by Stella Quinn
Jill lay there, still.
Frail as a bird—wasn’t that the phrase?—she hadn’t realised the truth of the saying until this moment. Her aunt’s thin frame lay beneath a pale mustard waffle-weave blanket, and the ridges that were Jill, the jut of hip bones and chest and thin feet, barely showed.
Where had her brave, ferocious, fun aunt gone?
A round-cheeked woman, nearly as wide as she was tall, stood by the end of the bed tapping figures into some sort of digital chart.
‘Dr Brown?’ said the nurse. ‘This is Jill’s niece, Vera.’
Vera stepped up to the bed and took one of her aunt’s thin hands in hers. A gauze bandage covered her aunt’s temple, but aside from that she looked as though she had fallen asleep, although—
Her eyes lingered on the set of Jill’s mouth: one corner drooped slightly, as though tugged down to her chin by some wry thought. Not asleep but unconscious.
‘Your aunt’s had a stroke, Vera.’
She nodded, as though she had some idea what that meant, when she had no idea. Not about this, not about anything. She asked the question bubbling at the top of her thoughts. ‘Is she dying?’
Dr Brown was blunt. ‘Not this minute. But Vera, this is a hospice. Your aunt has a complicated array of medical conditions, and she’s here because her doctors back in the city have determined medical intervention will not save her.’
‘I know. It’s just … I’m not ready.’
She felt a plump hand pat her on the shoulder. ‘Family is never ready. But maybe your aunt is. Does she look upset to you? Or does she look peaceful?’
Vera raised her eyebrows at the doctor, then turned to look at her aunt again. Jill did look peaceful. Pink bloomed in her cheeks, her grey hair was smooth and brushed. Other than the odd lilt to the corner of her mouth, her aunt could have been caught napping under a wattle tree on a lazy summer afternoon.
‘I’m going to sit with her a while. Just in case.’
‘You do that.’ Dr Brown smiled and slipped the digital chart back into its dock. ‘I’ll be doing rounds again in a few hours. The nurses will call me before if they need to. And Vera?’
She looked up.
‘Say your goodbyes. Let Jill hear them now, while she’s still with us, so she can take your words with her when she goes.’
Vera nodded, but on the inside her thoughts were rebelling. Jill couldn’t go now, not when she was finally safe at Connolly House. The café profits were steady, the nursing care was all that she’d hoped for and more. Jill had to live, so Vera could make up for sending her aunt to that terrible place near the city.
Jill had to live, so Vera wouldn’t be alone.
When the nurses finally persuaded her to head home and rest, hours had passed. A yowl greeted her as she opened the door of her apartment. For an old pregnant cat, who supposedly supported herself on an impoverished diet of dumpster scraps, she had a healthy set of lungs.
Kev’s favourite saying floated through her head. Hold your horses, love.
She’d have said it to the cat if she wasn’t so tired.
She turned the handle on the laundry door and an irritated eight-kilo lump of fur stalked past her into the living room.
‘And hello to you, too,’ said Vera.
She flicked the switch on the wall so white light flooded the narrow space, and braced herself for a scene from a horror movie: inch-deep gouges in the cupboard fronts, pillow-sized clumps of moulted fur, toxic waste where the kitty litter tray had been.
Hmm. The laundry was pristine. The bowl of water was perhaps an inch lower than it had been when she had left this morning, but other than that … okay. Perhaps that MISSING YOUR CAT? sign she’d been thinking about putting up at the shop could wait another day or two.
A tuna sandwich. She could share it with the cat. A glass of wine, which there was no way she was sharing. And then maybe a long, long sit in the armchair by the window where she could think of nothing at all for a while.
Not her aunt’s pale face propped amid hospital pillows.
Definitely not that lunatic moment up there on the mountain when she’d pressed her lips to Josh’s and felt the world shift beneath her feet. She’d been so sure of her goals when she’d moved here. How had she allowed herself to become so distracted?
She pulled her keys from her jacket pocket and tossed them in the basket on the kitchen counter. Her phone was next, but with it came a crushed and wilted sprig of lavender.
She held it to her nose for a long moment. If lavender could calm a racehorse the size of a ute, surely one average sized woman wouldn’t be a problem?
The aroma reminded her of her mother’s sweaters, folded in neat piles within the closet where Vera had hidden as a child, giggling her way through a game of hide-and-seek. And Sunday visits to her grandparents’ house, being allowed to play with the hairbrushes and trinkets on the old-fashioned dresser in the bedroom.
It had been at her grandparents’ home, on the faded velvet seat of the dresser, that Jill had found her after her mother’s funeral, so many years ago. I’m in charge of you now, her aunt had said. Now and always.
Vera took a last sniff of the bedraggled sprig in her hand. Maybe she could buy a pot. One pot of lavender to tuck into the windowsill where it would catch the northern sun.
Her phone gave a chirrup and she snatched it up, but the call coming through wasn’t from Connolly House. Crap. Of all the times for her lawyer to call, why did it have to be now?
‘Hi, Sue. You’re working late.’
‘Yeah. Busy week. Listen, Vera, the magistrate has scheduled your arraignment.’
She drew in a shallow breath then spent a long time exhaling it. Her trial was starting. Finally. Relief or dread … at the moment the two emotions were so intertwined she couldn’t tell which she felt the most.
‘Run me through that again, will you, Sue?’
‘Sure. We appear before a magistrate who reads out the charges, and you enter your plea. If you were pleading guilty, you’d be sentenced, but as it is, you’ll be committed to trial.’
‘Yay,’ she muttered.
‘Now, now, I’m pretty sure the contract you signed when you engaged my legal services gave me exclusive rights on sarcasm. Hang on, I’ll read you the relevant bit. Please be advised the arraignment for plaintiff Acacia View Aged Care versus the accused Vera De Rossi will be held at the Queanbeyan Courthouse, Thursday at ten am, presiding magistrate Carmel Grant.’
‘Thursday! Like this coming Thursday?’
‘Can you make it? I can delay if I have to, but I’d rather not. Sends the wrong message.’
‘What sort of message?’
‘Magistrates are apt to get snotty with people who waste their time. We want to be there, bright-eyed and blameless, letting her know we want this whole business behind us so we can carry on with our squeaky clean lives.’
She could make it, unless Jill’s condition worsened. She was on the late shift Wednesday, which meant the dinner-before-movie set, and the craft group in the back room, then the coffee-and-cake-after-movie set. Wednesday’s were busy, but they didn’t run late. She could be in the car by nine that night and in Queanbeyan before midnight.
‘I can make it,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’ll meet you at the court. I’ll be the one who looks like she’s had four hours’ sleep in a cheap motel.’
‘That’s my girl.’
‘Is there anything I can do to prepare?’ Not that any of it would matter a damn if Jill didn’t pull through.
‘Not unless there’s something you haven’t told me. We’re prepared. Just relax and be yourself, that’s all the magistrate needs to see. I’ll see you in a few days.’
Be herself. If only it were that easy. She’d lost her idea of who she was the day Aaron Finch rolled out of her bed and announced she was being sacked. And sued. And charged with a criminal offence.
Who was she now?
A miaow had her eyes dropping to the grey cat at her ankl
es. She was a tardy feeder of cats, apparently … that much was clear.
The rest was a work-in-progress.
CHAPTER
22
‘Tell me why I’m here again, Josh.’
He looked at the wall of cushions in front of them, colour-coded like a stadium wave. Hundreds of fringed, corded, spotted, checked, frilled cushions. Wasn’t it obvious? ‘My living room’s painted, floor sanded, architraves gleaming whiter than celebrity teeth. It’s time to pack the camping chairs away and choose real furniture.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Hannah. ‘And I get to choose your cushions because I don’t have a Y chromosome?’
He clasped a hand to his chest as though he’d been pierced by an arrow. ‘Would I be that sexist? Out loud? To a woman who owns scalpels?’
She nudged him with a hip. ‘Come on, Josh. I saw your place in Sydney, it was lovely. You could do this blindfolded. Tell my why I’m really wasting my morning coffee time here with you.’
Yeah … like there was an easy answer to that question.
He snagged two velour cushions in duck egg blue and another two in taupe and tossed them in the trolley. ‘Okay. You got me. I need your advice.’
Hannah smacked his hand away from a beige throw rug and pointed to the navy and ruby red one. ‘We didn’t have to drive forty minutes into Cooma at seven am on a Wednesday morning to talk. I see you, like, eight hours a day.’
‘Driving clears my head.’
She frowned up at him. ‘Okay, then. So spill the beans, big brother.’
He cleared his throat. He’d wanted her help, hadn’t he? He just wasn’t in the habit of asking his baby sister for advice about his love life. Of asking anyone if it came to that. ‘It’s Vera.’
Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘Umm. Okay.’
‘You know how long it’s been since I had a love life, Han?’
His sister winced. ‘Josh. You’re my brother. And my business partner. Telling me about your sex life is strictly a no-no. In fact, why don’t I add it as a clause to our partnership agreement? Clause 16B: no icky stuff.’
He ignored her. ‘And I sure don’t have time. Now Poppy’s gone back to Sydney for the school term, I’ve started the community hall ceiling, which may take forever if Marigold keeps popping her head in and finding new “favours” I can do for her. I’ll be starting on the exterior of our place as soon as the council approvals come through. This heritage reno stuff takes time, right? A guy juggling a stethoscope and a toolbelt can’t handle a love life as well.’
Hannah picked up a three-pack of towels and tossed them in the trolley.
‘I don’t need those,’ he said, momentarily distracted.
‘Yes, you do. I have seen the ones in your apartment and they were woven by cloistered monks in the thirteenth century. They’d struggle to dry a hairless cat.’
Fine. Whatever. ‘Problem is, Han, there’s a little something here’—he tapped his chest—‘that I can’t get unstuck.’
She frowned at him. ‘A crust of toast? A hiatus hernia? An apology for flogging food from my fridge?’
He nudged the trolley into his sister’s annoying butt. ‘None of the above, Hannah. And I’ve got a hunch this thing is the real deal.’
She turned to face him in the aisle. ‘Josh, you barely know Vera. She’s been in town, what, two months? You can’t fall in love with someone in that time.’
He sighed. ‘Tell that to my heart.’
Hannah’s usual look of snark had softened. She leaned in and gave him a hug. ‘Okay then, let’s workshop this. What is it about Vera that speaks to you?’
Hannah had cut straight into the core of it: this was a question he’d asked himself more than once as he’d driven the mountain roads on his way to horse foalings, snake-bitten pigs, cows stuck in freezing ditches.
He’d seen something that first time he’d laid eyes on Vera, something he’d recognised. She’d been alone behind her counter, and she’d looked damn near crushed by some unknown burden, but she’d also looked valiant. Defiant.
There had been a time he had longed to be alone. To be a man no-one knew, who could get on with his life without feeling every move he made was under scrutiny from family, from friends and neighbours and his old rugby coach … even the damn ticket collectors at the local cinema.
He’d pushed through that.
He’d had to push through his need to be left the hell alone. For Poppy’s sake, and for Beth’s and, he’d realised much, much later, long after he’d felt pressured to leave Hanrahan, for his own sake.
Community mattered. Having family and friends and neighbours at your back mattered.
And he’d taken one long look at Vera De Rossi, braced like a lighthouse on a lonely coast determined to withstand any storm headed her way, and he could see she had no idea how the storm would sweeten into spring if she let a few people in to share that coastline of hers. Her aunt falling ill while they were on the trail ride had brought that home to him.
‘Josh? You’re wool-gathering, mate.’
‘Sorry, Han. Okay, did you know her aunt’s taken a fall? She’s elderly, a resident at Connolly House. I was with Vera when she found out.’
‘I didn’t even know she had an aunt. Is she a local?’
‘I don’t think so. I think they moved up here together.’
‘You don’t know?’
He shrugged. ‘Vera’s not exactly Miss Chatty. Thing is, Han, I’ve called her to ask how her aunt’s going … being neighbourly, you know … and she hasn’t returned my call.’
‘Joshua Cody, ignored by a female. Remind me to buy a lotto ticket.’
‘Very helpful. Thing is, if Vera really didn’t like me, I’d know. I wouldn’t bother her. I’m not a total stalker.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But she does like me, I know it.’
‘You sure that’s not your ego speaking?’
‘Han, my ego hasn’t had a say in what I do since Poppy was born.’
‘That’s true. I’m sorry, Josh, sometimes I’m a little too snarky.’
He grinned. ‘You think?’
‘Maybe this isn’t about you. Maybe she’s got stuff of her own going on, and she doesn’t have room for a handsome daddy-vet hero from Snowy River in her life. We both know people keep secrets about themselves. Especially in a small gossip-hungry town like this one.’
Yeah. He did know. ‘There’s definitely something going on. She almost told me on the trail ride the other day, before she got the phone call from Connolly House.’
‘She almost told you?’
‘Yep.’
Hannah took a breath. ‘Persevere, then, Josh. If she wants to tell you, she will. Maybe it’s just taking her a while to build up the courage. Although, I gotta tell you, she still doesn’t seem your type to me.’
Hannah was so wrong. Vera was the only type he wanted. ‘When I look at her, I recognise myself.’
‘No way. You’re such a sunny person, Josh. So … happy. Vera seems a little, I don’t know, stiff? Aloof? Cold? Are you sure she’s the one?’
Talking this out with Hannah had been the right thing to do, he realised. Because he was sure, and Vera was so not cold. He’d had his lips on hers, and the heat of that moment had spiked at about a thousand degrees Celsius. No, Vera may look cool and aloof on the surface, but there was an inferno of need and loneliness and vulnerability boiling away beneath the surface, and that’s what called to him. That’s what spoke to his heart.
Being sunny and happy was a strategy he’d mastered over the years to cover his regrets and salve his pride. He turned to it now. ‘And boy,’ he said, ‘she’s easy on the eye, isn’t she?’
Hannah made a small gagging noise. ‘Point of order. That was a clear contravention of Clause 16B. Icky stuff.’
‘Legs that never end. Eyes the colour of up-country moss after the spring rain. And when she wears that plum-coloured sweater? With the V-neck that plunges just a little low in the—’
H
annah dragged two of the cushions up out of the trolley and pressed them to her ears. ‘La la la la la la,’ she said.
He grinned. ‘Yeah. Okay. Good talk.’
His sister pursed her lips. ‘Can we get coffee now? And we should be heading back to the clinic. We can’t both go AWOL just because you’ve got yourself a bad case of the unrequiteds.’
He dragged the cushions off her, then started pushing his trolley down to the check-out. ‘You’re such a romantic, Han.’ He’d convinced himself he knew what he wanted. Now all he needed to do was convince Vera.
Josh pulled the last tray of instruments into the autoclave and set the timer to cook, then picked up his final patient for the day and headed out to the reception area.
He was beat.
‘Letter for you, Josh.’
‘Thanks, Sandy,’ he said. He gave the ancient terrier he was holding a final pat and then handed him back to the owner waiting on one of the chairs. ‘Monty will be fine, Mrs Singh. We’ve removed the cyst, and pathology came back clean. Pop back in a week from today and we can nip those stitches out for you.’
‘Thank you so much.’ She turned her attention to the little guy who was clearly thrilled to get away from the big scary vet and back to his indulgent owner. ‘Who’s my brave little man?’ she gushed. ‘You are!’ She bestowed a flurry of affection on the dog, and Josh smiled as he turned back to the receptionist desk. If hugs and kisses cured pets, he’d be out of business.
‘Looks official,’ Sandy said.
Josh weighed the letter in his hand, his eyes on the logo of the Southern Snowy River Regional Council in the top corner. ‘This is either bad news, as in another fool complaint has been lodged by our mystery vet-hater; or it’s good news and my approval permit to restore the front of the building has come through. Which, I wonder?’
Sandy finished swiping Mrs Singh’s credit card, then waited until the lady had made it out the front door before turning to Josh and grimacing. ‘You-know-who isn’t in the right frame of mind for bad news today, Josh. Maybe open it on the down-low until you know for sure.’
