The Memories That Make Us

by Vanessa Carnevale

  I try one on for size.

  ‘How do I look?’ I say, turning to Flynn.

  He doesn’t hear me. He’s got a pensive look on his face as he sorts through the crates. I pretend to cough to catch his attention. He looks up at me, caught off guard for a second as he blinks musingly at me.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he replies. ‘You just reminded me of something.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’ I ask, fiddling with the crown.

  He sets down his cider on the bench and approaches me. He steals a kiss, pressing his tangy lips against mine. I close my eyes and let my hands run through the hair on the back of his head. He deepens the kiss before lifting me onto the bench.

  ‘We’ve got work to do today,’ I whisper, my lips pressed against his ear.

  ‘Mmm-hmm,’ he replies.

  ‘And that’s exactly why we can’t waste any more time,’ I say, pulling away. I place my hands on Flynn’s chest and wriggle off the bench. ‘I was thinking you might like to read to me tonight, though.’ I reach for my tool belt. ‘That’s if you’re not busy. I could use a hand falling asleep.’

  ‘Only if I get to choose the book.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, raising my eyebrows. ‘I’ll let you choose the book, as long as you bring the chocolate.’

  He laughs. ‘Done.’

  The gladdie corms resemble little onions. It’s hard to believe that in ninety days, hundreds of these will be brightening up the farm in a spray of pink, cream and peach.

  ‘Ready to go?’ asks Flynn, carrying a crate load of corms. A rush of excitement fills me as he sets them down on one of the wagons.

  We place the corms into each of the tilled rows, one by one, around fifteen centimetres apart. As each row fills with the promise of beauty, of life, of nature’s precious blessings, a sense of peace overcomes me. Any worries I’ve had about the past or the future, of my memory returning or not, seem insignificant now, as if none of it really matters at all. I breathe in the crisp air, feeling the sun caress my skin, enveloping me into a sense of belonging.

  Flynn and I work at this for another hour, until we decide to take a rest. He helps me up, my knees stiff and my back feeling even stiffer. I stretch myself out, trying to relieve the tightness in my body.

  ‘Almost done,’ says Flynn, assessing things.

  ‘We’re only a quarter way through,’ I say, feeling a little discouraged.

  ‘Well, it’s a big field,’ he replies.

  ‘We should keep going,’ I say, pulling at the handle of the wagon.

  Flynn reaches for my arm. ‘You don’t want to burn out.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I reply.

  Flynn keeps his eyes trained on me.

  ‘Seriously, I’m fine. I just want to get this done.’

  ‘Fine,’ says Flynn, adjusting his hat. ‘Another hour and then we’ll break.’

  We end up working way longer than an hour. It’s late afternoon by the time we drop the last corm into the ground. I hobble to the wagon and unfasten my tool belt, depositing it in there. Flynn slides his arms around my waist and rests his head against my forehead.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll need me to read to you tonight,’ he says, smiling. ‘So maybe I’ll just tuck you in and kiss you goodnight.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  He lifts me up and hauls me over his shoulder. I squeal, kicking my legs, but he doesn’t let go. We reach the bottom of the hill, my stomach aching from laughter, and the pain in my back not as apparent as it was before.

  Inside, I rinse my face, wash my hands and head into the living room, where Flynn is standing, two steaming cups in hand. He hands me a hot chocolate and in one long exhale, my body sags into the sofa. I drink the delicious liquid and he drinks his, and when I wake up there’s a blanket tucked around me, and Flynn is nowhere to be seen. But I really wish he wasn’t gone.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Flynn and I spend the next week planting and sowing seeds from the early hours of the morning when the sun isn’t yet stretched across the sky, to the late afternoons when the breeze flirts with us, numbing our fingers and pinching our cheeks. Charlie has been coming to help twice a week with jobs like weeding, general maintenance and the odd errand.

  We’re dropping in the last dahlia tubers today. Soon I’ll have to start thinking about how I’m actually going to sell these flowers once they bloom.

  Mason was right about the dahlia tubers needing to be dug out, so we’ll see what comes of the crop that’s been left to overwinter, hoping at least some of it will be commercially viable. Once autumn arrives, it’ll take around two months to dig up all the tubers, hose them down, separate and dry them, and finally pack them into crates for the winter for replanting again next spring.

  I’ve resorted to keeping track of everything on the random sheets of butcher’s paper plastered on the barn walls, a place that is in desperate need of organisation before the first flush of flowers. Flynn was right. All of this is a huge job and even though I won’t admit it, I’m starting to get tired.

  I place another dahlia tuber into the soil and close my eyes, feeling the intense ache travel up my back to my shoulders.

  ‘You okay?’ asks Flynn, creasing his brow. He wipes his hands on his jeans and walks over to me.

  ‘I’m fine.’ I wipe the perspiration from my forehead and bring myself to stand. ‘How are we going to manage to get this all done?’ I say, letting out an enormous sigh as I rub my lower back. My eyes hone in on the row of fertile soil that stretches to the edge of the field and looks like it extends for kilometres.

  ‘Have a rest,’ says Flynn, guiding me to the two wooden stools we’d set up under an umbrella. He twists open a bottle of water for me and sits beside me.

  ‘I can’t afford to have a rest. Look at this!’ I say, pointing at the crates filled with hundreds of the tubers we still need to plant.

  ‘We’ve been up since five o’clock this morning, we’ve taken only two short breaks, you barely ate a thing at lunch, and we’ve been going at it like this for weeks. You’re tired.’

  Flynn keeps his eyes trained on mine.

  I lower my voice. ‘All right. You win. I am tired.’

  ‘Okay, that’s it,’ says Flynn, springing up from his chair. He pulls off his gloves and tosses them into one of the barrows. He winks at me. ‘We’re taking the rest of the afternoon off. Let’s go.’ He extends a hand and pulls me up from the stool.

  ‘We can’t, Flynn, there’s too much to do.’

  ‘Exactly, so no burning out now.’

  I hesitate. ‘But …’

  ‘We’ll get it all done in time, I promise,’ he says, reassuring me. ‘You watch. It’ll all come together.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  He shrugs. ‘Because it has to.’

  Flynn and I are sitting together on the small patch of grass under the willow tree, my fingers curled around a bottle of ginger beer as I leaf through my notebook.

  ‘This really is the best thinking spot ever,’ I say, squinting at the sky through the canopy of green leaves above us. ‘We should take afternoons off more often,’ I joke. I inhale deeply, feeling the muscles in my body relax.

  ‘Yep,’ agrees Flynn.

  ‘I think I’m ready,’ I murmur, gazing up at him. He’s sitting with his back against the tree, and I’m leaning against his body, his arms around me.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For Scarlett to tell me a bit more about my life before. I think it’ll be easier for us both—if I start to understand who I was. Now that I know who I am at this moment, I think I’m finally ready to know more.’

  Flynn’s body stiffens. He shifts his weight back. I turn my body to face him.

  ‘I’m happy with my life. I’ve found myself and this is my life now, irrespective of who I was or what I was doing before. You have nothing to worry about. I’ve made my decision—about Blake, and I know this will hurt him, but … I can’t help
the way I feel about you.’ I place my hands on his cheeks. ‘I think I want you to read me to sleep every night,’ I say, smiling at him.

  ‘If that’s what keeps you happy, I’d say that’s completely doable,’ he replies, stroking my hair.

  ‘Well, actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you that I think I’m … I think I finally know what it feels like to be in love.’ I lean forward to kiss him, when he places his hands on mine and moves them away.

  ‘Gracie, there’s something I should talk to you about …’ he whispers. ‘About you not remembering part of your life before. I know you’re aware that you could …’

  I reach across and put a finger to his mouth. ‘Shhh. I know I could wake up tomorrow remembering things. But don’t ruin it. Don’t ruin the moment.’

  His arm slips around me, pulling my body closer to his.

  ‘Because I was just about to tell you, I love you.’

  There are at least one hundred seed packets sprawled out on the barn bench: larkspur, lupins, zinnias and snapdragons. I’m trying to squeeze in as many varieties of cut flowers as possible to fit on every spare inch of the land we can manage to utilise. I’ve been selective with the seeds I’ve chosen, opting for some of the rarer varieties of blooms. With any luck, my investment will pay off. Not only will I be selling the freshest and most locally grown blooms in the area, as opposed to flowers that often are imported, but I’ll be selling varieties that not everybody will be able to easily get their hands on. If all goes to plan, we should see a delicious bounty of colour pop in the field beginning with the peonies next month. We’ve already seen the first flush of roses, which Tilly has gladly taken off my hands.

  The sweet-pea seedlings I’d started in trays weeks ago are coming along nicely, and are ready for planting out in the field. Flynn enters the barn with a couple of bottles of cider, which he pops open. He presses a finger against my nose, winks and hands me a bottle before clinking it against mine. ‘These ready to go?’ he says, motioning to one of the plastic trays.

  ‘Yep, all set.’

  He smiles and flashes me a wink before starting to line them up in the wagons.

  ‘We’re really doing it,’ I say in wonder. With almost everything done to prepare the fields, I can’t help feeling excited about the possibilities.

  Flynn reaches for my hand, the warm clasp of his fingers intertwining through mine.

  ‘Told you we’d get it all done,’ he says. ‘And now, we wait to see what blooms.’

  Two days later, Flynn leads me into the barn with his hands over my eyes. ‘No peeking,’ he says, whispering into my ear. I place my hands over his when we stop walking and he pulls his hands away. I open my eyes and gasp.

  Flynn has completely transformed the barn space. Two large chalkboards are mounted on the back wall for keeping tabs on the day’s work ahead, daily harvests and orders. There’s a wooden sign above them: From Seed to Centrepiece, a business name we’d come up with together when working in the field a couple of weeks ago.

  Flynn has installed a new workbench for me, as well as some practical storage spaces for buckets, floristry supplies and watering cans.

  ‘And … wait for this—the best part of all!’ He pulls down a sheet that’s suspended from the ceiling to reveal an enormous refrigerator.

  ‘No way!’ I say, bringing my hands to my mouth. ‘I can’t believe you did this. I was only gone a few hours yesterday. Did you do this while I was at Tilly’s?’

  He nods. ‘You deserve it.’

  Another letter arrived from the bank two days ago. I’d spent over an hour on the phone yesterday trying to convince the manager to extend the due date of the repayments since the bill for the seedlings, tubers and bulbs arrived that morning. As kind as Flynn’s gesture is, there’s no way I can accept this from him as a gift.

  ‘I’ll need to cover your expenses. Leave the receipts for me and I’ll—’

  ‘No need,’ he says, interrupting me.

  ‘But …’

  He steps closer to me. ‘Seriously. No need.’

  ‘Thanks, but for the record I plan on paying you back every cent. Wait until I tell Scarlett about this. I can’t wait to show her everything we’ve been doing.’

  ‘Show her?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m going to invite her over. She’s due to have the baby next month, so I should probably get onto that sooner rather than later.’ Ever since she came to visit, Scarlett and I seem to skim the topic of Blake (or Flynn), but I get the impression she thinks I’ll come home for good soon. I don’t blame her—I haven’t exactly told her about the extent of my work here on the farm.

  Flynn stacks a few buckets on top of each other and carries them over to the corner where the others are.

  ‘Flynn? Did you hear me?’

  He looks up. ‘Oh, yeah. Scarlett. Can’t wait to see her.’

  I frown, sensing something’s off. ‘You seem distracted.’

  ‘I forgot to turn on the timer for the irrigation,’ he says. He plants a soft kiss on my forehead before brushing past me.

  ‘But I already did,’ I reply, rubbing the space on my head where he just kissed me. He doesn’t answer.

  I follow Flynn to the fields, where he’s halfway up the incline, Parrot by his side.

  ‘Flynn!’ I call. ‘Wait up!’

  He slows his pace before turning around. I jog up the hill and meet him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, raising a hand above my eyes to shield them from the sun.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says.

  ‘You were acting a bit weird when I mentioned Scarlett and when she was here you—’

  ‘Drop it, Gracie. It’s nothing.’ He says this with a firmness in his voice that makes me want to question him, but he’s already striding up the hill again.

  ‘Would you tell me … if there was a problem?’ I ask, following him. ‘Is it because Scarlett’s a part of my life before? That you’re worried about Blake, somehow? Is that it?’

  He doesn’t reply. I reach for his arm. ‘Flynn,’ I say, the firmness in my own voice now apparent. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I told you, Gracie. There’s nothing to tell you right now. Just let it go.’

  ‘I think it’s because you’re worried that I might remember him. I keep saying I’m going to talk to him. Maybe I should go to Melbourne next weekend and get it over with. Would that make things easier?’

  Flynn stops mid-stride to look at me. He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. His fingers run over his mouth and over the stubble on his face. He goes to speak but holds back.

  ‘No? Yes?’ I search his eyes for answers; he gives me nothing.

  Finally, Flynn shrugs.

  ‘What is it, Flynn? Tell me what I should do. I don’t want to make this harder for you.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Gracie. That’s the problem.’ He rubs his temples.

  ‘Even if I remember him, in the near or distant future, I want you to know that I’ve made my decision. To be with you.’

  He nods silently, not meeting my gaze. Somehow, I don’t think he believes me.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The fields are coming to life now—the peonies have formed perfectly tight round buds, tiny ants marching over them as they enjoy a taste of nectar, the sweet peas are starting to reach for the sky, their tendrils curling around the stakes, and the buttery green tulip stems are growing taller every day. Rosebuds are forming on the David Austins surrounding the fields, and the seedlings I started in the barn have been planted out in the polytunnel under its protective cover. A few more weeks and the field will be bursting with colour. There’s still no sign of my memory returning, aside from minor flashes of knowing things to be true and jolts of deja vu, but strangely enough, I’ve started drinking tea again.

  Flynn’s outside tinkering with Charlie’s ute, whistling to old classics, oblivious to me watching him. He checks his watch and wipes his brow, and then moves to the barn, emerging a minute later wit
h a container of oil in hand. He works on changing the oil, rubs his hands together and presses down on the bonnet before looking up towards the cottage, where I’m sitting on the bench.

  Flynn wipes his hands on his jeans and joins me. ‘What have you got there?’ he asks, looking at the wooden box between us.

  ‘Photos of my mother,’ I reply, opening it to show him. ‘Tilly gave them to me.’

  Flynn’s arm slips around me and I show him the photos. ‘I don’t remember a lot about her. But I remember enough to know she loved me and I loved her back. And I feel close to her when I’m here on the farm. The flowers remind me of her. Does that make sense?’

  ‘It makes sense. I don’t think you need to remember everything in order to know the way someone loved you.’ He checks his watch. ‘We should get going,’ he says, beginning to stand. ‘I should get cleaned up.’

  We step inside the cottage and Flynn enters the bathroom while I get changed into some fresh clothes. Flynn hovers in the doorway, watching me while I try to choose a top. ‘I’m going to go clothes shopping as soon as the harvest is over,’ I say, lifting another top from a drawer and holding it against my body in the mirror. ‘I’m going to fill the closet with pink and lemon and maybe the odd shade of navy.’

  Flynn makes a point of looking at his watch again.

  ‘Oh, I know, I know! This old thing will have to do,’ I say, reaching for a green-and-black shirt. I wriggle out of my top, managing to somehow get it stuck around my head in the process, thanks to forgetting to unbutton it. ‘Would you mind?’ I call. A moment later, Flynn’s hands are on my waist as he peers down at me through the gap between me and my shirt.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind at all,’ he says, his hands on the top button of my jeans. A laugh escapes me as I try to squirm away. He lifts me up and onto the bed as I continue to try to wriggle out of my top. ‘Hold still,’ he says, reaching for my button. I raise my arms and he slides it up over my head. He hovers over me, greeting me with his luminous smile before leaning over and kissing me. ‘We could always stay in, you know. Since I’ll be in the city for the weekend, we could make tonight unforgettable, just to be sure you remember me,’ he jokes. ‘Would you mind looking after Parrot while I’m away?’