Mean girls. Some things never changed. Liam didn’t know them, but he hated them.
“What kind of mean stuff?”
“About my hair.” Franny touched her roots self-consciously. Her natural red hair was starting to grow back, giving her head an awkward two-toned look.
“I like your hair. Red, brown, you’re beautiful.”
“Thanks,” she said, unmoved. “They also call me the farmer girl who lives in a barn. They all wear these designer clothes and shoes and live in nice houses in town.”
Some things really never did change. Even though they live on a farm, the school district is part of this posh suburb. When Liam went to school with those rich kids, he was also teased for being a farm boy, as were his four older brothers. Except they called him Sheepfucker.
“They’re stink girls. They wish they had this view.” Liam pointed to the flowing fields and cresting mountains just outside their window. “Bullies like to get a reaction out of their targets. Don’t give them that satisfaction. Just ignore them.”
“Nah yeah,” Franny said with a flash of hope before returning to her phone.
Liam wished he could tell her to beat the shit out of them, but that was not proper uncle advice.
Mark stepped out of the kitchen with a piping hot tray of fajitas. “Who’s ready for dinner?”
* * *
After dinner, Liam washed the dishes. He looked forward to the quiet of his shed and his bed, except for the occasional sounds from his sheep, though he slept through those now.
When he left the kitchen, he glanced around the room. Mark had done big renovations and redecorating after he moved in, but Liam still noticed tiny parts that reminded him of his childhood. A black mark just above the door from when his brother Callum threw a marble at him. The creaky step on the stairs that alerted him when someone was coming.
“Going home?” Mark asked. He wiped down the dining table. The kids were upstairs doing homework.
“Another day awaits.”
“Have you begun lambing season yet?”
“Soon. My ewes are about ready to burst.” Whenever one of them sat down, he worried that they would start giving birth right then and there. Ewes couldn’t be moved once their water broke. If a farmer tried to move them, the ewe would risk her life to return to that original spot. Liam had had to deliver lambs last year in pouring rain, in mud puddles, and at the top of hills. Lambing seemed like a chain reaction. Once one ewe gave birth, others followed.
“Have you given anymore thought to hiring a new farmhand?” Mark asked.
“I don’t need one. It’s a small farm. I can manage the season on my own.”
Mark gave him a look chocka block full of doubt. “You’re still new at this. You can’t do it alone. And I would help if I wasn’t a single dad with a full-time job.”
“What about all those years helping Mum and Dad on the farm? Last year was rough, but I can handle this.”
“It can’t hurt to bring on a farmhand for lambing season.”
“Yeah nah.” Liam said in acquiescence. He didn’t know where he would find a farmhand this late in the season. Most of the good ones were snatched up, or they wanted too much money.
“Just looking out for you. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone to talk to who can talk back.”
“Here we go again.” Liam took the sponge from Mark and continued cleaning off the dining table. “It’s eight-thirty. Almost my bedtime. So I’ll finish the rest of this conversation for you. ‘Liam, you should really think about dating again.’” Liam made sure to use a high-pitched voice for his brother, just to annoy him. “‘Mark, I don’t feel like dating anyone. I want to focus on building up the farm.’ ‘Liam, that’s just an excuse. Not all girls are evil bitches like Kelly.’ ‘Mark, I told you not to use such coarse language.’”
“I never used that word.” Mark swiped the sponge out of his hand. Liam remembered the days when Mark used to have a dirty mouth. Until he had kids.
“I’m doing great. I’m working with my hands and doing something I love.” Liam really didn’t have time to think about dating. Or looking up exes on Facebook, but he barely did that.
“I reckon you’ve really taken to sheep farming. It’s great. But it might be nice to have someone to come home to, don’t you think?”
Liam cocked his head at his brother, letting him know exactly what he thought.
“I haven’t heard of you going on one date. It’s been two years since you and Kelly broke up.”
“I was cheated on, Mark. Kelly and Craig were sneaking behind my back and lying to me over and over for months. I don’t want to go through that again. If I try to be with someone, that’s all I’ll ever think. I trusted Kelly completely. I had no bloody idea.” The pain lanced his heart all over again.
And I don’t know if I want to date a girl next time. The words stopped on his tongue, just as they had done plenty of times before.
“I know you don’t want to go through that again,” Mark said, taking a different set of words out of his mouth. “But there’s someone out there worth the risk for you. I know there is.”
Liam remained doubtful, but he didn’t shake off his brother’s remark completely. “Have a good night. I love you.”
“Love you, too. Say hi to the sheep for me.”
Chapter 3
Nathan
The rest of the day was a string of dead ends and hangovers for Nathan. He didn’t mean to drink again so soon after rehab, but searching for your mother called for a libation backup. He tried reaching out to hospitals in London to find out if there was a single woman who gave birth around his birthday twenty-two years ago, but he was met with long, awkward pauses followed up by standard responses about how they cannot give out that information, even if they had it. Nathan didn’t have a real birth certificate. In England, his father just had to take him as a newborn to a register office within forty-two days, something Nathan had looked up when his dad first dropped the bombshell on him. He tried Google reverse image search, but the only results that came back for the photo was a Wikipedia definition of lady. He looked through more footage online of the Oasis concert, but anyone who wasn’t a Gallagher brother was a blur on screen.
From his balcony, Nathan watched the sun slip behind the buildings of downtown London, as if it were playing hide and seek. He drank Bombay Sapphire straight from the bottle. Alcohol didn’t make him happier or sadder. It made life one constant, dull, barely bearable blur.
This time, though, the Bombay dared him. He lit a cigarette and reached for his laptop. Right after his father had first told him the truth about his mother six years ago, he found a website for missed connections both large and small. It was more extensive than the typical Craigslist page, as people posted about strangers and lovers they’d met on global travels, mostly for one-night stands. Nathan had never seen a post that went back over twenty years, and when he used the site six years ago, nobody responded. But he was out of options. His gin was tinged with desperation.
He uploaded the picture and typed the post:
Had one of the greatest days of my life with this woman over twenty years ago and then never saw her again. I can’t stop thinking about her all these years later. Does anybody out there know who she might be?
“Idiot,” he said to himself when he reread the live post. The only thing the internet was good for was shaming and ridiculing someone. He had nothing to lose.
Nathan drifted off to sleep, one of those drunken, hazy sleeps that were like being under anesthesia. He did have one dream he remembered, one where he was at a dinner table with his mom and her family, and they were his family, too. Loving and accepting. It was very Hallmark, like some tacky advertisement, but it was real.
When Nathan awoke, he discovered that he was not as much of an idiot as he thought.
* * *
They found her. The Internet found her. Well, one person found her. But all he needed was one.
This woman looked
familiar to me, and I think I saw her in Les Miserables years ago down in this little community theater in Wellington, New Zealand. Good luck!
The internet wasn’t terrible! Nathan did a Google search for theaters in Wellington that produced Les Miserables and scrolled through cast listings and photos until he found her in a still for I Dreamed a Dream.
Mariel Foster.
Her hair was tucked under a wig, but the blazing eyes and button nose matched his Poloroid picture.
There she is! She’s an actor like me!
Nathan’s life began to make more sense. This was where he got his love of theater, his desire to stand out.
He read through articles about her, but his search stopped cold when he got to her obituary.
She’s dead?
It couldn’t be. A car accident. Here one minute, gone the fucking next. Nathan broke out crying in his lounge chair. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried like this, the pure emotion spilling out of him. If only he had searched for her years ago. If only his fucking dad had showed him that picture and hadn’t told him to give up hope. He could’ve had a mother, someone who loved him.
He kept reading, and his mouth dropped.
She is survived by her husband Mark and her two children.
She has kids. I have half-siblings.
Nathan wiped his tears off his cheeks. He had family in New Zealand. Even though they were half a world away, he felt close to them. They were alive. But did they know he existed?
* * *
Eamonn Charles had at one time been Nathan’s boyfriend but now transitioned into the role of his Jiminy Cricket, the friend who was his voice of reason and conscience, whether he liked it or not. Eamonn had been a good boyfriend to him. Kind, devoted, loving. Nathan had treated him like an accessory and cheated on him right in front of his eyes. Yet somehow, they had managed to repair the damage and emerge as friends. Eamonn was like a nutrient that Nathan needed in his life.
“No. That is a terrible idea,” Eamonn said over the phone. “You cannot go to New Zealand.”
“Why not?” Nathan poured himself a glass of wine and traipsed through the living room, flinging his fingers against the plush drapes of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “I have family there.”
“Supposedly. Just because one person on the internet says it’s true doesn’t mean it is.”
“I checked. It was her, E.”
“So maybe write them an email.”
“An email? This is the most momentous news of my bloody life, and you want me to deliver it via email?”
“So what’s your plan? Just show up at their doorstep?”
“Exactly.” Nathan had a flair for the dramatic. There was some juicy symmetry in that scenario, what with his mum leaving him on his dad’s doorstep. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“If you want adventure, go parasailing.”
Nathan knew how this might’ve sounded, but he’d been wondering about his mum for the past six years. Hell, for his entire life. His dad had told him that his mum had no family, that she was an orphan, hence why they never did family events with that side of the family. His dad knew how to spin a story, though the apple did not fall from the tree on that one.
“And what about those two kids? It’s probably going to be a shock to them. They might not even know you exist!” Eamonn’s raspy voice was layered with concern. He’d always worried about Nathan and was the one who got him to go to rehab, even after Nathan had punched his new boyfriend in the face. Oops.
“I tracked down an address for her husband Mark Foster. He lives on a farm.” Nathan had only been to a farm once, on a primary school field trip. He’d gotten in trouble for pretending to jerk off a cow’s udder and had to sit on the school bus for the rest of the day.
“You don’t even know their names or genders. You have to be careful with this. You can’t be impulsive. Remember how you felt when your dad dropped this bombshell on you? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
Nathan slid down the drapes to the floor. His stepmum loved talking about how much she paid for these gold drapes. Nathan blew rings of smoke onto them.
“My mum was killed in a car accident a year ago. Just one year ago. What if I had found this photograph earlier? What if I had found her…” Nathan’s voice wobbled with emotion that usually remained smothered in a haze of booze and sarcasm. Tears stung at his eyes. “I could’ve met her if I hadn’t made myself forget, if I hadn’t been fucking my life up. I don’t want to waste anymore time. I have family out there, E.”
“You have family in London.”
“It’s not the same. You know how they are with me.” Eamonn knew. He had almost punched one of his cousins one Christmas for calling them faggots. “Not one of them contacted me when they heard I went to rehab. And my dad just wishes I wasn’t here at all. I have real family out there, people who I could connect with, who could make me feel part of something, like the way you feel with your sisters and mum.”
Nathan gulped back a lump in his throat. “And I want to know.”
“Know what?” Eamonn asked.
“Why them and not me?” Nathan held back his tears. He’d already been mushier in the past twelve hours than he had in the past twelve years.
Eamonn didn’t respond.
“E, still there?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you thinking?”
“You know what I’m thinking. I’m thinking this is not a good idea, but you’re going to do it anyway.”
Eamonn might’ve been his Jiminy Cricket, but that didn’t mean Nathan had to listen to his advice.
Chapter 4
Liam
On his brother’s advice, and only on his brother’s advice, Liam put up help wanted signs in town. After a week, there hadn’t been any bites. He gave Mark a few copies to put up at his office to spread the word.
Liam worked on a freelance graphic design project for a new restaurant opening up that winter night, which was unusually warm for June. Because he was at his computer, he had no choice but to hop over to bloody Facebook for a quick check on Kelly and Craig. They seemed to be enjoying a quick holiday in Sydney. Great. Wonderful. Liam had once wanted to whisk Kelly off to Sydney for a weekend trip to see Neil Finn play at the opera house. She said she was busy with work, but urged him to go with one of his brothers. Who knew what she and Craig were getting up to that weekend?
Liam wiped sweat off his brow. He couldn’t feel the window air conditioning unit in his bedroom, and the ceiling fan barely helped. He missed the cool confines of Mark’s house, when he wore a light sweater to dinner. He now sat in front of the computer in his boxers with a small fan blowing in the corner, Facebook stalking his ex when he should have been working on a graphic design project for one of his clients. What killed Liam was that he didn’t know. He had been completely blindsided when Kelly dumped him and admitted to sleeping with Craig. He had no suspicions. He was too trusting, stupidly trusting. Only little kids trusted people that much.
Baaaaa. His sheep called out from the window.
“Aye, knock it off!” he yelled. “Go to sleep!”
The sheep continued making louder noises. He heard them shifting around in the field when they should be at rest.
“What are they doing out there?” he asked himself. He’d heard of sheep robbers sneaking onto farms and stealing the livestock. With larger, commercial operations around him, Liam’s farm was the little guy, and he had to protect himself. Liam grabbed his shotgun, loaded it, and tiptoed outside. He was only in his pair of boxers, but he didn’t care so long as his sheep were all right.
He followed the growing chorus of bleats. He stopped at the hoof house and hid against the wall.
Crunch. Crunch.
Those were footsteps. He definitely heard footsteps. Some asshole was on his property. Liam stilled himself and listened to their movement. Wheels squeaked as they moved on the grass. What were they wheeling? A wagon to cart them away?
&n
bsp; Liam kept his gun flush against his chest. His dad had taught him and his brothers how to shoot, but all he’d shot were empty bottles and cans, not people.
I’m not going to shoot them. I’ll just point my gun and that should be enough.
Liam exhaled a breath and counted to three.
1
2
3
He jumped out from behind the hoof house and pointed his gun at the sheep robber. “Aye!” His yell echoed across the field.
The man in front of him screamed five times as loudly. It was louder than his gunshot would’ve been, and it sent the sheep fleeing in all directions.
“Shit! Fuck! Bugger!” The man yelled at the sheep who brushed past him in a panic. His posh clothes and styled hair made him a dead-ringer for a city guy. He must’ve made a really wrong turn.
“Get the fuck away from me!” The man tried shooing them away, but the sheep all went in their own directions, zig-zagging and criss-crossing amongst each other, with the posh guy in the center. He dragged his suitcase through the soft grass, leaving two tracks in his wake.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Liam yelled.
“What the hell are they doing?” The man pointed at the flock with his cigarette. “Shit!”
He slipped and fell onto the grass. Well, what Liam hoped was just grass. Sheep were not potty trained, after all. The man, whose rusty head of hair reminded Liam of his niece and nephew, rolled around trying to get up. He pushed his hand into the ground for leverage, but it kept sinking into the wet grass, slick from a recent rainfall.
“A little bloody help here!” The man yelled. Surprisingly, he managed to keep his cigarette lit and in his free hand this whole time. Liam hated smokers, but he couldn’t deny how impressive that was.
He gave the man a hand up, since he obviously could not be a sheep robber, yet scowled at him the whole time. Grass stains covered his clothes.
Outside Looking In: A Browerton University Book Page 3
