We’d seen each other this morning after Della and I had finished getting dressed in borrowed clothes and joined the Wilsons in their kitchen. We’d all shared an awkward reunion over toast and jam with strong coffee. Conversation hadn’t exactly been flowing, and apart from a clasped arm and bear hug, John hadn’t talked to us.
I’d understood his silence.
His grief was a physical thing, throttling his voice and heart.
But now, his face lit up, focusing on me and not on his dead wife—grateful for a reprieve. “Sit with me, my boy.” He snapped his fingers. “Sorry, not boy.” Wiping away the moisture on his cheeks, he chuckled softly. “Della would kill me for calling you that. She was rather adamant your name was Ren.”
I matched his chuckle, hiding a cough. “You’re right. It was a pet peeve of hers. Probably because I told her over and over again that my name was Ren and never to use anything else.”
I didn’t think I’d told him much of my sale to the Mclary’s, but sitting beside him, I offered up a piece of myself. “Her parents didn’t care what my name was. As a baby, she would’ve heard them call me boy. I guess something deep-seated like that can have strange consequences.”
John nodded, his eyes clearer, happy to focus on other things. “Sounds like that might be the case.”
We sat in silence for a bit. Apologises and kind words danced on my tongue, but nothing felt right. I didn’t want to hurt him deeper by saying the wrong thing. So I said nothing at all, hoping he knew how sorry I was in our shared silence.
Finally, he sighed heavily. “You lost, didn’t you?”
“Excuse me?” Glancing at him, I raised an eyebrow. “Lost what?”
“The battle on keeping her as your sister.”
Heat flushed my skin as I dropped my gaze to the ground. “Ah.”
“Yes, ah.” Reclining, he rubbed his mouth with his hairy hand and shook his head gently. “How long have you two, eh…”
“Two years.”
“Are you happy?”
I looked at the sky with an almost wistful exhale. “I was until this morning.” Looking at him, I shared my idiotic fears. “I screwed up a little. I guess being back here has tangled my thoughts somewhat.”
“Understandable.”
“I hate it. I hate this feeling of distance. I-I’m so afraid of losing her. I love her so much, but no matter how much I want to, I can’t protect her from everything. One day I’ll lo—” I cut myself off, horror drowning me. “Fuck, John. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean. Shit—”
“It’s okay.” He patted my shoulder. “I get it. I feel the same way about Patty.” He buckled as if someone had shot him. “Felt. I felt the same way about Patty.” He swallowed a few times, getting his grief under control. “I loved that woman, and I know the fear you’re living with because I’ve felt it myself. I think everyone feels it when they love something so much.”
I slouched, cupping my hands between my legs. “How are you coping now the worst has happened?” It was a terrible thing to ask, but I had to know. I had to understand how broken I would be if Della ever left me. Either by choice or death.
John took his time, staring at the headstones in front of us. “I’m still alive, against my better wishes, but I have a family relying on me. I can’t give up because I owe Patty to keep going. You can’t fear the end, Ren. Not when you have so much to look forward to.”
His words hovered between us.
I should’ve continued to let them hover. Instead, I blurted, “Della got pregnant. Ectopic. She got sick. It showed me just how much I’ve been avoiding the future, and that I can’t anymore.”
“I’m sorry.” His gruff voice calmed me somehow. “You know, I never liked seeing Patricia pregnant. I know some men say it’s the best thing they’ll ever experience—seeing their wives fat with their unborn child, but not me.” Shaking his head, his tone thickened. “I never relaxed until she’d given birth and was back at home happy, and bossy, and just as full of life as normal. Only then did I let myself focus on my new child.”
I’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to John.
Forgotten how nice it was to have someone to confide in when I wrapped myself up in knots. Even on a day like today.
“Thank you.” I nodded, coughing again. “That helps. Especially when I keep thinking I’m the worst man alive for hating the thought of Della getting pregnant, only to crave a family with her one day.”
John smiled sadly. “You’re not the worst. If you’re anything like you were before, you’re the opposite of worst.” Slipping back into a reclined position, he asked, “So, I’m guessing your last name…you’ve kept it? Do you introduce her as your wife instead of your sister?”
My heart skipped. “Look, we can talk about this another time. I-I don’t feel right. Today should be about—”
“Pat would want to know how you two are doing. Same as me. My grief isn’t going anywhere, Ren. Believe me. It’s nice to have a reprieve.” He cocked his chin. “Go on. Fill me in.”
I sighed again, amazed that in a few minutes of conversation, John had successfully brought up all my greatest fears and somehow given me freedom to discuss them. “Well, I put her through high-school. I watched her date assholes who didn’t deserve her. I hurt her by sleeping with women, all while doing my best to fight what I felt for her—”
“And when did you know what that was?” His bushy eyebrow rose.
I cleared my throat, unable to look him in the eye. “The night she ran away.”
“Yeah, I thought as much.”
“That was why you said not to come back, isn’t it?” I rubbed the back of my neck, unable to delete my tension. “You knew people wouldn’t be able to accept that we’d lied after we went so far to make it the truth.”
“I sent you away because you both needed to figure out who you were away from people who thought they knew for you.” He looked at the rain-threatening sky. “I fell for Pat when I was young. Fifteen, to be exact. I knew I wanted to marry her the second she smiled at me, but it took almost a decade to convince her father I wasn’t just trying to get her into bed.”
I laughed under my breath, smothering yet another cough. “Seems you won.”
“I did.” He smiled smugly. “I was married to my soulmate for forty-eight years. And I didn’t take a single year for granted.”
I kicked at a pebble, wanting so fucking much to have what he had. “I want to marry Della. And I’m going to somehow. But no one knows who we are. We don’t exist. We have no birth certificates or passports. How can we get married without that stuff?”
John flicked me a glance. “That will make it tricky.”
“But…not impossible?” I hated that my heart beat quicker, tasting hope.
“Nothing is impossible.” Giving me a watery smile, John patted my knee with his heavy paw. “I’m happy for you, Ren. I always knew you kids loved each other, and I’m not above admitting I was worried once or twice when I believed you were true relations. I’m glad you chose to fight for her and not go your separate ways.” Tears glistened again. “True love is a blessing and so damn hard to find.”
Placing my hand on his, I shared his grief. “Patricia loved you, too. You guys were a perfect example of a happy marriage when I didn’t have any role models. She helped me and Della so much.”
“That’s nice of you to say.” Letting me go, he stood with a weary sigh. “I suppose we better get to the wake, and then…you should probably tell my daughter that you and Della are no longer just siblings before she figures it out like I did.”
Standing, I coughed harder than I had in a while. My eyes watered as I cupped my mouth, waiting for it to pass.
“You okay?” John asked, worried.
I smiled, shoving the episode away. “Yeah, sorry. Damn cough just keeps lingering.”
“You were sick?”
“A while ago. Need some good ole’ home cooked meals to get my immune system back in working order.”
&nb
sp; John’s face fell. “Well the cook of the family has gone, so you’ll be stuck with chargrilled things on the barbeque from me, I’m afraid.”
I winced. “God, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t. I know. Let’s just keep talking about other things.” He waved his hand as we slipped back into a walk. “So, when are you going to tell Cassie?”
“Della thinks we should wait.”
“Wait?” He shook his head. “No, waiting doesn’t work in this world, Ren. She’ll be shocked, I’ll admit, and maybe a little hurt, but she’s in a good place now. Her and Chip are giving their relationship another chance, and little Nina will be coming in a few days. You can meet her. She’s adorable. Patty loved that little tyke.”
Following him through the graveyard, I asked, “Nina?”
“Cassie’s daughter.” He raised another eyebrow. “Her and Chip share custody right now while they figure things out. She’s six, almost seven.”
I froze, my inability to do fast math once again my downfall.
How long had Della and I been gone?
When was the last time I’d been with Cassie?
John must’ve understood the sudden whiteness on my face as he held up his hands. “She’s not yours, Ren.”
To go from shock to relief so quickly made my knees liquid. “Oh.”
“I will confess, I did ask her. She got pregnant not long after you guys left. But she said you two hadn’t been together in a while. That you’d pulled away from that part of the friendship, and had always used, eh, protection.”
“Protection doesn’t always seem to stop such things,” I muttered, thinking of Della’s complications.
“That’s true but rest assured, Nina isn’t yours. Even if Cassie didn’t do a paternity test, you can see for yourself she’s Chip’s, purely thanks to the flaming red hair of her father.”
Clasping an arm around my shoulders, he guided me into the church as if he were the one consoling me and not the other way around.
I let him be the patriarch—the role he played so well, for a little longer, but once we got to the wake, I stayed close by, monitoring his drinking, doing my best to change the subjects when his face grew blotchy and tears streamed silently down his face as he hung in the shadows.
He might have his own children, but if he let me, I would be there for him as much as they were.
We hadn’t discussed if we should stay or go or what the Wilsons expected, but by the time nightfall smothered the farm and the wake was over with a fridge full of casseroles and leftovers, Della and I cut across the driveway, pushed our single beds together, undressed without speaking, and reached for each other.
We were too emotionally exhausted to talk.
Too physically drained to do anything more than hug.
We returned to an age of innocence, where skin on skin contact was purely for comfort and nothing else.
We fell asleep in our old room, entangled and entwined.
Just as before.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DELLA
* * * * * *
2032
DEATH IS NEVER easy.
And it wasn’t any easier just because we hadn’t seen Patricia in a while or that we weren’t truly her children. Patricia had been a large part of our lives, and Cherry River didn’t feel the same without her.
Being back in that place…I wish I could warn myself.
Wish I could whisper what was about to happen.
It’s so obvious from where I sit in the future, but of course, with the complications between me and Ren, the residual childhood jealousy toward Cassie, and the overwhelming aura of grief on the farm, all of us were preoccupied with other things.
Things like accepting John’s invitation to stay and for Ren to resume his role running the fields.
We had no place else to be and no rush to leave and really, Ren had been searching for an answer to our future, and found a temporary one by brushing off his skills to work the land.
That first afternoon when he cleaned the rusty tractor from its cobweb jacket, greased ancient gears and cranks, and kicked her into a growling, diesel-coughing start, my heart fluttered with so many memories of him. So many memories of so many different Rens. Child Rens, teenage Rens, early twenties Rens, right to the thirty-year-old man I adored.
For a week, we spent our days alone, toiling in paddocks and debating what to do with grass long past its prime. Ren’s frustration grew thanks to the lack of care since we’d been gone, and his determination to take on the workload now that John could no longer handle it burned with need.
He announced war on nature, pulling up weeds that hadn’t been there before, liming entire meadows and harrowing others.
For seven days, we didn’t discuss what had happened when we’d first arrived at Cherry River, nor touched more than a sweet hug to go to sleep. There was always either someone too close or something more pressing to deal with.
Somehow, my request to keep our relationship hidden had backfired, and without thinking, walls were built and timelines crossed, so there was nothing to hide, after all.
No kisses to secret. No sex to avoid.
Cassie’s suspicions faded as more days passed, and Ren and I acted no different than we had when we were thirteen and twenty-three.
Plus…I was worried.
God, I was so worried.
Ren’s coughing hadn’t stopped.
And I didn’t know what to do.
I did my best not to hover or freeze when a small cough sounded and was almost glad of something else to think about when Cassie shared her own pain, revealing how Patricia had died of a sudden stroke.
No warning.
No signs.
Just woke up one morning, made breakfast as usual, and by the afternoon, she was gone.
She also confided in me about Chip and her daughter, Nina.
To say it was a shock hearing she had a daughter was an understatement.
I was angry she hadn’t told me.
Hurt that after years of messaging, she’d kept her a secret.
But then again, I had no right to be jilted. I’d done the same to her.
I hadn’t told her about me and Ren. I’d kept us a secret, too.
I’d spent my childhood knowing she was in love with him, just like I was.
I’d spent countless nights in tears while she touched him, just like I wanted. And, although we were all adults now and I knew Ren was mine, that sort of fear was deep-seated and nonsensical even as age made me wiser.
So, you can see why I asked Ren to keep our relationship hidden. Yes, I didn’t want to hurt Cassie at her mother’s funeral, but I also needed time to figure out how to apologise for thinking the worst of her all those years apart.
To admit that I was weak enough to be threatened by her.
She was the only one who truly understood what it was like to love Ren and not have him, and we would always share that in common.
But keeping the truth quiet was never going to work.
And on the seventh night, we were caught.
In more ways than one.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
DELLA
* * * * * *
2020
I’D BEEN DRINKING.
Not a lot, but a couple of glasses of wine with Cassie had made my fears over Ren amplify until I sat on the pushed together single beds in our bedroom to wait for him.
Seething.
Stewing.
Spiralling into terror that the reason he hadn’t touched me in a week was that he remembered what he had with Cassie. He remembered me as a little girl. He remembered too much to be with me.
Time had strange properties here. It had taken the seven years when Ren and I had lived alone and folded it so the two ends touched, forming a bridge from past to now and blurring everything in between.
I’d grown up a lot in the two years since Ren had claimed me. I’d grown to like myself more and stand up for the things I believed in. I’d bl
ossomed into someone worthy of him, and I hated, positively hated that confident Della now bowed to a less confident one.
That my fears over his coughing made me mad at him.
That my concerns over his blasé attitude made me rage.
I knew what was happening.
My anger was founded entirely in terror, but it didn’t make ignoring it any easier.
I’d started the week off blaming Cassie for my doubt, but sitting in the dark waiting for Ren, my heart showed the truth.
I loved Ren with every fibre of my being. There was no part of me that would survive if anything ever happened to him. My entire life he’d been everlasting and indestructible.
And to have that faith punctured every time he coughed…to have panic fill me, drop by drop, until I was close to overflowing…it made my hands ball and heart quake and an almost manic desperation to have him touch me, hold me, convince me that my mind was running away with me and everything was fine.
I’d tried voicing my fears before, but Ren didn’t tolerate my mother hen routine and he’d just kiss me, smile, and brush me off as if it were me with the problem.
However, this morning I’d woken with a new resilience and spent the day working beside him, holding oil cans and rags as he maintained the tractor’s decrepit engine, helping thread the twine through the baler when it snapped on the overly thick grass, and generally proving to him that I wasn’t a child he needed to be afraid of or a kid who couldn’t handle life.
As always, we’d fallen into a comfortable pattern working together, and by evening we were so tired it didn’t take much convincing for Cassie to get us to dinner.
The dining room looked the same as all the other times with one key thing missing.
Patricia’s place setting and presence.
It was a wound that still bled, and conversation stuck safely on subjects of the farm.
Adam had returned to his wife and two children, and Liam had stayed in town with his girlfriend. So it was just the four of us, and John kept looking at where Patricia would sit, and Cassie kept looking at her father.
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