Those Hamilton Sisters

by Averil Kenny

  ‘You pretend to be the strongest woman in Noah, who doesn’t give a fig what anyone says, doesn’t need anyone else, but it’s all a cover. You bitch about the constant judgement and unsolicited opinion in this valley, but you are your biggest critic. You push us to follow our hearts, I mean you literally grabbed my dreams for me, yet you’re withholding your own. Like you don’t think you deserve anything just for you. You’ve been mothering us for so many years, I think you’ve forgotten to have your liberating youth. It’s time you did! I’m a mother myself now. And Olive and Gav are going to approach you soon, with a view to officially adopting Plum—’

  ‘They’re what!’ The table wobbled; her glass reeled wildly.

  ‘She’s lived up there for years! Olive is, for all intents and purposes, her mother. It’s just the next right step to take. Yet, see, immediately you’re getting your hackles up. You don’t have to be the perfect guardian anymore, Sonny, or the perfect anyone. Now you can just . . . let go. Why are you holding back? What are you waiting for? Who really cares what they think anymore?’

  ‘I do!’ Sonnet cried, on her feet now. ‘I care!’

  ‘Exactly.’

  They stared at each other across the table. Sonnet’s face was knotted with the effort of holding back a wail.

  Fable nodded, her eyes loving. ‘Now, Sonny: “Screw your courage to the sticking place!”’

  Mama’s saying, from her sister’s lips.

  *

  Sonnet stared at the rain-strummed attic ceiling, kicking her legs against the sheets, and each other. She could not sleep for the stubborn glow of a lit window burning still against her back.

  With a snarl, she threw herself out of bed. She pressed against the dormer window, searching for the improbable sight of Moxie, headlights flashing, beeping down the hill through the rain like a loyal steed. Below, she heard Rune’s strident wail start up again, and Fable begin ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, once more from the top.

  Enough!

  Sonnet yanked on a shirt and pants, then took the stairs two at a time, heedless of the already woken. At the kitchen bench, she scrawled a note with shaking hand, propping it against the sugar.

  Faithful old Freya was already waiting on the porch. Soundlessly she rolled out into the rain. Sonnet didn’t even stop to close the gate.

  Through rainforest and cane and dreaming vale she pedalled, shivering with anticipation and the press of wet clothing against her. Rainwater ran into her eyes and mouth and down her heaving chest.

  ‘“Screw your courage to the sticking place”,’ she repeated, through gritted teeth.

  She rattled up Main Street, slowing only to fling her middle finger at the street-lit cassowary glowering through her shop window.

  The lights were out at Noah Vale Family Medical. Sonnet threw her bike kerbside with a clatter. In the darkness she tripped through the spokes, swearing noisily as pain seared across her ankle.

  The stairwell to Jake’s apartment was behind a closed door. Sonnet braced herself against it, seeking air and nerve – both, it felt, in vain.

  Screw. Courage. Sticking place.

  Got it.

  But if the door was locked now, would she have to turn and go home?

  She would brook no opposition from a mere door this night – turning the knob and thrusting against the wood in one powerful motion. The door yielded inward, and Sonnet tumbled over herself into the bottom of the black stairwell.

  She was climbing to her feet as a wide triangle of light spilled over the top step. A shirtless Jake stepped out, face pinched with concern. ‘Son! What’s wrong? The baby?’

  Sonnet straightened, panting. ‘No, Rune’s fine. It’s me.’

  His brow furrowed with greater worry. He was three steps down before she could continue. ‘I’m okay,’ she said, putting up a hand. ‘There’s nothing seriously wrong. Unless you count insomnia.’

  He stopped now, angling his head to the side.

  Sonnet’s own head, looking up, was impossibly heavy.

  Sticking place.

  Her words were light. ‘Dr Fairley, what would you prescribe for a cynical nearly thirty-year-old virgin with control issues, a false sense of self-sufficiency, and an avowed distrust of men, who swore off romance years ago?’

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Ms Hamilton, as a doctor I’m going to have to pass on that one.’

  She drew in deeply.

  ‘However,’ he continued, eyes dancing in striating lines, ‘as the man madly in love with you, I can already think of a few ways to rectify the problem.’

  Sonnet climbed to the step below his. ‘Only a few?’

  ‘If I have to go back to my textbooks to find more, I will!’ He reached to take her shoulders in his hands. ‘You’re soaked to the bone! Aren’t you cold? Come here.’ He drew her into the dark, sparse curls of his chest, rubbing her arms.

  ‘Warm me up,’ she whispered, muffled hard against him.

  *

  Fable smiled all through Saturday, breaking into radiance each time her eyes fell upon the note propped up against the sugar bowl. She didn’t need to read it. She grinned even though Rune’s ornery fussing continued unabated, and not a speck of white could be traced by finger on his pink gums.

  The drizzle eased late Saturday afternoon, though the baby grizzle did not. Fable rose, red-eyed, to greet the dawn of Sugar Festival day. She pulled on a favourite old sundress – holding her breath until the front button had managed its closing over breasts lush with milk. She gazed critically at herself in the mirror. Rune was still changing her figure, months after he’d left it; the demands of his hearty appetite whittling her back to girlish slenderness, albeit with the new softness to tummy and hips, the linea nigra fading from belly button to ginger mound. Fable’s hair reached nearly to her waist now – split of end and rapidly beginning to lose the lustrous thickness of pregnancy – perhaps she should emulate Sonnet’s bouncy shoulder bob? Tiredness was a permanent blue stain beneath her eyes, but never had her skin been so clear, or the fall of her features as serene. Fable also recognised the openness of her face; the maturity she had gained. She was much paler than she ever remembered being, though. What she needed was the touch of sun upon her skin, and that was one step she could take right now.

  She slipped one of her handmade baby carriers over her body and reached for the grumpy boy on their shared bed. Using Olive’s vintage sheets, Sonnet had sewn Fable a pile of wraparound baby slings – a clever idea she’d seen in a book. At the rate Rune regurgitated his milk, Fable needed a new sling for each hour of the day.

  Rune slipped into the sling with a whimpering sigh and Fable gave thanks again for her brilliant sister. Who needed a daddy when you had an Aunty Sonny like his?

  ‘Let’s take a walk, Runey-boy,’ she crooned, forgoing shoes at the porch step. ‘Where should we go today – visit the Nanna tree again?’

  Rune bellyached.

  ‘No, we’re not going to visit Nanna in a mood like that! What about to see Daddy’s trees?’

  More bleating.

  ‘Someone needs a good rocking, then.’

  Up the hill Fable bounced, body finding its instinctual shushing rhythm. By the time they’d reached the Orchard Hill, Rune had fallen into slumber. The sun was just hoisting itself over the mountains.

  The Malay apple flowers were in bloom and a sodden, hot-pink carpet surrounded each tree. Rainbow lorikeets trilled and chirruped noisily in the branches, their nectar-feeding inducing a vivid snowfall.

  ‘Oh, Rune, look what you’re missing!’ Fable sighed, floating through the apple grove. She lifted her face to the flowers, laughing as the pink sprinkles caught in her hair, gracing Rune’s cheek and his tiny fist curled against it.

  She sank to the ground against the papered bark of a Malay apple tree, scissoring her legs in the blossom dust, letting it run through her fingers. Her eyes glazed over; a new faerie already dancing into view.

  Yes, she would wait here until Rune woke from h
is sleep cycle, then she’d show him the dancing birds, watch his laughter gurgle up.

  What a life I will give you, Rune Hamilton!

  Sunshine warmed her face and limbs as she gazed over the silver-pink ocean of cane. How many times had she conjured up the sunrise from this very hill? How often had she sat in dreaming wonder here and bid come the summer and Ra—

  Fable started from the trunk, hands flying to shade her eyes.

  There! Right there, coming up the long alleyway between canefields: a tall, striding figure, with large duffel bag slung over shoulder.

  Who could that be at this hour on a Sunday?

  But her heart was way ahead of her: trampling over the fields towards him, howling as it went. Fable launched herself out of the pink shade, after it. Down the hill she ran, pausing only as she became mindful of Rune’s jostling. She held his head against the throb of her heart, slowing herself.

  Look up, look up, look up!

  The man raised his head, sweeping an arm across his forehead. At first sight of the woman halfway down the hill, he stopped.

  Fifty yards lay between them.

  He dropped his bag, a sigh forcing his shoulders into a slump visible even at that distance.

  Tears burned in Fable’s eyes. Only the weight of Rune’s curled body restrained her from full flight. Sugarcane towered now on either side of her. The scent of molasses rose up. Long-beloved features began to distinguish themselves from the blur of distance and tears.

  With only six feet left between them, she stopped. Light was in her hair, and heart. His gentle eyes ran all over her, searching out every broken place and joyful strain. She smiled, or tried to smile. It was a whimper, however, which broke from her lips – and in an instant he was upon her, falling to his knees in the rain-damp earth to throw his arms around her waist.

  Fable steadied herself against the force of his embrace, hands flying into his hair. She held his face against the belly so recently filled with his son. Above Raff’s head, Rune began to squirm and mewl.

  ‘Shhh,’ Fable murmured.

  It was not her son who cried, but his father. Silent sobs racked his shoulders, drawing hot tears from her eyes, too.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she murmured, ‘I’m okay.’

  He looked up, and she saw there the blaze of tenderness which had not, in a whole year, subsided.

  ‘Forgive me, Fable.’

  ‘Forgive me, Raff.’ She drew him up, pulled his lips towards hers, tasting salt.

  ‘If I’d known,’ he said, breaking away to rest his forehead against hers. ‘Fable, I love you. I would never, ever have left you.’

  ‘That’s just it! I was terrified you’d think I was just trying to trap you.’

  ‘Trap me? I would never have believed—’

  ‘No? We’re together one single night, and then straightaway I’m pregnant and trying to tie you down with a baby. Noah’s most eligible bachelor finally ensnared!’

  ‘Wouldn’t have crossed my mind, I’d have been here for you in an instant.’

  ‘But I didn’t give you the chance. I ran away, like I always do—’

  ‘You had your book tour, your work in Brisbane. I told you to go!’

  ‘No, I was hiding. It’s how I cope.’

  ‘When I didn’t hear from you at all, I tried to call you, through your publisher in Brisbane.’

  ‘I know, but I couldn’t talk to you about . . . this. I couldn’t. I had too much to lose, and I was just trying to hold on to him.’

  ‘I thought you were done with waiting. So I wrote you that letter, once I got back to London.’

  ‘A letter?’ Her face was ashen.

  ‘After it went without reply, I thought your answer was pretty clear. And I didn’t want to keep hassling you.’

  ‘Hassling? I thought you’d left me once and for all.’

  He lifted her face to his. ‘I’ll never leave you again.’

  Her hands fell from his neck to the babe grunting against her chest. Now there would always be this boy between them. ‘Raff, before you go making sweeping promises like that, you need to meet someone first.’

  Pain tensed his features.

  ‘This is your son – his name is Rune William Hamilton.’

  Only then did Raff lower his gaze to his miniature against her breast. His hand rose towards the small head, then fell away. ‘I’m so sorry I did this to you.’

  ‘Sorry? For Rune? You can regret whatever you need to, but never Rune.’

  ‘I’m sorry you had to go through this alone.’

  ‘I didn’t. I had all my family. Then I had Rune.’

  ‘And now you have me – if you still want me?’

  Fable saw the doubt in his eyes, and felt anew the reversal of their roles. She had grown past him.

  ‘I’ve always wanted you, Raff.’

  His hands enclosed her face.

  ‘I want a life here in Noah,’ she said unbendingly.

  ‘A home beneath our rainbow gums?’

  ‘But I won’t be your special charity project any longer. I can stand up for myself.’

  ‘Less protecting – okay.’

  ‘No more pedestals, either.’

  ‘What about waterfalls?’ His smile was wry.

  Fable tried to look stern. ‘And I’ll never give up my creativity, or my Hamilton name.’

  ‘I won’t ask you to.’

  ‘I want to make lots more babies like Rune, too.’

  Raff nodded solemnly. ‘We’ll practise every day.’

  Rune began to grumble, nuzzling for the nipple. ‘I have to feed him,’ Fable said, drawing free of his hands.

  ‘How do we do that?’ he asked, looking about.

  Fable released a full breast from her dress with the flash of a button. On Rune latched, eagerly.

  ‘Right,’ Raff laughed, colouring, ‘just like that.’

  They watched Rune together.

  ‘You’re incredible, Fable,’ he said, voice thick. ‘Everything you do . . .’ Raff reached to stroke his son’s downy cheek.

  ‘Feels like rose petals when you kiss it,’ she murmured, her eyes languid with oxytocin.

  ‘I remember very well,’ he said.

  Fable laughed. ‘No, his cheek.’

  ‘Well, I plan on kissing everything, all over again.’

  Her womb undulated. ‘When did you find out?’ she asked, forcing her attention from that greedy throb.

  ‘Bit over a week ago. I came on the next flight I could get.’

  ‘But what about your work?’

  ‘I walked out. I was treading water there in the end, waiting for any excuse to let myself come home. Then a little bird sent me a missive, ordering me back here in no uncertain terms to set things right. There may or may not have been death threats.’

  ‘My sister,’ Fable grumbled.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Mine.’

  ‘Adriana!’

  ‘Yes. Adriana, it turns out, is quite the secret detective. Claimed she’d seen you with a baby that could only be mine. Said she’d known I was infatuated with you for years. And that she’d always known you were in love with me.’

  ‘I can’t believe it, Adriana hates me!’

  ‘No,’ he said with emphasis. ‘She was only ever threatened by you. As it turns out, she was the only one in Noah who knew exactly why I insisted on staying away from Noah for so many years.’

  Fable reached out to touch his face. ‘If only I’d let you come back to the cottage that first morning, if I’d told my family about you right from the beginning – it might have saved us both a year of heartbreak.’

  Raff rubbed the fine stubble of his jaw against her hand. ‘Truth be told, I was on my way back over to see you that morning, under the flimsy pretence of searching for Eamon. I couldn’t let you leave town before securing a way to contact you in Brissie.’

  He sighed. ‘But I ran into Marco on the way, and I realised how selfish it would be to put you on the spot in front of your family
like that. I had asked you to wait for me – but it was then I realised I would be waiting for you.’

  ‘I didn’t want to miss my chance with you for anything in the world. Not even my book tour. I tried to stay! But everyone said I had to go, even you, Raff.’

  ‘And as hard as this year was without you, I’m still glad I didn’t stand between you and your work.’

  ‘I went and tried to enjoy my tour,’ she said, a little wobble in her chin. ‘But I was homesick, so sick with Rune too, and frightened all the time that I was losing him. I wanted you, but after a while, I wanted my baby more. I had to try and put you out of my mind.’

  Raff swept a long strand of hair from her face, pink dust falling between his fingers. ‘You were never out of mine.’

  ‘I didn’t say I succeeded. That one night has . . . consumed me.’

  They shared a heated smile.

  ‘Absence,’ Fable murmured, ‘makes more than just the heart grow fonder.’

  ‘You have no idea.’ His lips hovered now above hers.

  ‘I have good reason to get Rune down for a nap so you can show me,’ she breathed back.

  ‘It isn’t . . . too soon? I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘Too soon? If you come back to the cottage now, I’ll show you exactly how long you took, Rafferty Hull.’ She glanced at the bag near his feet. ‘Wait, have you just arrived?’

  ‘Came straight here.’

  ‘You haven’t even been home to your family yet?’

  ‘They’re standing right in front of me.’

  His mouth claimed hers.

  CHAPTER 45

  ESTHER SPEAKS

  S

  onnet woke to the sound of church bells, and rolled to smile at the man on his belly beside her. He cocked an eye open with an impish eyebrow raise. Sonnet slid her hand along his bare back to settle over a taut cheek, prickling with goosebumps. She shivered at the desire already turning molten in his brown eyes.

  ‘Callipygian,’ Sonnet murmured. ‘Having well-formed buttocks.’

  Jake moved his head to free his lips from the mattress. ‘Marry me, Sonnet.’

  Yes.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. We Hamilton women don’t marry, we fornicate.’