Grace looked up at Gianni. ‘Did you know it was Mummy’s birthday?’
Gianni blinked. He looked at Emma? ‘It is?’
‘Twenty-five today.’
‘Well, you can have the non-alcoholic wine and Grace and I will wash up afterwards.’
She laughed and he was glad to see it. No. She didn’t look tired at the moment. And when he had a chance he would order a cake to be delivered. No doubt the Lakeside could handle that.
‘I’ll get the good glasses from the den,’ Emma said, and as soon as she left Gianni bent down to Grace. The child he had no idea how to connect with. Though they had one thing in common. ‘Have you any balloons? And some ribbons?’
Grace nodded and dashed off, returning within seconds with three balloons and two red ribbons in her hands. ‘Grace is going to show me the yard,’ he called out to Emma, and the two of them slipped out the back and around the corner.
‘If I blow them up, we can tie them to the ribbons and hang them above the table.’
Grace nodded and her eyes were shining. ‘I made a card. At school. I forgot.’
‘That is good. A cake will come after our dinner.’
Three quick balloons later, Grace and a slightly red-cheeked Gianni returned to the kitchen with their gaily ribboned balloons and Gianni tied them to the fan on the ceiling so that they hung down over the table.
‘What’s this?’ Emma smiled at the balloons as she came back into the room. Grace produced the card she’d left in her satchel. ‘Thank you, darling.’ Emma kissed her daughter for her effort.
‘I blew up the balloons.’ Gianni tilted his cheek and to his relief Emma deigned to give him a peck, too. It was a good start to the evening. He could only go forward.
‘Would you like to see my Barbie dolls, Gianni?’ Grace had turned serious again. ‘I could bring the house.’
Barbie dolls? Gianni looked at Emma, who tried to hide her smile. ‘Certainly. I have never seen a house with Barbie dolls.’
‘I’ll bet you haven’t. Barbie dolls,’ Emma clarified while her daughter was out of the room. She gestured with her hands. ‘Dress-up figurines,’ Emma said as Grace ran to find her plastic friends. Emma put the casserole dish and the garlic bread in the oven to reheat and tried not to see the wicked glint in his eyes.
‘Ah. Perhaps you have something you wish to show me, too?’
Emma raised her brows and refused to be drawn. ‘No. I’m fine, thanks.’ Gianni smiled slowly but didn’t move any closer and the heat came from somewhere other than the oven.
Grace returned with her box of Barbie dolls, who all seemed to be either mothers or midwives as they were introduced, and Gianni laughed and asked if there were any boy dolls or, heaven forbid, doctors among the housemates.
‘Of course. We need doctors, too. If you’re sick, silly. Sara-Jane is a doctor.’ She held up a scantily clad brunette. ‘She’s on her days off at the moment, though.’ Grace sat down beside the house and drifted into Barbie land as she rearranged and fell into conversation with one of the dolls.
Gianni looked at Emma with amusement. ‘I see your daughter understands the concept of a shift-working family.’
‘And the concept of finding her own amusement.
She’s had to learn and I don’t think it’s a bad skill to have.’ Emma turned to Grace. ‘We’re going to sit on the veranda and have a glass of wine. Would you like to bring your house outside to play?’
‘No, thanks.’ Grace was immersed.
She returned her attention to Gianni. ‘Could you do that as a child? Amuse yourself?’ She gathered the glasses and he brought the wine and held the door for her. They smiled at each other at the expected courtesy. ‘Si. My brother and I had many possessions but not the advantage of extra company,’ he said as he followed her out. ‘We both had good imaginations.’ There were two wooden chairs side by side with a table between them and the view across the road and over the lake was framed in green leaves from the overhanging trees.
‘You have a beautiful view.’ He could see across to the trees on the other side of the lake from there.
‘Yes.’ Emma sighed. ‘It was hard for my father to leave here but my mother needed a higher level of care than was available in Lyrebird Lake or even somewhere close enough to travel to.’
He returned his gaze to Emma and he found the view even more attractive. ‘How long has your mother been in care?’
Emma still stared unseeingly across the water. ‘For six years.’ The breeze lifted the fair hair across her nape.
Gianni watched her profile until she turned. ‘And your father stays with her?’
Emma nodded. ‘He rents a small flat in Brisbane and visits every day. I go up most weekends except when I work.’
Gianni could see Emma hated it that her father, to her mind, was trapped. ‘And Grace? Does she understand why her grandmother is away?’
‘She knows that Nana’s hands shake.’ Emma glanced back towards the kitchen and her daughter. ‘And that she drops things and sometimes her hands fly out. She knows that sometimes Nana isn’t as happy as other times but she accepts that. We talked about Nana being Nana and her illness will get worse and the doctors are working on a cure so other people won’t get sick like Nana.’
The door opened and Grace was standing there. A smaller blonde edition of her mother and very serious. Emma lifted her arm and Grace came in under it and climbed on her lap for a cuddle. ‘I heard what you’re talking about,’ Grace said.
Gianni bit his lip but Emma didn’t seem perturbed. It made him admire her all the more. ‘That’s okay, Grace. Gianni was asking about Nana and why she lives in the hospice.’
Grace nodded and leaned towards Gianni with her little face lifted to his in earnest. ‘It’s like.’ She paused and thought about it. ‘If someone stole my Barbie house, it would be gone. But this disease is stealing Nana’s brain one Barbie at a time. And you don’t get the dolls back so the house is getting emptier.’ She lifted her chin. ‘But I still love the house and can remember the fun I had with each Barbie, even though it’s gone.’ She sighed and sank back into her mother’s arms, which tightened around her.
Gianni blinked, because for the first time in a very many years he allowed the emotion to rise in his throat and sat in awe of these two amazing beings. ‘I see that. Thank you, Grace. That is a very good way of explaining.’
The timer on the oven rang and Grace climbed off her mother’s lap with a child’s resilience. ‘Dinner’s ready. I’ll put the house away now.’ She ran off and the screen door banged as she let it close behind her.
‘Does she know that you’re at risk? And her?’
Emma lifted her barely touched glass and stood up. ‘She’s asked. I’ve said that the chance is the same as having a boy baby or a girl baby. Nobody knows until it happens or they’re tested. We haven’t gone further than that.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘If you had the test you could stop your worry that Grace will be at risk.’
She lifted her chin and dared him to argue. ‘If I had the test I could find out just how real that risk is.’
He wanted to know now. About Grace. About Emma. About his own unborn child. Not wait for some nebulous time for Emma to feel it was right, but he curbed his impatience and tried to see it from her position. He sighed. He couldn’t.
He could tell she was finished with the topic and for the moment he accepted that. She’d been more open than he’d expected and he had a lot to think about. These were all issues they needed to explore if he wanted a part of his child’s life, and he appreciated her honesty.
They stood and he opened the door for her, and the tempting aroma drifting from the oven flowed over them. Regardless of those dilemmas, they all had to eat. The world continued to turn. ‘Grace said she likes Bolognese.’ His way of agreeing to drop the topic.
‘We both do.’ She smiled at him and he savoured the beginning of the first sign of acceptance he’d had from her. Except for the physical tha
t neither of them seemed to have much control over. A tiny acceptance but a beginning.
Two hours later it was time for Grace to retire and Gianni was shown the door. ‘Thank you, Gianni.’ Emma’s cheeks were flushed and they’d all laughed a lot. ‘It was a lovely birthday.’
He waved his hands. ‘I would have liked to have brought a gift.’
‘You did. Grace enjoyed your company and so did I.’
He could see that and it warmed his soul more than he would have believed possible. He’d seen the maternal side of Emma tonight and she shone at it. ‘That is good. Because I have to go up to Brisbane for the weekend, and I’d like to come with you to meet your parents.’
Her smile died. He watched it fall off her face like a napkin off their party table but he refused to regret the request. ‘Why?’ she said.
So afraid. ‘Because I’ve heard that you have your mother’s eyes and your father’s strength. Because you won’t let me in for the reason of how their life is.’ Because he needed to understand this woman and perhaps her parents were a clue.
He was beginning to read her frown, the thoughtful purse of her lips. And occasionally the nuances of her smile. All things he hadn’t noticed in a woman in a long time, and the practice had become addictive.
She tossed her hair. He’d noticed she did that, too, but, it seemed, only around him. Good. He was glad. No hair tossing around other men would keep him happy.
‘What if I don’t want you to come?’ she said.
He could feel the pull at the edge of his mouth as he shrugged. ‘Then I must persuade you.’
Her eyebrows went up. ‘Do you think you can?’
‘Certainly.’ Of course.
Emma had to laugh. She’d done a lot of that tonight. It would ‘certainly’ be a different weekend if Gianni was around. She looked at him, tall and debonair despite the casual clothes he’d chosen, casual but still elegant in an expensively masculine way.
She tried to see his motive for wanting to meet her parents but the feeling of lightness he’d generated with his company blinded her and it was too hard at this moment to look for reasons why she should bar him from his desire. ‘Suit yourself. Lucky that you have your own things you have to do because my weekend is pretty busy.’
He turned to Grace. ‘Are you coming this weekend, Grace?’
Grace yawned and shook her little blonde head. ‘Grandma is taking me to the circus.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
SATURDAY arrived and Emma dropped Grace off at her paternal grandmother’s with her rolling Barbie suitcase trailing behind her. It bumped and clattered as Grace skipped up the curving path in her pink sundress to where Tommy’s mother waited. Grace waved as her mother drove off.
As she glanced back Emma felt as though a part of her life had receded in the rear-vision mirror. This morning’s phone call had seen to that.
Now she regretted Gianni’s push to see her parents today. Who knew what she’d been thinking when she’d said yes to dinner out and staying in Brisbane for the night? She didn’t know why she’d agreed, perhaps because she felt guilty that she’d refused his proposal, but she made the proviso of her own room at her own expense. In the cold light of day she wished she hadn’t agreed to go with him at all.
And now this morning’s notification had changed everything. Tomorrow she would find out. The next time she saw her daughter she’d be a different woman, if she could bring herself to attend.
If she did, she would know finally what did or didn’t lie in store for them with the Huntington’s gene, because the results were irretrievably back. But not irretrievably opened, and they kept telling her she still had that choice.
The ramifications of what lay inside an envelope sent cold shivers down her back and she didn’t know if she could sit in front of the woman who’d become her friend over the three counselling sessions she’d needed before this impending consultation.
She drove home and parked her car in the garage. She sat in the semi-darkness for ten minutes before she shook herself and moved to the veranda to wait for Gianni.
How she wished she’d never agreed to drive up to Brisbane with him. It was a mammoth dilemma. But how to get out of his company without explaining why she wanted to be on her own?
The specially organised appointment by Andy’s friend, the genetic counsellor, was on Sunday at noon. Her brain had frozen and when Sunday had been offered she’d realised she’d still be there, with Gianni, and had said yes.
There with the last person she felt ready to share the news with because either way she was going to lose.
If it was positive then the waiting began all over again until Grace, let alone this new, unborn child inside her decided to have their own tests.
And for the first time she really thought of what would happen if it was negative. While she herself would be free of the spectre, she wouldn’t be free of the guilt that she’d been spared. That freedom meant she would be there to watch others she loved go through what her mother was going through and she would never leave them to manage alone.
Every day she’d avoided the end of not knowing. Of having no choice but to accept her fate. The fate of Grace. And now the fate of Gianni’s baby. And by proxy the fate of her love for Gianni. But she didn’t want to know.
It hadn’t been until that morning had dawned that she’d suddenly realised she hadn’t factored in her feelings should the result be negative, and there was no time to think. It was all too much.
She saw his car pull up and his stride up the path. She watched him walk under the rose arch with a strange detachment in her eyes that allowed her see him as a whole.
A tall, imposing man with an aura that spoke of quick decisions and swift action. To think she’d run her hands over those broad shoulders and lean, corded muscles of his body and he’d crushed her too him against his solid chest and made her heart rate speed frantically like the pedals of a pushbike downhill.
Lithe, and light on his feet, he was beside her in an instant. His brows furrowed.
‘What is wrong, cara?’ Gianni paused as he looked down, his thick brows creasing as he studied her face.
She stood, suddenly overwhelmed that this man had decided to spend his life with her not because he loved her but because she was pregnant with his child. That was a reality she couldn’t escape.
He’d been more determined, not less, when she’d disclosed her family history, all because of an accidental pregnancy. Not because he couldn’t live without her.
But she could never accept, regardless of her Huntington’s result on Sunday, because her future was firmly in Australia. She would be either caring for family or being cared for by them. That was why she hadn’t told him the result was pending. Horribly imminent.
‘Nothing wrong,’ she said, and walked towards the car. Gianni carried her bag.
When he opened the car door for her, Gianni’s eyes narrowed at the paleness and tension in her face. He’d planned this trip to the last detail and his plans to woo Emma finally now appeared less secure. ‘Did you not sleep? Is Grace unwell?’
‘Good morning to you, too, Gianni.’ She did not look too pleased with his solicitous comment and he searched her face again for clues.
‘Grace is fine.’ She slid into the car and he shut her door, his brow creased as he walked around and climbed in himself.
She sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m a little flat this morning and not very good company. I didn’t sleep well.’ She buckled her seat belt and stared straight ahead. ‘And unless you’d like to take separate cars, I just want to get it over with.’
This was new territory. And not like the woman who embraced life and hurt no one. He tried to fathom the new source of her distress but he was still lacking the skills.
‘Get the visit to your parents over with?’ He did up his own seat belt. ‘Or perhaps the idea of spending time with me as a whole is exhausting?’ He reached for the key and then sat back again to face her. ‘Perhaps you could tell me what
I have done to offend you?’
She did look at him then and bit her lip ‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’ The sincerity in her voice allayed some of his misgivings. ‘Please. I’m tired and don’t want to talk about it.’
He had to offer. ‘Would you prefer to take your own car?’ He saw the colour flood her face and he hid his disappointment. Yes, she would.
Emotions, many and varied, chased across her face and he wanted to draw her into his arms and comfort her for whatever new thing had caused this upheaval, but the way she held herself demanded he not invade her space. He ran his hands through the back of his hair. He spent so much time trying to fathom this woman he was sure he’d missed many opportunities to do what he wished to do.
‘Take my car? I don’t know,’ she said. ‘So let’s go.’
At least she hadn’t decided yes. He’d felt obliged to make the offer but he wouldn’t give her another opportunity to change her mind. He turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the kerb with little delay.
It had been very close but he still had the woman he wanted in the seat beside him. He reached and turned on the car’s sound system and the soft strands of Tosca filled the space between them. He saw her sink back in the seat, her shoulders dropped and she closed her eyes. Good.
Emma slept, her face unworried in repose, and he was thankful for another reason she hadn’t driven herself. It was his duty to keep her safe and as the black beast swallowed the miles to Brisbane Gianni thought about the last month. He thought of all the high and low points of a very strange courtship with this woman who’d so easily assailed the barriers he’d erected since Maria.
Then he revisited the month before in Italy with only memories of Emma to keep him warm and realised he’d not been cold once since he’d returned to Australia, and it wasn’t just the weather.
His new life had started with a funeral and ended with a rebirth. His. He remembered the first morning they’d woken together and the sound of the chimes he’d thought was the wind. The sight of that mystical bird’s pure imitation of the stationary chimes had remained with him the whole time away. Along with Emma’s face as she’d listened.
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