Right on cue, the boys squealed and the table was filled with family fun. She smiled. Then shook her head at her pathetic attempt and made a decent laugh. She looked up as the laughter came, still just a little misty-eyed, and her gaze locked with a deep green one she knew well.
Her throat squeezed as her stomach twisted. She couldn’t hold his stare. She looked away, blinking hard. She stabbed at the pineapple on her plate.
‘You’re not paying attention to me.’ Timothy elbowed her in the ribs and he was right, she had no idea what he was saying. She drew her attention back to the boy telling her about school, instead of thinking of the man slowly revealing his difficult life.
Chapter 12
She didn’t see Lachlan again but the Friday night crowd was in and she was away from that, sitting with the families, so he may not have been a figment of her imagination. He might have been lost in the sea of men. She left when Carol and Alan did because the crowd was too much for her, and headed home. To peace and quiet.
Being with the Smiths had stopped her thinking about what she’d done to upset Lachlan but it had brought up different thoughts—like family. An evening with a harried mother and three noisy boys should have put her off having kids but it had awakened her longing for a family.
While she was walking upstairs, cursing her wandering mind, memory of Matt’s nose bleed brought to mind Paul’s photos. She had to look at them again. No matter how hard it would be, she had to do it. She booted up her laptop and shoved in the DVD with Paul’s last images. She’d never shown these to anyone. They weren’t Dulili photos so she hadn’t considered them for the gallery.
Focusing on the laptop screen, she tried to block every thought from her mind. She didn’t want to stop herself looking. If she thought about it, she probably would. This was going to hurt. These were the last things Paul saw. The last days he was alive. His last gifts.
Taken in the war-torn Syria, the vast majority of photos were of kids. Wide brown eyes stared at the camera. Sometimes with a slight grin or a big laugh, but mostly the faces were of sorrow and hardship. Lives too tough for kids so young.
As she worked her way through the shots, she imagined Paul taking them. Imagined him with his head tipped as he lined up the shot. Imagined him smiling with the child, or making a funny face to get the look he wanted. And that was it. That’s what had been bugging her about these photos. His first ones were like that—him capturing a child’s humour or shy smile—but then they became darker, capturing hardships, horror, and tragedy in the kids’ faces.
Had he lost his sense of humour? Or was the situation so awful that humour wasn’t the way to show it?
Paul would never lose his sense of humour. He must have realised that humour wasn’t right. He recognised the need to portray tragedy as it was, unembellished, through the eyes of the innocent.
And these kids were so innocent. Their lives must have been a waking nightmare. Some of them had haunted expressions, some looked with longing but only a few had hope, burning deep inside their stare.
The kids’ lives must be horrific. She needed to do something for them but they were so far away, what could she do? She flicked through Paul’s images again but her certainty only deepened.
She had to help these kids and kids like these.
A ragged sigh exploded when she reached the very last image. Two kids, arms twined around each other’s necks, held each other up as if that was all that could save them.
She rubbed her eyes with both hands, scratching her face with the heels of her hands. Her heart pounded and her stomach rolled somersaults. The hope in those gazes reminded her of green eyes that had also shown deep burning hope. A green gaze she’d fobbed off with humour. Eyes she hadn’t understood. A life she couldn’t imagine, even when he told her.
She’d reacted poorly to Lachlan last Sunday. She’d used humour to defuse the tension, which was inappropriate and showed her lack of understanding for him and his journey.
Alicia sat and stared at the screen, allowing her thoughts to run jumbled through her mind.
Lachlan had been holding her up. He supported her business by being an awesome employee. He supported her by helping with Paul’s exhibit. He was supporting the town by being a part of the dollar scheme. And he needed support because he had no one. What had she done to support him?
She’d employed him. She was helping him read. They were becoming friends. But was that enough?
Deep inside, she knew it wasn’t enough, for either of them. And that terrified her. She was holding back because she was scared of what might develop.
It hurt to admit that, even to herself. Her chest tightened. She shared a connection with Lachlan yet she kept denying it, hiding from it. Her heart was racing even as she thought about it.
Taking one last look at the image, she allowed it to burn into her mind. Then she shutdown the computer. She didn’t need the image in front of her to work out what she had to do now.
She wandered downstairs and let herself out into the yard where she could see the stars. She sat on the ratty old stool and stared at the heavens. She often spoke to the night sky hoping Paul could hear her. The darkness offered some comfort as well as hiding her.
‘I ballsed it up, huh?’ She crossed her arms, more for comfort than warmth. ‘You’re gone.’ She gulped as the wave of sorrow hit her. She missed him. Still. ‘But I have to work out how to live without you. I thought I was doing okay. I thought I was getting better at living. But I’ve failed. I failed Lach. It’s like your last photo, only we’re propping each other up not the kids. Yet when he needed me, I walked away. Maybe not literally but figuratively. I walled up. Didn’t give myself to him. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it?’
The inky silence held no answers. It never did. They were inside her. She knew what she had to do, it was the courage to do it that she required.
‘I don’t think I have it,’ she whispered to the heavens. A cool breeze scurried across her, like a whisper. She shivered. The breeze was stronger, cooler. It burrowed under her jumper. She stood and rubbed her hands briskly down her arms.
‘Oh, okay.’ A wretched sigh escaped her. ‘I get the message.’ She looked up to the stars and shook her head. If Paul was up there, he’d be laughing at her. Not just for talking to herself and pretending it was him she spoke to but for believing the breeze was pushing her to action.
She unlocked the back gate and walked across to the pub. It wasn’t yet closing time. She’d just see if he was there. No time like the present for apologising.
Inside, it was loud with music and voices. How quickly it changed in a few hours. People had now drunk too much to be quiet, some were naturally noisy, and others competed to be louder than the songs. Coming in sober, from the silence of the yard, it was almost too much.
Johno called from the bar. ‘You lost, Alicia?’
She gave him a grin. ‘I’m sleepwalking.’
He laughed. ‘Well, that explains it.’ He bundled up a few glasses in his large hands and looked at her. ‘You looking for Lachlan?’
She nodded, not even reacting to the fact that he knew why she was there and who she was looking for. He was the barman, he knew everything but fortunately kept most things to himself.
‘He left. About twenty minutes ago.’
‘Thanks.’ She made her way outside. She thought about going home and forgetting about it until morning but something nagged at her. Some niggling feeling she couldn’t ignore. It was probably guilt.
She hopped into her ute and headed out to …
She sucked in a big deep breath and held it for the count of six before exhaling heavily.
Oh, God. She was going out to Bullock Hill and to the house she and Paul had thought of as their home. At least she didn’t have to drive past her parent’s house. They had a separate entrance. She didn’t want them questioning her late night visit.
She bit her lips together while she drove, tempted to turn around. Was she strong enoug
h to go there? Her foot kept lifting off the accelerator but every time she slowed, she was reminded of Paul’s gallery. When she’d told Lachlan about the horror in her life, he turned it into something beautiful—for her and Dulili. When he told her of his horror, she’d done nothing. Sure, she held him. Sure, she told him nothing had changed. But that was just it. She pretended as if nothing had changed, when everything had.
She could drive the track to the house in her sleep, yet she paid attention to each dip, each pothole, and each bend in the road. She didn’t know why it was important but she needed to inscribe it on her brain. Or maybe it was a way to stop the panic that lurked inside her.
As she drove up the last of the two dips before the house, Lachlan’s house, the front verandah light came on. Like a flame, calling her closer, and she was a moth.
***
Lachlan heard the drone of a vehicle long before the headlights flickered along his drive. He went out onto the verandah, shirt untucked, feet bare, and hair dishevelled. He rarely had a visitor and none at night. But the vehicle was definitely headed to his place, there wasn’t anywhere else to go.
He wasn’t worried. He had a pretty good idea who it was, which was why he didn’t go out of his way to dress properly. If she was going to turn up in the middle of the night when she’d hardly spoken to him all week, he wasn’t going to dress for her.
When her ute stopped, he didn’t move, just stared at her through the passenger window, and she stared right back. There was a good fifteen feet of space, yet her gaze burned. He wasn’t able to break it. Something had changed.
The engine stopped, and he could hear the tick of it cooling. Then she broke their gaze and turned to get out. After the door had shut behind her and she’d walked to the front of the ute, he said, ‘You’re early.’
‘I’m early?’ Her confusion was clear in the way those words tripped out, rising at the end in a question. He couldn’t see her face but he bet her eyebrows were pulled down, her freckled nose scrunched and her lips pulled tight.
He looked at his watch. ‘Tomorrow doesn’t start for eight minutes.’
She took two steps towards him and then halted, as if she suddenly realised that he’d invited her out here, to talk, tomorrow.
‘Should I wait?’
He’d wanted more from her last weekend. He’d given her his very soul, and she’d made a joke of it.
He shook his head and waved to invite her in. He’d bet every cent he had that she’d be unable to come inside … but he’d also bet himself that she’d not come out here to talk, and here she was.
She walked up the steps to the verandah and stopped still.
He switched out the porch light. ‘We can sit out here if you want.’
‘Thanks.’ She gave him a nod but wasn’t really looking at him. If she was here to apologise, she’d be looking at him, wouldn’t she? Why was she here?
Alicia sat on the top step with her back against the house, facing him. He sat in the old rocking chair he’d recently done up. The chair was his favourite piece. The first time he’d sat it in, he felt as if it’d been made for him. The chair held him perfectly. It was why he’d done it up instead of buying something new. It gave him a sense of belonging, told him that he was meant to be here.
She nodded at the chair. ‘It looks good.’
‘Thanks.’
They sat for a long time. He had nothing to say. She’d turned up here so she must want to say something, something that couldn’t wait until morning.
He could wait her out. He’d spilled his secrets and she’d accepted them without a flinch. She was strong, smart, accepting but he wanted more. He knew she couldn’t give him more until she faced her past. He’d been like that in the Territory. If he’d met her up there, he’d be like she was—unable to give anything because the past was still alive.
His past only haunted him now. A distant memory that didn’t directly affect him, yet it hovered. One day he’d be strong enough to banish the ghosts by facing his mother but not yet. He wanted to be settled somewhere, his roots growing strongly, before he could face her. But she was no longer alive in his life. She had no part in his future.
Dulili was his future. A place he could settle. This rocker, the house, his job, the community, they were all exactly what he wanted. He held back because of Alicia. All those things were hers too … and he wasn’t sure she could share them comfortably with him. He wouldn’t stay if it made her uncomfortable. She was here first and deserved peace. If she wanted to live in the past, he couldn’t dangle the future, unwanted, before her.
‘I wasn’t very good on Sunday.’ Her words sounded like she’d had to tear them through a tight chest and throat.
He dragged in some cold night air, before he held out the verbal olive branch. ‘I dumped a lot on you without warning.’ He wasn’t apologising, just offering his understanding.
She shook her head. ‘Don’t make excuses for me.’
He closed his eyes, silently prayed. Did she know what he wanted? Did she want the same? Goosebumps prickled his neck and he squirmed a little.
The night was still. Not even the tawny frogmouth made a sound. He loved their eerie call now he’d worked out what they were. No frogs croaked in the small creek behind the house.
She made a tiny sound, like pushing air from her throat. ‘Everything changed when you shared your life with me, Lach. Everything. I was just too scared to acknowledge that.’
He didn’t say anything. He waited for her to give him more, his abdomen sucked in hard. He didn’t have to wait long.
‘Dulili means ‘together’. You helped me with my loss, and together we created Paul’s gallery. A tribute to him. A great memory. Something that’s helping me to recover from losing him. You allowed me to speak about him, to bring him back to life, he’s joined our friendship and it helps. It helps me every single day.
‘And for you … I did nothing. But I’d like to. I’d like to do something together, with you.’
He still wasn’t sure what she meant. ‘What do you want to do, Alicia?’ He spoke softly but there was a rawness to his question that he wished wasn’t there. He didn’t want to put pressure on her.
‘Help you make a new life.’ There wasn’t anything concrete in her answer but there was a wistfulness that gave him the tiniest bit of hope. Could she want to be more than friends? With him? Could she look to the future? With him?
‘How do you think I need help?’ he whispered, his voice thready and gruff, She turned but looked back out into the still darkness. The silence between them was punctuated by the quiet groan of wood as he moved in the rocking chair.
Lachlan didn’t think it possible that Alicia could want a life, a family, with him. That’s what he wanted. Maybe not now but in the future. He admired her dedication, her care, her work ethic. He wanted to experience love like she’d experienced with Paul. Was she strong enough to love again? The risk of loss would always be there and he wasn’t sure she’d take the chance again. He couldn’t blame her. Losing someone was the greatest pain he’d ever seen. An ache that never left. He wasn’t sure if he could ask her to take that chance for him.
Her legs were bent at the knee as she perched on the step and she curled herself around them, hanging on. He could feel her suffering but he couldn’t do anything to help. Then she spoke but her words came out all raspy. He couldn’t understand them.
She stopped, cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I need to make new dreams.’
She was still wrapped tight around her knees. ‘I was hoping that you might want to do that together.’
Frowning because he still couldn’t puzzle out exactly what she was asking, or offering, he asked, ‘My dreams or yours?’
The silence was absolute. Seconds lasted so long he wondered if time had ceased.
‘Ours.’ Her answer was more a breath than a word.
The darkness shrouded them. A cloud settled across the moon. This was probably the only chance he’d have to c
lear the air between them, to work out where he stood, what she wanted, whether there was any hope for a future, together.
‘Paul?’ He was asking a million questions in one word but he thought she’d work that out. He could never replace the guy, he’d been her first love, was her childhood friend. But he was dead. Lachlan was never going to be what Paul was to Alicia. But he could be her adult friend, her adult lover. A shudder ran down his spine. Apprehension, anticipation, wariness, excitement; all that and more.
She looked directly at him but the darkness shrouded her gaze. ‘Paul will always be a part of me. But he’s no longer here. I’ll always miss him. I can’t stop that. But I can’t have a future with a ghost. A ghost can’t give me the family I want.’
He dreamed she might say something like that, feel something like that, but he never expected it to happen. Now that it had, he was frozen.
Did he deserve her?
She spoke again. ‘I’m scared about moving on but I have to. Paul’d want me to continue living, and loving. I don’t know if I’m ready yet and I don’t want to promise something I can’t deliver. But if you think we can be friends, and move slowly toward something more, I’d like that. That is, if you’re interested in friends, or more. God, I don’t really know if you are. I—’
‘I am.’ His voice was strong. He didn’t know where that strength came from but he couldn’t bear her hesitation and fear as she stumbled at the end of her words. He smiled, hoping she could see it in the darkness, knowing she would hear it in his voice. ‘We’ll take this as slow as we need.’
There was another long silence but this time it was comfortable and easy. His concerns had been cleared away. She’d accepted her past, his past, and wanted to move forwards. He stared out into the darkness in complete peace.
Then a worry curled in his gut. ‘I need to go slowly too. I haven’t had a friend who’s a girl before.’
He could see her grin, her teeth shone in the darkness. ‘Slow is perfect.’ Her voice held a smile, like she was genuinely happy. It was probably the first time he’d heard that sort of happiness in her voice.
The Healing Season Page 14
