One by one the passengers were instructed to climb into the basket and take their assigned places. One woman had a minor panic attack but Jasper spoke softly to her, reassuring her she was in good hands.
‘I have an incident free record,’ he said, ‘and I don’t intend to break it this morning. Come on, I promise this will be the best fun you’ve ever had.’
She let out a long sigh and then nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll do it.’
From there the flight went smoothly. Jasper couldn’t have asked for a better group—they followed the safety instructions to a tee and asked really sensible questions. They oohed and aahed over the scenery and took numerous photos of the vineyards and rolling hills below them. After a while he found he wasn’t acting anymore, but genuinely enjoying their company.
The time flew quickly as it always did up in the air and his guests expressed bitter disappointment when he told them it was time to head back down. As the basket returned to earth, bumping three times along the ground before planting itself, Jasper glanced across the faces of his passengers and grinned. The tourists climbed out, their voices buzzing with excitement as they relived the experience to each other. As they helped deflate the envelope and roll it back up to fit inside its plastic casing, some of them were already planning another flight.
And Jasper couldn’t blame them. He could hardly wait until tomorrow morning when he was scheduled to take another group up into the air. Until today, he hadn’t realised just how much he’d missed flying these last few weeks.
As always, Jasper, Luke and his parents took their clients to a local café for breakfast, and despite the bacon and egg roll he’d scoffed earlier, Jasper ate heartily. Maybe it was the fresh country air or perhaps the company and conversation, but the appetite that had been all but missing lately seemed to have returned.
‘It was good to have you back,’ Paul said, patting him on the back as they waved goodbye to the last of their guests. ‘I hope you enjoyed yourself a little.’
‘I did. I really did,’ he said, still smiling.
Standing beside them, Wendy also smiled. ‘That’s wonderful, sweetheart. Have you got any plans for the rest of the day?’ She didn’t give him time to answer. ‘I was thinking we should look at setting up your spare room.’
He stared at her blankly, no idea what she was on about. ‘The spare room? What for?’
‘For Harper of course. Isn’t she coming up here for a while once the baby is out of hospital? We can’t expect her to stay in a hotel for such an extended period—and she’ll want to spend as much time as she can with Anaya—so I assumed she’d stay with you. And I thought we should at least put a double bed in the spare room so when her husband comes up to visit, they’ll be comfortable. You can borrow one from our place.’
His good mood deflated faster than a rubber balloon with a hole in it. While he was up in the air, he’d almost forgotten. He’d been able to enjoy the stupid fantasy that things were how they’d always been and to pretend that the only reason Claire wasn’t on the ground chasing for him was because she was with their baby. Although his mum meant well and was only trying to help, her mention of Harper brought reality crashing down.
The glee he’d experienced while flying whooshed out of him and he felt like an empty shell again, someone who was going through the motions out of necessity, not desire.
‘Actually, I might head back to the hospital for a few hours,’ he said, already digging in his pocket for his car keys.
Paul frowned. ‘I thought you weren’t heading back till tomorrow. Isn’t Harper there with Anaya now?’
‘Yes. But I want to be there as well.’
Or more to the point, he didn’t want to go back to his house where the silence and absence of laughter would only remind him of what he’d lost.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Seven weeks after Claire’s death, Jasper took Anaya home from the hospital. As much as it pained Harper not to be there on this monumental day, she chose to stay away. Welcoming the baby into his house without Claire would be hard enough, so she decided to give him a day to settle in before she arrived for her six week stay.
But she’d packed her car, said goodbye to Lilia and the team at work, met Samuel near his office for dinner and then gone to bed early before driving up to the Hunter Valley first thing the next morning.
‘It’s not even eight,’ Jasper said when he opened the door to her. ‘You must have been up at the crack of dawn.’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she confessed. ‘Too excited. So how was your first night?’
In reply, he yawned. ‘Let’s just say I don’t think she’s a huge fan of her bassinet, and she may be nocturnal. She’s lucky she’s so damn cute because I didn’t manage to settle her until four o’clock, when we both collapsed on the couch. Then she was up again at six demanding a bottle.’
Harper swallowed the impulse to say something about co-sleeping not being safe, especially with a premature baby. But really, what did she know? Although she’d spent the last few weeks devouring every parenting handbook she could get her hands on, she still didn’t have any more personal experience than Jasper did. And she didn’t want to start off their already unorthodox arrangement by undermining him. ‘Where is the little cherub now?’
‘On the couch again. Go on in if you want and I’ll make us both a cup of coffee.’ He tried to stifle another yawn. ‘Lord knows I need one.’
As Jasper headed into the kitchen, Harper dropped her handbag to the floor by the door and turned off the hallway into the living room. Although everything looked much the same as it had when she and Samuel visited all those months ago, she felt Claire’s absence strongly and could only imagine how hard being here must be for Jasper. She didn’t linger long on this thought because her gaze went to the couch where Anaya was sleeping peacefully in some kind of floral cushion fort.
Jasper had left plenty of space around her and Harper had to admit that—wrapped up tightly like an insect in a cocoon—she looked pretty damn safe. Although she didn’t mean to wake her it had been two days since she’d seen her and she couldn’t help reaching out and scooping her up. Anaya’s eyes blinked open and she made a little murmur as she looked up into Harper’s face. She quieted again as soon as Harper sat on the couch and settled her on her chest.
Jasper returned with the coffees a few moments later, but she didn’t drink hers until it was cold because she wouldn’t risk a hot drink near Anaya and she didn’t want to put her down. It felt different snuggling with her here than in the hospital, where there’d always been a nurse not far away if things went wrong. But Harper didn’t feel nervous. On the contrary she was excited, as if she were just setting off on the biggest adventure of her life.
‘Every time she cries,’ Jasper said from his position on the armchair, ‘I expect a nurse to turn up to tell me what to do. Then when they don’t, I’m terrified I’ll stuff up and do something wrong. But I feel quite chuffed when I manage to change and feed her all by myself. Haven’t quite got the sleep thing down yet, but it’s early days.’
Harper laughed. ‘I was just thinking something similar about the nurses. Well done for surviving the first night. Do you want to have a nap or something now I’m here?’
Before he could reply, the front door opened. ‘Yoo-hoo,’ came Wendy’s cheerful voice. Harper had seen Jasper’s mum a few more times on her weekend stays in Newcastle and had grown to adore her. Wendy didn’t always have a filter when she spoke, but she meant well—and her warm smile was contagious.
‘Hi Mum,’ Jasper said, barely lifting his head off the chair as she entered the room.
‘I’m sorry,’ Wendy gushed, rushing over to the couch, ‘I know I said I wouldn’t come over too early but I’m just so excited to have you home. And I couldn’t wait to see the little love.’
‘You mean you wanted to check up on me,’ Jasper said, his tone good-natured. Harper knew that Wendy had offered to stay with Jasper the first couple of weeks but that he’
d politely declined.
‘If I let her move in, she’ll never leave,’ he’d confided one day in the hospital. ‘I may as well get used to doing it on my own from the beginning.’
She hated it when he said stuff like this because it reminded her that in the long term he would be doing it alone—at least during the weeks—and she wished she could do more. She was also going to miss a lot of important milestones because of her work and home life in Sydney.
‘Can I hold her?’ Wendy asked, plonking herself down alongside Harper and stretching out her hands.
‘Mum, Harper only just got here,’ Jasper said. ‘Besides, Anaya looks comfy there.’
She met his eye and gave him a grateful smile. Like a little girl not wanting to share her doll, she was reluctant to give her up so soon.
‘Sorry.’ Wendy looked a little sheepish. ‘I just couldn’t help myself. But I guess there’ll be plenty of time for cuddles now that our girl is home. How about I make you breakfast? You’ll both need all your strength to look after this little one.’
Harper had booked a hotel in town for the duration of her stay, but in the end she only spent two nights there. Both nights she was at Jasper’s house until late and then returned early the following morning. He was the one to suggest the spare room was hers if she wanted it and she eagerly accepted his generous offer.
The only person less than enthusiastic about this situation was Samuel.
‘What the hell, Harper?’ he said when she phoned to update him.
‘It just makes sense for me to be on site,’ she explained. ‘Practically and financially—there’s no point paying for a hotel room I’m only using for a couple of hours a day.’
But Samuel didn’t care about the money. ‘How am I supposed to feel about you living with another man? What will people think?’
‘I’m not living with another man—and surely I don’t need to remind you that he’s just buried his wife! I’m only staying with him so I can spend time with my daughter. And you know you’re welcome to come up whenever you want. Jasper’s happy for you to stay here too and I’d love for you to spend some time getting to know Anaya.’
‘All right.’ Although he relented, he sounded like a child who hadn’t got his own way.
‘In fact, why don’t you come up this weekend?’ Harper asked. ‘We could take Anaya out for a bushwalk in the national park—and Jasper’s mum is cooking a roast for lunch on Sunday.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he promised, but, almost four weeks later, he’d only managed to make the journey once and hadn’t stayed the night, citing his usual excuse of too much work.
Although Harper would have liked to see him more, that one visit hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped. But she was usually so busy with Anaya that she didn’t have time to miss him. At first she couldn’t believe the amount of time, work and energy a baby needed—Wendy had been spot on—but she loved every minute of it.
Jasper returned to work four mornings a week, helping his folks whenever they had big group bookings. Anaya still tired quickly, and tended to drink small amounts at regular intervals. They usually bathed her in the early evenings, then Jasper would give her a feed before heading to bed so he could get up early. The days he had to get up for work, Harper was on night duty, and when he wasn’t, he took that time slot, so that at least one of them got a good night’s sleep.
At least that was the theory, but it didn’t always work out that way. Harper found she couldn’t lie in bed in the middle of the night if she could hear Anaya crying at the other end of the house and Jasper always got up if Harper was taking a while to settle her. It was then, during the early hours of the morning, that friendship began to blossom between them.
During the day, their conversations were mostly functional—revolving around Anaya’s feeding, bathing and changing—but at night she saw glimpses of the real Jasper. A man raw with hurt from the loss of his wife, a man struggling to accept his new way of life. She encouraged him to talk about Claire by asking questions about their time together. Some things she already knew but she still enjoyed listening to him talk about the night he and Claire met, about their ballooning adventures and travels, about all the tiny things she did that both infuriated and attracted him. And she hoped it helped him in some way also. Anaya certainly seemed to like it and Harper soon realised that the baby settled most quickly when listening to her father talk about Claire. She guessed it was the soothing tones of his voice rather than his actual words, but thought it poignant that in some mysterious way Claire was still there with them, the three of them working together to do the best for their child.
On the mornings when Jasper was out of the house, Harper got up early to feed Anaya and then took her into bed where they’d usually doze another couple of hours before the next feed. At this point, Harper would get up, feed Anaya and then shower with her in the pram close by. In the city, walking had been something she did to get from point A to point B, but as her morning swims weren’t possible here, she took to taking Anaya out instead.
If they were lucky, they got out early enough to see the hot air balloons floating in the sky above them. The beauty of this sight always took her breath away.
‘Your daddy’s up there,’ she’d say to Anaya as the baby gazed skyward from her pram. And Harper would smile at the knowledge that Jasper was doing what he loved. Only when he was interacting with Anaya, sitting out in the garden or when he’d just returned from a balloon ride, did she see a glimpse of the smile he’d been wearing the day she’d first met him and Claire.
Harper got to know the best café close by and she’d walk there to get a proper coffee every morning. Within a matter of days, the owners knew her by name and had her order ready seconds after she stepped through the door. It didn’t take long to discover their cakes were as good as their coffee, so it was lucky she was doing all this walking or she’d be the size of a house by the time she had to return to work.
But she didn’t like thinking of that day.
Although she missed Lilia’s company, and still tuned in every afternoon to listen to her replacement, she didn’t actually miss her work as much as she’d thought she would. It was true that looking after a newborn was a full-time job. She kept busy doing things that would previously have bored her senseless—washing nappies (Claire had bought cloth ones) and little clothes, rinsing bottles and making milk, cleaning—but doing them for Anaya made the mundane fulfilling.
She even attempted to cook a few times, but it soon became apparent that it was better to leave that task to Jasper or Wendy. Jasper politely suffered through a few meals, but he wasn’t a great actor and she could see he didn’t enjoy eating them any more than she’d enjoyed cooking them. At least three times a week, Wendy and Paul stopped by with an esky full of home-cooked meals and baked goodies. And on the weekends, when Claire’s parents came up to visit and spend time with Anaya, Wendy went all out cooking a roast with all the trimmings. Harper loved her time alone with Anaya, but she also enjoyed the time spent with Jasper and his family much more than she’d expected. They were such a warm, loving family—the kind of family she’d longed for as a child—and she was glad Anaya was going to grow up to be a part of that.
Everything was all going swimmingly—or so she’d thought—until one day, just as she and Anaya were about to step out for their morning walk, she saw Jasper pull up at the house hours early.
Chapter Thirty-nine
The radio came on, the news jingle sounding, the moment Jasper turned the key in the ignition.
‘In news just in,’ began the announcer, ‘at least eleven people on board a hot air balloon have died when it caught fire and crashed on a ranch in Nebraska. This is one of the deadliest balloon accidents to occur in United States history.’
The news reader moved on to other things quickly, but neither Jasper nor his dad heard anything else. In the middle of the paddock, the four-wheel drive idling in the dark, they looked at each other in shock. Although ac
cidents such as these happened occasionally, Jasper could only recall a handful in the last decade.
‘Do you know anyone in Nebraska?’ he asked, mentally going through his contacts in his head, making sure none of his friends were working in that state.
Paul shook his head but the sombre expression didn’t leave his face. ‘I don’t think so.’ He let out a heavy sigh. ‘This will make things interesting this morning.’
Jasper didn’t have to ask what his dad meant. Taking a deep breath, he gripped the steering wheel tightly as he drove back to the Big Basket Ballooning premises. Sure enough, when they arrived, his mum and Luke were there to meet them in the car park.
‘Have you heard the news?’ Wendy asked, her voice high-pitched and her hand pressed against her chest.
‘Yep.’ Jasper and Paul nodded.
Wendy sniffed. ‘It’s just awful. Two of this morning’s passengers have already phoned in to cancel,’ she said as car headlights started down the gravel road towards them.
This wasn’t surprising. Not everyone who had booked in for today would have heard the news yet, but once they did, the majority of them would likely have second thoughts.
Paul ran a hand over his beard. ‘Let’s see who arrives and then decide what we’re going to do. I’d feel happier postponing today’s flights in a show of respect to those who have lost their lives—it’s what we did last time something like this happened.’
‘But that time,’ Wendy pointed out, ‘we found out the night before so we could contact everyone involved.’
Paul sighed. ‘Yes, that’s true. We don’t want to disappoint anyone who has travelled a long way to be here.’
Wendy and Luke agreed, and although Jasper nodded, his stomach twisted into a knot at the thought of flying today. There’d been few serious balloon incidents in Australia and nothing of this magnitude since 1989 when two balloons had collided in the air over Alice Springs, but perhaps it was only a matter of time. He and his dad prided themselves on their safety record but he’d bet the pilot of the Nebraskan balloon did too. Sometimes freak accidents happened.
The Greatest Gift Page 36
