in the house. I want my boy found and I don’t—” Trevor’s voice broke.
“He’s scared of all the commotion going on, and I think he’s hiding because he thinks he’s going to get into trouble.” Rose yelled, “That has to be it.” She tugged at both Linton and Trevor’s hands. “Doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know, honey.” Trevor put his arm around her chest and squeezed. “I hope that’s the case, and he’ll come out if he sees us having a picnic by the dam.” He turned with moist eyes to thank Linton for giving them renewed hope.
Linton was already leaping fences, racing across the country to his truck. He geared it for the downhill grade and drove towards the small schoolhouse in the valley.
The news report on the radio stated, “A group of volunteer bushwalkers from across the country are converging at a camp near the entrances to Sherbrooke Forest in the Dandenong Ranges tonight. They will begin a coordinated search at first light tomorrow.” Pause. “The police warn that given the expected overnight temperatures and the boy’s youth, this might be a recovery mission rather than a rescue.”
With his jaw locked firm, his brows pulled close, Linton turned the radio off.
Forced to stop at an intersection, Linton turned the radio back on. His heart leaped in hope at a familiar voice—one of the searchers being interviewed. “Hopes are slim that the lightly clad child could survive the night in the cold.”
Another voice: “He’s had no water or food with him. They are scaling back the search. Calling it off until daylight.”
Linton almost broke the knob on the radio with the force of his knob turn. “Time for the mums and their kids team to go in. We are not quitters.”

The mums and kids team gathered. The local mixed goods store owner, a friend of Rose and Linton, had supplied dress-up costumes and bags of sweet lollies for all the children.
Soon colourful rugs and picnic baskets dotted the bank around the dam. Children raced about, thrilled to be involved in trying to find a lost boy. They played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, Batman and Robin, and there were quite a few super girls whooping and calling out.
“Carl, come and play.”
“Have some of my sweets.”
“Be careful they don’t fall into wombat holes,” Linton said to a group of mothers.
“Trust us, our children know the bush, probably better than you do.” A woman in slacks and pale blue angora twinset tapped on a rug on the ground. “Sit down and relax. Isn’t that what you want to convey to Carl—a relaxed family picnic that is safe for him to come out and join?”
Linton scanned his eyes around. Rose and Trevor sat quietly together, about a hundred metres from him, eating sandwiches. They looked—close. He felt as if he were a stranger out of place.
“I trust you,” Linton mumbled. “Sorry.” He took a long steadying breath and closed his eyes. How could Rose and Trevor eat? His stomach felt hard as a rock with dread that he’d organised a stupid tea party that was costing them the last precious moments of daylight that might be Carl’s only chance to survive.
You stupid fool, Linton’s inner voice said. Stupid! Stupid man gambling with the ones you love! Must you keep destroying those who trust you enough to believe in you and follow your wild impulses? Why did Rose listen to me again?
8
Why, Linton, why? Struggling with his guilt, Linton lowered his head, stood and shuffled away from the group of mothers and children. How could this happen after everything Rose and I have been through? Does she have to be punished more for what was never her fault?
The only men remaining near the dam were Linton and his brother Trevor. Linton believed, once this search was over, he should get into the truck and drive far away. Carl, when they found him—they must find him—never need know that Trevor wasn’t his father.
Linton’s body hurt from the effects of jarred muscles, reminders of climbing trees, squeezing between treeferns, and going where cautious searchers had avoided.
Rose would never know how having her say, “Yes!” to his suggestion and seeing her face light up when he’d given her renewed hope had affected him. Linton’s mind flew back to that last time when they’d been together without a chaperone—that time when he’d taken her as his own. Her love for him had made him feel as if he shone—he’d felt like he owned the heavens and earth for a brief moment when her eyes had told him she believed in him.
Rose blinked tears away as the fading light spread a silver gleam across the dam.
Mothers wandered solemnly past, clutching their own children’s hands and bidding farewell to Rose and Trevor. They sat, swigged down the last of a Thermos of cold coffee, nodding their thanks.
“You tried,” Rose said.
Trevor followed with, “We are so very grateful.”
Linton had sat, recovering from exhaustion, in the cabin of his truck for ten minutes. His troubled mind would not allow him to close his eyes and rest. He wanted, on the one hand, to gun the trucks engine and roar out of there and leave the fractured memories behind—but he could not turn the engine key. Destiny held him fast. There was too much left unresolved. It seemed like folly to stay, but he had to.
Carl will think like a child—what am I missing? Linton slid his legs over the side of the truck seat and leaped down. There was an urgency to his step. He sweated from exertion but was cooled by a chill breeze as he stepped into the open near the water, an unwelcome reminder that the hills were in the grip of a bitterly cold May. Rose and Trevor looked up and greeted Linton as if they’d expected him to join them.
“If he is alive…” Rose’s voice trembled, “…why haven’t we found him?”
“Maybe he is hurt, and they haven’t searched where he is,” Linton said.
“Maybe he was afraid, with so many searchers about. He isn’t used to crowds,” Trevor said. “Then, we might have been too quiet with our picnic. Suppose he’d taken a nap and didn’t hear us.”
“That could happen.” Linton nodded. He looked out to the mud islands. “How far out would he need to be for him not to hear the children playing?”
Linton walked into the water, his eyes fixed on a drifting swan’s nest. “Come and play with me,” he called. “Want to share my jelly beans and water?” Linton’s call brought no response, aside from the croak of frogs.
Rose waded into the water beside Linton. They clasped hands to steady themselves, then stood still watching and listening.
“We should go home,” Trevor called.
“Shush!” Rose replied.
Linton gazed with admiration at Rose. A film of sweat covered her brow, despite the descending cold night air. The hem of her shirt was untucked, muddy and torn. There were dried blood stains on her hands—she’d not been a passive observer of the search. Linton longed to hug her—say he still loved her. “You did well,” he said. “You tried.”
> Trevor waded into the water beside Rose and patted her shoulder. “I’ll take you home.”
“Shh,” Rose whispered. “Listen and look.”
Linton fumbled in his pocket for a pen torch and shone it out over the water. “Please come out and play with me.”
“I’ll give you a piggyback home,” Trevor called out in a faked cheerful tone with a strange choked-back chuckle at the end of it.
“Yuck!” Rose mouthed the word and swiped several leeches off Linton’s arm.
He gripped Rose’s hand and strode out to waist deep in the water. They were at eye level with an anchored-in-place by reeds, swan’s nest.
“We will have to get home soon,” Trevor said. “This is crazy.”
“We can’t go much further.” Rose released Linton’s hand and waded further into the dam. Linton illuminated her with the torch light, moving ahead so he could shine the light on her face.
He was there as she slipped, grabbing and steadying her—somehow managing to clasp on to the penlight. She reached out and grasped his outstretched hand.
Linton held her hand firm. “You can’t go any further.”
They stood still, shivering, until their feet, hands and lower legs had gone numb. Disheartened, they turned to retreat.
A black swan honked.
Rose and Linton swung around; the sound was close. The black swan moved, drifting in the water. The black mound in the nest was silhouetted against the moonlight.
Linton gasped. Rose’s sudden leap forward almost caused him to drop the torch. He caught it before it hit the water.
The mound in the swan’s reed-island nest moved.
A weak voice carried across the water to Carl’s three overwhelmed parents. “I want to go home.”
What had appeared to be an extended swan’s neck became a frantic flailing arm.
Rose grabbed the torch and Linton rushed forward wading through the water with his arms out ready to scoop little, lost Batman into them. Rose caught up to him. The lake surrounds rang with their joyous laughter, whispered soothing reassurances, the deep-throated protest and flapping wings of disturbed waterfowl.
The boy, Carl, rose unsteadily, his teeth chattering. Trevor was on an adrenalin high of excitement. He whooped and hollered, the sounds piercing the night, bringing many from the day’s search party racing back to find the boy embraced within the arms of his family—Linton, Rose and Trevor.

“Great job,” Linton said into his rear-view mirror. He gunned the engine for real. He’d not overstay his welcome this time. Having last seen the boy wrapped in his brother’s arms and convinced that Rose did not know she and Carl were always on his mind and in his heart made his pulse thump.
Envy or rage? Why now? He’d not felt those emotions in years. Discovering he was still attracted to Rose, experiencing that surge of love for Carl, that was no reason to hate Trevor. He should be done with such childish stuff. He needed a shower.
Parking close to residences, Linton slipped into a side garden. He stripped and hosed the muck from the dam off his body. Holding the bundled filthy clothes, he streaked back to the truck, imagining neighbours peering through the slats of their Venetian blinds. He chuckled at the thought of them trying to focus on his face and identify the looney man in the dim light. Better get out of the town before the police come for me.
The cold shower had cleaned up his foul mood and he, both shivering and grinning, relived the elation as his outstretched arms had grasped and lifted his son from the birds nest mound.
As he changed into clean clothes in the truck cabin, the radio news report announced that astronauts had successfully repaired the heat shield on Skylab and that a missing lad had been found safe and well on his parents’ property. There would be snowfall as low as six thousand feet. Linton drove forward cautiously. He needed to get out of the mountains before there was black ice on the roads.
Rose, I’m so proud of you and our kid. I’m so glad that you have my brother Trevor looking after you both. I’ll always love you, but I’ll not return and risk interfering in your life again. Carl doesn’t need the confusion of finding out Trevor isn’t his daddy.

Rose lay on top of the double bed, where she had carried Carl in her arms. She held him tight, stirring only when Alvin covered mother and child, from the neck down, with a blanket.
“How could he leave me again, after all that we’ve been through? How could he leave me…” Her voice trailed away to a broken sob.
Alvin darted to the front door and grabbed the car keys off the hook. Trevor already had the door open.

When the snow started to fall, Linton pulled the truck over into a wide road verge and stopped for the night. Then he crawled into the bed, straightened out the mess that had been made there during the search for Carl, and went to sleep.
Linton imagined that he lay with her once more and they had their son Carl between them. Though partly in a dream state, he was acutely aware of the sensation of touch, and he could have sworn it was real. In his fantasy, they were together on a sultry summer’s evening, and Rose’s arms reached across Carl to stroke his body. That was what he wanted—needed, to lie with them both and celebrate just being together, complete as a family. The native wattle trees flowered out of season. They swayed their golden blooms overhead. Golden yellow, the colour to celebrate homecoming—his and Carl’s return. He was home to stay.
He fell deep into a dream of their future, their lives together, the farm, and more children. He saw a daughter in their future, and it was all confused with Skylab. Some spaceship wanted to take him away from those he loved. It was bashing on the sides of his truck, flashing light, trying to break in and get him on board, take him away.
The noise wasn’t Skylab or Rose and Carl. Linton flicked his eyelids open—wide awake. The thumping on the door was real, as was his sweat. Peering through his window was Trevor and the man Linton recognised as his friend, the one who’d helped provide the search teams with refreshments.
“The district doesn’t have to know what goes on at our place,” Trevor said as Linton wound down the window.
Linton braced against the cold rush of air.
A young man thrust his manicured hand towards Linton. “Alvin’s the name.”
“I know who you are.” Linton scowled.
“Get your arse back to the house where it’s needed,” Alvin said. “It’s too cold to stand and argue with you here.”
“Rose and Carl both need you.” Trevor crouched to line his eyes up to Linton’s.
“We can all talk about it in the morning. Just get home where you belong.”

Linton studied the small freckle-faced boy, with the angelic blond hair, asleep in Rose’s arms. Tiny tapered fingers, ethereally beautiful, as his mother was of nature and earth.
He gathered up a quilt and cushion from the lounge room, returned to her room, quietly slid an armchair beside the bed and settled in, with no intentions of sleeping, his insides curled with the desire to hold them both.
He’d loved her at fifteen. In all fairness, she was almost sixteen and at the age of consent when they first loved. It was evident that she was a loving mother. Now he hoped that he too would have a chance to laugh with his boy at play, soothe his tears and get to know him well before he grew too old for cuddles. Between them, Rose and he has created something perfect from the mess of their teenage years.
He would make the separation of the last few years up to them and do everything in his power to give Rose and Carl the love and security he owed them. His shoulders slumped in peace. At twenty-one, Linton had come home and had begun the process of making peace with himself by assuming responsibility for others.

Rose, Linton and Carl spent the day doing farm chores together, not forcing things, just developing friendship and the adults hiding their growing love. Carl was more demonstrative and begged for hugs and piggyback rides.
> As Rose lifted Carl on to Linton’s back, she experienced tingling excitement, attraction and confusion. She had no plans to allow him just to walk into her life and think that nothing had changed. Just the same, with Carl so happy in Linton’s company she refrained from telling him not to assume he could snap his fingers, and she’d come to him again. As the day wore on, and they sat beneath an early flowering almond tree to allow Carl to rest across both their laps, Rose found herself longing to lie against Linton. She willed that he’d slip his arm around her waist and she’d be able to excuse not brushing him away so as not wishing to awaken Carl.

Linton decided to wait until the following evening before hitting them with what he suspected. Alvin served the evening meal, a beef stew, right on cue for Trevor to arrive home and have time to wash and change into clean clothes for dinner. Rose put Carl to bed early and opened a bottle of red wine, leaving it to breathe.
“You’ve been very quiet over dinner,” Trevor said. “What have you been mulling over?”
“I need to talk to you.” Linton took a half slice of bread and mopped his plate with it. “Alvin, this…” he popped the bread in his mouth. “Hmm.” He looked at the remains of the meal with appreciative eyes. “Too good to leave a drop.”
“Well, what is it you want to say?” Trevor asked.
“I haven’t seen the account books yet, so I’m just going on what I’ve seen on the farm and the garden journals…”
Alvin scraped plates together.
Trevor took a long swig of wine. “And?”
Linton said tremulously, “You haven’t told me that you were in financial trouble. I need to know the extent of it so I can tell if my recovery plan will work.”
Rose and Trevor exchanged glances. Alvin busied himself, his head bowed over the sink.
“What have you told him?” Trevor’s face clouded over as he looked accusingly at Rose. “You might have filled me in about this first. I’ve just about busted my gut making this dream of yours stay afloat.”
